I wrote this story, recorded it, sent it to Ashley in Melbourne, Australia and he sent me back this finished broadcast quality episode. I hope you like it.

The YouTube link arrived in messenger at 10.00pm last Thursday.  I have not slept since then. When I hit the play button I almost fell off my chair with shock. My stomach felt as if somebody had tipped a gallon of readymixed concrete into it. Some people might feel happy, ecstatic even, to see a major performer at an international event singing one of their songs. Not me, not this song and not by this singer. I watched in horror as the singer nicknamed The Governor took my beautiful sensitive ballad, written for the only person who ever truly meant anything to me, and turned it into an overblown power ballad designed for afternoon Radio Two listening. I felt physically sick at every contorted vocal slide and shriek. He performed it to an audience of 50,000 at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and they went mental as they screamed for more.  Not only had he completely ruined the meaning of the song and turned it into a sickly sweet afternoon screwfest but he did something even more unforgivable in my book.  He failed to mention that the song was mine.  
How dare an international superstar take my song and not attribute it. I watched the video on repeat for about two hours solid as the anger mounted within me.  I determined then and there that I had to do something about it.  I Googled his website and looked for his touring itinerary. He had a couple of gigs in London booked, one yesterday, one today. I bought a ticket for each, not cheap at sixty pounds a throw.  I didn’t know exactly what to do but he had something coming to him.  
The whole idea of revenge took shape as the days passed. Sleep became difficult.  As I lay in bed the pure injustice of what he had done whizzed and whirred inside my brain throughout the nights.  The question of how to wreak my revenge on him grew from the centre of the pit of my stomach where that ache of unrequited love had been born in the first place. Any other song and I might not have reacted so strongly but this one was special.  Usually I can write a lyric in under an hour, sometimes in minutes, but this one had taken weeks to hone and polish and get right. It required me to search deep into my psyche and explore exactly what she meant to me and how much I loved her. No ordinary three minute throwaway pop ditty but truly a heartfelt cry of passion aimed directly at her.  
I rarely perform the song these days because it hurts too much to revisit the memories of that time.  I had recorded it on my second album, which had not sold many copies, but had been critically acclaimed.  At that time it looked as though the band might make it big and I still harboured belief in the efforts of our management to get us the gigs and the airplay needed to propel us into super-stardom.  Such a long time ago now but the memory of Jill standing in the wings as we played is as vivid as ever.  Her winning smile with just a hint of irony drove me on then and haunts me now. The first time I read the lyric to her she burst into tears. She knew immediately that I had written it for her and wanted her to leave Pete, our lead guitarist, for me.
At first she just turned away from me and made it clear that she belonged to Pete and that was that.  Pete knew nothing of this and he even complimented me on writing such a great song and his guitar licks were simply beautiful.  After we had recorded it we played it at every gig and, after about six months, it worked. One night in the dressing room at Dingwalls she told me she was leaving Pete and that she could not stop thinking about how it might be if we became a couple. From then on we moved in together and our life became as sweet as it is possible to imagine. Of course Pete was not best pleased but he knew that there was no going back and he wished us luck.    Our relationship lasted for seven months and ended when she fell down stairs backstage at the Vortex and suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage.  After that we just stopped playing it and the band quickly split up. 
Yesterday I arrived at the Apollo and the place heaved with fans wearing tee shirts emblazoned with phrases such as “There Is Only One Governor”, “The Governor Rules, OK” and “Listen To The Governor”. The smell of popcorn in the foyer overwhelmed me and the amount of people standing outside smoking and vaping added to the noxiousness.  I handed my ticket to the security man who looked like something straight off Venice Beach boardwalk, with muscles that bulged everywhere. He asked if I had any cans, bottled water or food with me, I told him I didn’t and he handed me back the torn stub.  I was through the turnstile and into the bar area where I bought a large whiskey and downed it in one. 
I sauntered over to the merchandise table and there were piles of his CDs and various clothing items but the display board with covers of the latest vinyl release caught my eye. Written on a sign were the words “The Governor will be signing Vinyl Album covers after tonight’s show”.  The packaging for the album looked, I had to admit, superb.  It needed to be to justify the asking price of twenty five pounds.  The front cover featured a portrait of him superimposed over a photograph of the chariot and horses on top of the Brandenburg Gate with the words THE GOVERNOR – LIVE IN BERLIN.  I looked at the back of the sleeve and read the track listing.   There I saw at track 5 on side two “The Girl With The Smile In Her Eyes”.  No writing credit to me, it just said Arr: The Governor.
I could feel the anger welling up inside me.  I walked away from the display and into the auditorium where I took my seat and began working out how to do what I knew I now wanted to do so much.  Hatred had completely consumed my whole being.  The lights dimmed and two thousand adoring fans started to cheer and whoop.  Suddenly a single high powered white spotlight beam shone onto the centre of the stage and illuminated The Governor.  He stood there in his worn industrial denims and checked flannel shirt with a mustard coloured Fender Telecaster slung over his shoulder. He looked like a true man of the people but I knew the truth.  I knew what stood before them to be a lying, cheating cockroach that made a living out of ripping off fellow artists.  The band started to play the first of a string of number one hits.  Overcome with stifling emotion I got up and left.
Tonight I returned to the Apollo, in my pocket a converted ball point pen which housed a super sharp steel stiletto blade.  This time I watched the whole show, tears streamed down my face when he performed my song.  A young woman leaned across to console me but I shrugged her off, I didn’t need her sympathy. The show ended and I went straight to the merchandise table and purchased a copy of the vinyl album. I loitered around in the foyer as a queue formed for The Governor’s autograph, I joined the end. 
Fifteen minutes after he had triumphantly left the stage he appeared at the stall, looking fresh, in a clean shirt and jacket. He smiled and chatted freely as he asked people their names and signed albums.  I edged closer as the queue got shorter with my album in one hand and the weaponised pen in the other. When I reached the table I calmly handed the album sleeve to him. He took it saying “Oh, it’s OK man, I have my own pen. Who shall I make this to?”
I looked into his eyes and said “Make it to Alan Banks, the man who wrote The Girl With The Smile In Her Eyes.”  He stopped in mid signing. He looked at me and said “Wow that is fucking awesome man. We thought you were dead. We have a ton of royalties waiting for you. Why don’t you come with me to my dressing room and meet my manager, we can sort this out. I can’t tell you how glad I am to meet you, such a great song.”
I slipped the pen into my pocket and walked backstage with him as he continued to praise me.
“Don’t suppose you have any other blockbuster songs do you?” he laughed.
“As it happens, I just might.” I replied as he handed me a bottle of what made Milwaukee famous.
Funny how a bit of recognition can make all the difference.
Harry Rogers, edited im the Yellow Room, February 18th, 2021.

“GHOSTIE”

This short story is fictional based on the real life story of Johnny Clemence who my mother Pauline and I played many games of dominoes with in the public bar of the Bricklayers Arms in the late fifties and early sixties.

Ghostie and Pauline around 1961

1944 had one hell of a summer. Greenwich was one of those London boroughs that got a right pasting from the German bombing raids and the local mortuary in St Alphege’s passage was much busier than it had been for a couple of years. This was largely due to the introduction of the doodle bug, Hitler’s flying bomb. I guess you could say that they were the forerunners of the modern day drones, in that they were unmanned aerial vehicles. The people hated to hear the high pitched whine of the doodle bug engine because they knew that somebody was likely to die or, at the very least, get seriously injured in a short space of time.

Johnny Clemence was the attendant at the St Alpheges Field Mortuary and he had been working non stop for 36 hours solid. He decided he would go for a beer in his favourite pub, The White Hart, in Crooms Hill. It was not the closest boozer to the mortuary but it served the best beer in Greenwich by far and that was important in such times of austerity. He was careful not to waste his few shillings of beer money on rubbish and this was just a matter of common sense to him. He walked into the small public bar and there, sat in the bay window, was his best pal Lonnie Manchester. Johnny and Lonnie had grown up together, served in the First World War together and had worked as lighter-men on the Thames until the end of the 1930’s. They were such mates that people used to think they were brothers in their dockers outfits of flat caps, black waistcoats and white mufflers. Johnny ordered two pints of mild and bitter and took them over to the table where Lonnie already shuffled the set of black and white dominoes.

“Alright matey?” said Lonnie

“Knackered.” said Johnny

“I heard there was a lot of action in East Greenwich last night.”

“Yes, Jerry blew the back end off of the Queen Victoria in Trafalgar Road. Luckily nobody was hurt. If the buggers had hit the public bar it would have been total carnage. Apparently the local wood yard sent a van load of timber round there and they have patched it up as best as they could and they were open again at 11.00am and serving cider as usual.”

“This bloody war, it seems like everybody’s so used to it that they just carry on as if it is normal.”, said Lonnie with a resigned sigh.

“I know mate, it’s going on and on. I’ve had a bellyful of it though, I need a break, you know, a couple of weeks hopping down in Kent, or some time at my sisters place down in Lancing. Even a week would do.”

Johnny got his bread and dripping sandwiches out of his coat pocket whilst Lonnie dealt the dominoes for their lunchtime game. They usually played “batchy fives” using a cribbage board to score with and counted the scores in multiples of five. Both of them were experts and knew each other’s game too well and so it was not unusual for their games to go right down to the last domino, and this day was no exception. Johnny won the game by one point, the closest of margins and he picked up the two sixpences they had been playing for and put them into his waistcoat ticket pocket. He lifted up his pint glass and drained the last of the beer.

“Back to the grindstone for me, no peace for the wicked, I’ve got a load of people to get ready for the undertakers to take for embalming this afternoon.”

“OK pal,” said Lonnie, “same time tomorrow, I want to win back me tanner.”

They both laughed as Johnny took his glass back to the bar.

“Sees yer later.” he said and set off back to work.

The afternoon sun shone brightly as Johnny walked past the church and turned down St Alphege’s Passage. The pavement of this small street was made up of old headstones and, if you took your time, you could still read the names of long dead people from the 1700’s as you walked along. Johnny whistled his favourite Arthur Tracy song, “Marta (rambling rose of the wild wood)”, he particularly liked the accordion accompaniment, as he walked into the small park where the mortuary stood in the far corner, next to the children’s playground. By the time he got into the staff room the weather had changed and there was a typical summer downpour. Johnny turned on the radio and tuned it to the light programme, then he put on his white overalls and moved into the main area where the cadavers were stored after autopsy. Johnny had the unenviable task of clearing up once autopsies were completed. He had taken this job after he had fallen between two barges on the river and badly damaged his right leg. He could walk OK and people never noticed his slight limp but he was nowhere near agile enough to hop from barge to barge any more and so had been retired off the river. This was a source of great sadness to him as there was not a day went by that he didn’t miss travelling up and down Bugsby’s Reach on the Thames between Woolwich and Greenwich.

Johnny looked at the six bodies on the slabs in the main Autopsy room, three women, an old man and two young children, victims of the previous nights bombing raid, and he set about carefully sprinkling them with the Chloramine powder he used for stopping stinks, and killing flies and maggots, before he wrapped them in cotton sheets and put them onto the special sliding trays for insertion into the cadaver storage room. By four o’clock he had finished this task and was well into washing down the slabs and scrubbing the floor. He was a stickler for cleanliness and always made sure that when the pathologists and forensic staff came in everything was ship shape for them. He took pride in his work and, even though it was often gruesome, he saw it as something totally worthwhile. He finished washing down at six thirty and was just spreading the Chloramine powder on the floor when he heard the sound of a doodle bug approaching. “Oh my gawd,” he thought “not another load of work.” That summer in London and the South East there were over eight thousand deaths and tens of thousands injured by these terrifying, rocket propelled, war machines. Johnny was glad that he heard this one pass on by but a second doodle bug was right behind the first and he never noticed the engine cutting out. This was the moment that Londoners hated the most because when the engine cut out that meant that the bug was about to drop out of the sky and if you heard the whining stop then it was very likely that it was going to land near you. Johnny was putting the Chloramine away in the storage cupboard when the doodle bug hit the mortuary. He hadn’t heard a thing and was oblivious as the building erupted with a catastrophic explosion.

There were a lot of people in the Lord Hood public house in Creek Road who heard the enormous detonation of the bomb and many of them rushed around the corner to what remained of the mortuary. There was a large cloud of smoke hanging in the air and Billy Cole, the local butcher, said “There is absolutely no way anybody could survive that.”

As he spoke, there appeared a figure staggering through the smoke and ashes. What a ghastly sight they saw as he came towards the crowd. Johnny was covered from head to foot in the white embalming powder. Two women started screaming and Billy said “Blimey it’s a bleeding ghost.” They took Johnny into the snug at the Lord Hood and gave him a large glass of rum. The powder storage room had given just enough protection to save him from the main blast, although his hearing was never quite the same again. His fame as a survivor spread all over Greenwich and Deptford and that was how, for the rest of his life, he became known as “Ghostie”, one of the few to survive a direct hit by a flying bomb in what was called the “doodle bug summer” of 1944.

Harry Rogers, in the old study, 26th June 2013

The Conjuring (A Modern Gothic Short Story)

I sit in the darkened room at Madame Marta’s Edwardian villa in Swiss Cottage. Seated around the large, round, antique mahogany table I see eleven other people, like me, wearing silver masks and long red robes.  I have no idea who they are, this is the first time I have ever attended a conjuring.  The house itself exhibits gothic features, it is built in the style of a mid nineteenth century Italianate villa from the Borromean Islands on Lago Maggiore.  The castellated tower which widens with height, is topped by a cloistered walkway, decorated with green and gold images of Chinese style dragons. It impressed me greatly when I arrived, and I found myself in the room at the centre of the cloister when the door opened five minutes ago.  Madame Marta enters the room carrying an ornate basket containing a number of golden jewel encrusted amulets with red dragons inscribed on them.  The dragons are attached to black ribbons.  She also hands out some short, thick, black candles. She instructs us to all take one of the amulets and tie the black ribbon around our waist with the amulet image facing outwards.

Madame Marta attaches great importance to this saying, “The requests that you make here will only be answered if the dragon is facing away from you. If the dragon faces the wrong way then your desire will be reversed and that could be extremely dangerous.”

She then passes a burning taper around the room so that we each, in turn, light our allotted candle. At this point a heavy, cloying, perfumed aroma fills the room and I begin to feel slightly swimmy as I breathe it in.  The characters on the ornate tapestries around the room appear to dance before my eyes.  I am in a state of astonishment and am quivering all over.

I am not sure what this ritual is likely to achieve, to be honest I have always thought of the supernatural as somewhat of a hoax.  I am only here because a friend at work told me that they knew of a sure fire way to get revenge on a bully or anyone that had mistreated you.  When she had mentioned a conjuring I had laughed but after a few minutes of her sincere advocating my curiosity was aroused.  She had given me Madame Marta’s card and thus here I am.

Focusing clearly, my memory takes me back twenty years and I see myself as a frightened eleven year old boy, sat as I await the electric enter sign to come on and usher me into Mr Jenkins’s study to face yet another ferocious beating with his cane for nothing more than failure to my homework. I recently took my eldest son along to view the local comprehensive school and was shocked to see Ronald Arthur Jenkins installed as the new head teacher. The very sight of this old bully brought back all my fear and pain, and reawakened my desire for vengeance. I determined that there was no way on god’s earth that my son was going to this school all the time Jenkins is head. Something has to be done.

Now I feel very strange indeed, I can smell the colours in the tapestries. Madame Marta takes a folio sized grimoire into her hands.  This ancient book is covered in what looks like emerald green lizard skin, although I cannot be sure. She opens the book and begins to read from it in a language I do not understand. 

We sit in silence until, after five minutes of reading aloud she stands and speaks; “Rise now.  Take hold of the hands of the people either side of you. Slowly beat a rhythm with your right foot upon the floor in time with my handclapping.”

We do as she instructs. After a while she speaks again “Chant the following words over and over until I command you to stop:-

Please come to us

Prince Astaroth.”

The chanting and the sound of the feet beating the floor has the effect of sending Madame Marta into a trance like state. She begins to utter soft urgent phrases in that same unknown language whilst moving her arms back and forth above the table.

I continue chanting and, combined with the rhythmic nature of the stamping, soon find myself entering a higher state of awareness, everything in my field of vision is assuming a sharpness.  Then, slowly at first, a small undulating cloud is forming in the air above the centre of the table.  From whence it emanates I cannot ascertain.  I am thinking to myself that this is a very neat trick. The cloud is getting larger and moving strangely whilst hovering in the same position. It is so large now that I can’t see the other side of the table; Madame Marta is hidden from view.

Suddenly she makes a long, loud, howling moan, then shouts “Stop chanting. He is here. He is here.”

As I watch the cloud clears, and there floating before us is a red dragon with a man sized demon sitting astride the beast with a writhing python in one hand and a wavy edged dagger in the other.  I feel shocked and frightened, and feel my legs getting wet as I realise I am pissing myself.  It looks so real. I stand paralysed whilst Madame Marta reaches forward with a shiny black onyx bowl and holds it beneath the dragon.  The demon bares it’s oversized set of pointed teeth in an horrifying grimace and looks around the circle before drawing the dagger slowly across one of the dragons feet. I can smell the stench of his vile breath as he leans forward with the knife. A bright red stream of steaming blood falls from the wounded creature into the waiting bowl. A few seconds later Madame Marta places the bowl on the table and bows low whilst uttering more words in the strange language. The demon stares at her with a definite lascivious look, and then, with a sudden loud noise, is gone.

“Prince Astaroth has gone but has left us with enough dragon blood ink to carry out the rest of our purposes here today. Please join me in thanking him by repeating the following words.”

“O Mighty Astaroth”

“O Mighty Astaroth”

“We thank you for your gift.”

“We thank you for your gift.”

“We shall repay it back one day.”

“We shall repay it back one day.”

“Thank you all, now let us move on to cast the spells you have come here for today.”

Madame Marta moved to a Chinese painted chest in the corner and opened a drawer from which she drew twelve sheets of the finest goat vellum, twelve black sharpened ravens quill pens and twelve lengths of black silk ribbon.

After handing these items around she then said. “Write the full name of your target nine times on the vellum using the dragon’s blood ink. Cover the name with your wish or command written nine times. Roll up the name vellum and tie it with the black ribbon. Moving back and forth from left to right, make 4 more knots in the ribbon – there should be five knots in total – including the one holding the rolled name vellum.”

I have no idea what the others are writing down on their vellum. Possibly some of them are seeking to bring a lover to hand for cheating on them, or are hoping to influence the decision of a judge, or maybe their boss is bullying them and they want it to stop, I don’t know, and, as I won’t see any of these unknown people again, never will.

I dip my pen into the dragon’s blood and start writing across the sheet. Nine times I write Ronald Arthur Jenkins in very shaky hand.  I remember clearly vowing to myself that I would one day have my revenge and this time is now. I look at the nine lines of his name and begin writing across every one TAKE THIS MAN TO PURGATORY AND CANE HIM FOR ETERNITY.  As I write I feel the satisfaction growing inside of me whilst the fear I felt in the demon’s presence diminishes with every word. As I finish I feel positively radiant.

As soon as the last person ties the final knot in their ribbons Madame Marta says “I have prepared some special oil for you and you must take it home with you and fill these lamps with it.  Light the lamp and place the vellum scroll in front of it.   Every night for nine nights you must sit by the lamp and say the following five times:-  

O Mighty Prince Astaroth

Who entered the mountain and tied

Up the beast with your ribbons,

I beg you to tie up and dominate [insert name of target].

Mighty Prince

Help Me in my quest

Great commander of the forty legions,

For the oil which you will consume today,

For the oil which nourishes this lamp,

For the wick which burns away all impurities,

I dedicate this Lamp to you,

So that you may relieve me

Of all my Miseries

And Help Me to overcome all Difficulties.

As You dominated the beast beneath your feet.

My Prince,

Grant me that [insert target’s name]

May not live in Peace.

In this way Lord Mighty Astaroth,

Grant my Petition and Eliminate My Misery.

Once the lamp is lit you must keep it burning throughout the nine days and add more of my oil as it burns so that it does not become extinguished. You must also be sure to wear the amulet of Prince Astaroth as a lamen whilst chanting the prayer to the Lord Of Truth.  On the final word of the fifth chanting on the ninth day your command will be executed and all will be well. I thank you for attending the presence of the most mighty strong Prince among all the spirits, O Mighty Lord Astaroth, he that giveth true answers of things past, present, and to come, and can right all wrongs and discover all Secrets. Please enter your cubicles and get changed in silence and respect the privacy of everyone else here. Here are your lamps and bottles of oil, have a safe journey home.” With that she hands out some small brown paper carrier bags and leaves the room.

I quietly get changed and, seeing none of the other participants I go home.

As I drive I try and work out in my mind what happened in the conjuring. Did the demon really manifest itself before us or was it a sophisticated technological trick involving a hologram?  I am unsure, it had seemed so real, the smells, dragon blood ink.  Whatever happened I am now determined to see the process through and will light my lamp to Lord Astaroth tonight, after all I have just handed £1750.00p over to Madame Marta.

After keeping the flame lit for nine days and nights, and chanting the prayer to Lord Astaroth five times every night, the whole spell is now woven.  I have not determined how I will find out whether it has been successful or not but I feel strangely elated at the prospect that it just might have happened. 

This morning I see my friend at work.

She says “How are you Johnny?”

“I have never felt better.” I reply

“Did you go and see Madame Marta?”

“I did.”

“How was it?” she asks

“I am not sure. It blew my mind a bit and made me question reality.” I reply.

“OK, I will see you at lunchtime for a full rundown, laters!”

“See you in the canteen at one.” I say.

I go to my desk and there I find the in tray piled high with correspondence and newspapers. I pick them all up and place them in the out tray as I figure that anything of any real import will be bound to come back to me eventually. As I lift the pile today’s copy of the local newspaper, The Kentish Mercury, falls to the floor and lays open at the inside page where I look down at the headline which reads “Mysterious Disappearance Of Local Head Teacher, Police Baffled.” The first line of the report says Ronald Arthur Jenkins, Head Teacher at Deptford Comprehensive School, disappeared in a puff of smoke during Assembly whilst speaking of the dangers of magic in modern society.”

I sit down in my chair and strange wave of intense calmness sweeps over me, at last I think, I have revenge. I give thanks to the one and mighty Prince Astaroth.

2117 words.  Harry Rogers, Aberbanc, in the hut, February 2017 

I wrote this short story in my hut on a rainy afternoon a couple of years ago. Recently I recorded it and sent to my old friend Ashley Cadell in Melbourne Australia. He added the background music and produced the final product. To listen just click the link below.

https://anchor.fm/harry-rogers/episodes/THE-RINGSTAND-a-ghost-story-egcnps

THE CASE

A short story by

Harry Rogers

The girl was tired.  She had been traveling for nineteen hours and it was catching up on her.  It was a long journey from the beach hut on Koh Kood island in Thailand.  She was at the end of her tether and just wanted to be home.  The coach journey from Heathrow to Sheffield was just the final straw, and she was drifting in and out of consciousness as the motorway slid by the window.  Outside the weather was atrocious.  The fine rain was falling in that relentlessly misty way it does in early November and she wished she had decided to stay there for another three months.  If her sister had not been getting married she would have done.  As it was the whole family expected her at the wedding in just two days time and she had to be there, or else her mother would never let her hear the end of it.  She wanted to be there really but this journey was just too much and right now all she wanted was a hot bath and a sleep in her own bed.

The coach arrived in Sheffield amazingly on time.  She packed up her I-pod and headphones, put on her leather jacket, got off and waited under the bus shelter for the driver to drag her silver case out from the bowels of the coach.  He did so quite quickly and she was the fifth person away to the taxi rank.  She got into a black cab, and told the driver to take her to two hundred and forty Cemetery Road.  Twelve minutes later she was inside her ground floor flat.  On the telephone table in the hall there were three neat piles of post that she knew her mum had tidied up for her.  She had been away for fifteen months and there was a lot of catching up to do, but not now.  She put her case in the cupboard at the top of the cellar stairs, before going straight to the bathroom and running the hot tap for a long soak.

After her bath she got into a pair of old pyjamas, made herself a cup of camomile tea and sat on her bed looking through the first pile of post.  Most of it was junk but there were a couple of letters from Australia.  She opened them and was happy to see that they were from the young guy she had met in New Zealand.  She liked him a lot and when they had parted company in Christchurch and he had asked for her address she never thought for a minute that he would actually write to her.  Here they were though, two letters written in that sing song way that had made him so attractive in the first place. 

He was from Cork in Ireland and had a way about him that she fell for.  As she read the letters she could hear his voice in just the same lilting way that she remembered from that night at the Bar Crocodile when he said that after he finished traveling he was coming to England for her.  She had told him that she thought this was a load of old blarney and they both laughed.  She had given him the address anyway and now was very happy that he had written.  In the latest letter, dated only two weeks previously he said that he was going to be in England and would come to Sheffield to look her up.  It turned out he would be arriving just two days after her sister’s wedding.  She felt a warm glow inside her as she finished the tea and climbed under her duvet.  Donal, who she had playfully nicknamed Donut, was coming.  She fell asleep quickly, thinking about how much she had liked him during the two weeks they spent together in hobbit land.

She slept deeply for twelve hours.  When she awoke the girl took a shower,  made herself some porridge and a cup of Earl Grey tea.  After breakfast she called her mother and arranged to meet up with her at lunchtime in the cafe at John Lewis.  She knew her mother had her bridesmaids outfit waiting for to try on.  She threw a few bits of clothing into a shoulder bag and set off for the centre of Sheffield, carefully locking her flat behind her.

The wedding was a spectacular event and the girl had admitted to herself that she had enjoyed it.  Every one of her relations had been nice to her and were very impressed that she had been just about everywhere there was to go since she set off traveling twenty seven months earlier.  She was the first one to hit the trail in the family and she could sense that quite a lot of them secretly envied her.  The reception had been awesome and she had danced until 3.00 am and drunk quite a lot of Sailor Jerry’s rum.  Her mum had driven her back home after breakfast at the Hotel and she was about all familied out by the following day when she arrived back at her flat. 

She checked the answerphone to see whether there was a message from Donut.  She was surprised to find that there were ten messages, one from Donut saying he was coming around at 11.00 am that morning, the rest of them were all blank.  She decided that she would do her laundry and fetched her case from the cellar head.  She set it on the kitchen table and took the key from her purse to open it with.  She put the in the lock, it was a bit stiff and when she tried to turn it the key wouldn’t budge.  She twisted the key a bit harder and it snapped off in the lock.  The girl was a bit annoyed but decided to wait until Donut got there.

She put the kettle on to make herself a cup of tea and as she was putting the tea bag into a mug the house phone rang.  She went into the hall, picked up the receiver and said “Hello?” .  There was no reply and she heard the telephone being put down at the other end of the line.   She was slightly perplexed but she finished making her tea and sat there waiting for Donut to arrive.

Ten minutes later there was a ring at the door and she went and opened it.  There was Donut looking just the same as the last time she had seen him. 

“Hello Girl,” he said.

“Donut, it’s so nice to see you again.” And with that she put her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a welcoming kiss.

They stood at the doorstep locked in an embrace for 20 seconds before she said “Come on in, I’ll make you some tea. Are you hungry? We can go down town if you like for lunch, it’s not too far to walk.”

“Just a cup of tea will do fine,” he said “This is a grand place you have here.” He said looking around the place.

“I know, my auntie left me hundred thousand pounds when she died and I bought this place with most of it before I set off on the round the world jaunt.  I’ve only actually lived her for about three months all told.  My mum has been keeping her eye on it for me whilst I’ve been away.”

“Lucky you, I wish I had a pad of my own to go back to when I finish traveling.”

“Are you going off again?” asked the girl

“Yes, I thought I would go to Canada in autumn and get a job working on the ski slopes over there.”

“That sounds great, maybe I could meet up with you over there?”

Donut looked at her and she looked back at him.  They both started grinning together and she knew that this was the start of her next traveling adventure.  They hugged and he kissed her full on the lips.

“Drink your tea,” said the girl

“OK. Let’s talk about Canada over lunch.”

“Great idea.  Oh before we go out can you take a look at my case, I snapped the key off in the lock and I want to put my clothes in the washing machine whilst we are out.”

He looked at the aluminium case and the broken key in the lock.  “Do you have any tools here?”

“Sure, my dad gave a full tool kit as present when I first moved in. I’ll get it.”

She came back with plastic toolbox, and Donut opened it.  He took out a small cold chisel and a club hammer.  “I’m going to have to break the lock here,” he said

“Go ahead, I need a new case anyway.”

He put the chisel into the gap above the key hole and gave it a big whack with the club hammer.  The lock gave way instantly and he said “There you go Girl, nothing to it.”

“Aw thanks, now I can get on with the laundry.” And she opened the lid of the case.

She looked in expecting to see all her summer dresses from Thailand, but instead there was a whole shed-load of money in neat bundles, and a vacuum packed clear polythene bag containing a severed human hand.  She let out a scream and Donut had to steady her as she stepped back in alarm.

“This is not my case,” she said “I must have picked up the wrong one from the coach driver.  Look at all this money, look at this horrible thing,” and she pointed to the hand in the bag.

Donut stood there open mouthed looking at the money.  There were about thirty bundles of fifty pound notes, each bundle containing two thousand pounds. 

“There’s about sixty grand there.  That’s an awful lot of money.  The hand means this is a dangerous situation.  Is there anything in your case that can tell the owner of this case where you live?”

“Yes, there are some letters that my mum forwarded to me about my student loan stuff that have my address on them. Why?”

“Has anybody tried to contact you since you got back here?”

“Well there have been a load of blank messages on the answer phone.”

“Shit, we have to get out of here.”

They moved quickly down the hallway to the front door and as they opened it there was a large shape blocking the doorway.  The last thing they heard was the pfft pfft pfft pfft of the 9mm Glock 18 machine pistol with silencer as it despatched both of them before they could utter a word. Donut fell to the floor and the girl landed on top of him, both dead.  The shape stepped over them, went into the kitchen, picked up the case and left the flat, carefully closing the front door.

GO WITH THE FLOW

a short story by Harry Rogers

Maurice Warwick (Mo to everyone who knows him) sat on a stool at the counter in the saloon bar of The Prince of Wales with a pint of Guinness and a copy of the New Musical Express.  This had been a typical 1970’s day for him.  In the morning he had visited a couple of friends in Blackheath Village for breakfast where he had managed to sell a couple of rare Buddy Holly CDs he had bought at the Deptford record fair thus making a profit of £15. At midday he had gone to The Three Tuns for a lunchtime livener where he met up with a couple of members of local punk rock sensations The Prannits who were rehearsing in a famous rock stars rehearsal studio just around the corner.  After a couple of pints he had gone with them for their afternoon session and watched them lay down two tracks for their next single release.  The session finished at six thirty and Mo walked to the Prince of Wales where he was looking to meet up with a journalist who he hoped was going to buy one of his photographs for an article about Deptford Fun City, as the South London music scene was known.  A typical day for Mo who always knew how to go with the flow.  The bar was empty save for one geezer sat at the other end of the bar.  Mo looked up to see him looking at him in a strange way, kind of eying him up and down.

Mo said “Hello, is everything OK here?”

“I’m sorry,” the stranger said, “I was deep in thought.”

“I thought you were looking at me.”

“Well I was but not in any threatening way, I’m sorry if you thought otherwise.”

“Oh OK, that’s alright then.” said Mo and returned to the article about Bruce Springsteen in the NME.

“Let me buy you another pint,” offered the stranger, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Well that’s very nice, I won’t say no.” answered Mo

The stranger came over and sat on the nearest empty bar stool “Guinness is it?”

“Yes Thanks, cheers.”

He ordered the beer for Mo and then introduced himself, “My name’s Billy Bleasdale.”

“I’m Mo.”

“Do you live near here?” asked Billy

“No man, I’ve got a short term flat in Deptford on one of those estates that the council are going to demolish soon, so they say.”

“I live in Kidbrook with my wife. Would you like to see some pictures of her?”

“Yeah, why not.” said Mo

Billy handed him a Kodak paper envelope containing half a dozen photographic prints.  He took them out and looked at the first one.  There was a portrait of a pretty, dark haired, young woman of about 25 years of age looking confidently out at him. He slid the picture to the back of the pile and looked at the next one, this time she was standing outside a low level block of flats wearing a mini skirt and smiling in a very beguiling way.  As he shuffled through the pictures he was getting more interested in her.  Then he reached the last one in the pile.  This time she was standing in front of a fence at what Mo guessed was an allotment.  This photograph was noticeably different to all the rest in that she was standing there with her skirt pulled up to her chest and wearing no underwear.  Mo carefully replaced the photographs into the yellow envelope and handed them back to Billy remarking “Hmmm, very nice.”

“Would you like to meet her?  My wife, would you like to meet her?”

“Listen” said Mo, “What is this all about, eh? What’s going on here?”

“Oh I’m sorry” said Billy looking a bit sheepish, “I suppose I had better explain.”

“Yes” said Mo, “That might be a good idea.”

“Well, as you can see, my wife, Jamie Lee, is quite a bit younger than me.”

Mo looked at Billy and guessed he must be about 35 years old.

“Yes, I can see that.” said Mo

“Well the point is, I won’t beat about the bush, we have been together since she was sixteen, in fact I married her at sixteen when I was 24.  She is 26 now and we have been happily married for ten years.”

“Yes?” queried Mo

“Well about a fortnight ago we were sitting up in bed, you know, talking, like you do, and she says she wonders what it would be like making love to another man.  I was a bit taken aback I must admit but she said I wasn’t to think that she was unhappy or anything but she just wondered, that was all, especially seeing as how she had never been with anybody else apart from me.  So I kind of looked at her and thought to myself, well you know, I thought, I’ve had other women before her, and it just didn’t seem fair, really.  Her not having had any other experience, what with being so young at the start and all.”

“I see, or I think I do, go on”

“Well I thought about it and then a couple of days ago I said to her that I thought it only fair that she should try making love with somebody else, just so that she could put her mind to rest, so to speak.  She said that she wouldn’t want to go out and find somebody herself because that somehow wouldn’t seem right.  So after a bit more chatting we agreed that I would go out and find someone who might do the trick for us.  So here we are and I ask you again, would you like to meet my wife.”

Mo picked up the fresh pint of Guinness and took a long swig of it before looking at Billy, who was staring at him in an earnest way.  He thought to himself why not, after all he would be doing them both a favour and she was very attractive, in fact he felt kind of flattered at having been selected for such a task. He thought to himself, go with the flow.

“OK” said Mo, “you’re on.  When do you want me come round?”

“Well, I was wondering whether you might make it tonight actually.” said Billy

“Well I haven’t got anything else planned, so the answer is yes, why not tonight.”

“Great,” said Billy, “I’ll just give Jamie Lee a ring and let her know we are on our way.”

He went over to the payphone in the passageway near the toilets and made the call home whilst Mo finished off the Guinness.

Billy came back and said “My car is parked up just outside, my place is only a few minutes away, Jamie Lee says she is so excited and will be ready and waiting for you.”

They left the pub and climbed into Billy’s slightly battered two tone Austin Cambridge car.  Twenty minutes later Billy parked up outside the flats and they walked up the stairs to the first floor balcony where he lived with Jamie Lee.  It was just after eight o’clock and the sun was almost gone, the sky turned that wonderful streaky red colour that you only get in cities with a lot of particulates in the air.

Billy opened the door and called out “We’re here Jay.”.

Mo followed him into the flat and the first thing that struck him was the smell of strong bedroom joss as he entered the hallway.  It was sparsely furnished with a small telephone table and wooden chair, a set of cast iron Victorian coat hooks and a Paul Klee framed print on the primrose yellow painted wall.

Billy asked Mo if he wanted a cup of tea before meeting Jamie Lee but as he had not long finished drinking Guinness he declined the offer.  “Oh OK then, well she is waiting to meet you in here.”, and he ushered mo into the first door off the hallway.  The scent of the joss was much stronger, almost cloying but not unpleasant, as an established hippy Mo was used to the smell of incense and liked it very well.  He looked into the room which was lit only by three large multi coloured candles and as his eyes got used to the low level of light he saw that this was in fact a bedroom.  The walls were papered with a deep red paisley patterned paper by Osborne and Little and there, in an ornate brass fluted bedstead, naked and wrapped in a white cotton sheet, Mo made out the face of Jamie Lee looking intently at him.

“Come in,” she said, in a matter of fact way.  Mo shuffled his feet a bit before Billy gently eased him forward.  Jamie Lee looked at Billy and nodded her head approvingly “He looks good Billy, real good, you chose well.”

Mo felt very awkward but before he could say anything Billy said “Well I’ll leave you both to get to know each other, I’m going to watch the rest of the European Cup match on TV.  Have fun.”, and with that he backed out of the room, gently closed the door and left the two strangers looking at each other.

“Well don’t just stand there,” she said, “take your clothes off and come over here.” , and she peeled back the bedclothes on one side off the bed and patted the sheet.  Mo was still a bit flustered but he took off his shoes and socks, dropped his loons and pants and stepped out of them and pulled his cheesecloth grandad shirt over his long hair and dropped it onto his trousers.  He walked across the room and carefully slid into the bed beside Jamie Lee.  He started to say something but before he could utter a word she put her forefinger to his lips and slid her arms around him pulling him towards her.  He put one hand on her back and was immediately aware of a lissom body that was electrified with erotic expectation.  They spent the next hour and a half making exquisite love three times and she was ecstatic in her satisfaction and whispered “Thank you Mo, that was just wonderful.” He asked her if he could light a cigarette and she said he could and she would have one too.  He got out of bed and took two Marlborough from his pocket and lit them both.  As they lounged in bed quietly smoking the cigarettes there was a soft knock at the bedroom door.  “Come in Billy” she said, and the door opened and Billy came in carrying a tray with a teapot with a cosy, two cups and saucers and a plate of chocolate biscuits.

Billy looked at Jamie Lee in that hopeful kind of way that pet dogs do when they are looking for approval.  She looked at him and smiled broadly and just slowly nodded to him.  He left them to the tea and closed the door behind him again.  Mo drank a cup of tea whilst Jamie Lee made small talk with him about his love life.  Mo got dressed quite quickly and he leaned over and kissed her passionately.  He knew this was the last time he would see her as it was crystal clear to him that  she was totally in love with Billy.  Billy came back in and Mo was dressed and ready to go.

Jamie lee looked at Mo and smiled at him as she said, “Thank you so much for a wonderful evening, I’ll never forget you.  I just had to make sure I am with the right man, and now I’m certain of it.”

Mo smiled and Billy said “OK then, where would you like me to drop you off?”

There was a late night gig starting at midnight down in Deptford so Mo said “Take me to The Albany Empire please.”.  They traveled in silence to Creek Road and as Mo was getting out of the car outside the venue Billy handed him an envelope and said  “Thank you very very much for doing that for us, now we can get on with the rest of our marriage with no ifs or buts.”

Mo smiled and looking clearly at Billy he said “No problems, the pleasure was all mine.”

As Billy drove away Mo opened the envelope and inside he found ten crispy five pound notes.

He entered the gig grinning and muttering to himself “Go with the flow, always go with the flow.”

(Any resemblance to anybody living or dead is entirely coincidental.)

BIG D

A Short Story.

I was sitting in the Cricketers Arms on Sunday evening after a long day selling my pictures on Bayswater Road.  It had been a good day, I had sold well over £400 worth of kitsch to Japanese and American tourists for cash and I had three hundred and ten pounds and two hundred and forty dollars in my pocket, all of it tax free.  After expenses I reckoned that two hundred and ninety quid of this was pure profit.  This was brilliant for a late autumn day’s trading in 1971 and I was feeling pleasantly contented as I started into my second pint of Courage Directors bitter.  

The main door to the pub opened and a head full of dark black curly hair and beard poked through the curtains and stared around the pub.  Catching sight of me sitting by the window in the back of the long bar Joey Peacock pushed through the curtain and strode towards me in a purposeful way. There were a few old guys sitting at the bar who looked up as Joey passed them and shook their heads in a resigned way.

“Bloody ‘ippies everywhere, they ought to bring back conscription, that’d sort them out.” One of them muttered and the other old reprobates nodded their agreement and turned back to their beer. 

Joey was a challenge to these old geezers who were born before the First World War in his bell-bottom jeans, blue shoes with silver stars on and three quarter length women’s brown fur coat with a large silver broach in the shape of fully rigged sailing boat on the left lapel and a fresh red carnation on the other.  He was the epitome of the South London counter culture and as such a complete anathema to everything those previous generations stood for.  To make matters worse he reeked of patchouli oil and had a permanent smile on his face just like Jerry Garcia.  The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers could easily have been modeled on him.  He sat down at my table and immediately pulled a ready rolled joint from inside the fur coat and lit up.  I was used to such behaviour from Joey, at that time he didn’t give a shit about where he was, he would smoke reefers anywhere and anytime and had no paranoia about getting busted at all and so far he had managed to avoid the long arm of the law.He took a couple of long slow tokes on the joint and passed it over to me.  I took it and drew the taste of mellow Afghani hashish into my lungs.  As I did so Joey asked me “What are you up to for the rest of the week man?”

“I’ve not got anything major planned” I replied “Why?”

“Fancy a trip to Amsterdam?”

“Yeah, as it happens, I do.”

“Have you got your passport up to date?”

“I always make sure of that Joe, you never know when you might need it.”

“Good.  We will be travelling with Ricky and Kelvin.  I’ve already booked the firms blue transit van onto the ferry from Dover to Ostend and up to four passengers travel free so you won’t need to pay a fare.”

He took the joint back from me and took another deep lug.  As he did so I said “ Kelvin? I thought he was in Bexley mental hospital having a breakdown?”

“Oh he is” said Joey, casually “but he volunteered himself in for treatment after his girlfriend left him for someone else.  He felt it was for the best as he was feeling suicidal.  He is free to leave at any time.  He keeps ringing people up and saying that he can’t carry on much longer but I reckon he just needs his mates to help him get past this downer. So this afternoon I went round his pad in Lewisham and picked up his passport and a few clothes and a couple of other bits and pieces such as his pipe and stash box.  In the morning we are going down to Bexley to snatch him out of the bin and we are taking him on a little holiday to help him get over it.”

“Does he know we’re coming?” I asked

“No but he has open visiting allowed so I reckon I’ll just bowl in there and tell him that the van is outside and we’re taking him out for the day, and he will come with us.  We won’t tell him we’re going abroad.  Once he is in the van we’ll get him stoned and then he’ll be with us until we get back.  We’ll just tell him it’s a mystery tour.  It’ll be fine.”

“Ok Joey, if you say so, I’m up for it, sounds like we’ll doing him a favour really.”

“Yeah” said Joey “he needs to sort himself out.  Of course he ain’t got any money so we’ll all have to club together a bit of spending wedge for him but it’s a good cause in my book.”

“What time are we off then?”

“I’ll pick you up around 10 o’clock in the morning.”

“Great stuff man, I love adventures.”

 “OK I’m off to see Ricky now to make sure he is still up for it, see you in the morning.” And with that he got up and left the pub, making sure he walked as close to those old contemptibles at the bar as possible so that they got a good whiff of the last remnants of the joint he was still smoking.  They just shook their heads as he floated past and carried on drinking.

I finished my pint and wandered out of there and across the road to the Greenwich Steakhouse for a mixed grill.  I knew Monday was going to be the start of a crazy week, I ate my dinner and went off to my flat in Greenwich Circus, watched Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland on ITV in the psychological thriller A Child in Waiting on my portable Black and white TV before rolling a bedtime joint and smoking it whilst listening to the Floyd playing Atom Heart Mother on my bedroom stereo as I drifted away for an early night.  I knew I was going to need it to set me up for the coming journey.

I awoke at 8.00am and switched on my Roberts transistor radio.  The news reader was talking about Japanese Emperor Hirohito setting off on an overseas tour, I changed channel to Radio 1 and they were playing “Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me” by The Tams.  I switched it off and got myself a bowl of cornflakes and rolled a joint with the last of my hash.  I got a small travelling bag together with my passport, a spare pair of purple loon pants, a few t shirts and a hand knitted Arran sweater, plus my super lightweight high tog goose down sleeping bag.  I finished the joint, took a bath and settled back to wait for Joey to call round.

As I sat in my antique leather armchair I started thinking about how Joey and I had met and what an absolutely crazy set of people he hung out with.  He was part of what can only be described as an anarcho hippy business consortium set up to capitalise on all things underground called The Deptford Dynasty.  They used a psychedelic font design of the capital letter D as their symbol and it appeared on everything, letterheads, cards, clothing labels, packaging, tee shirts, their shops, and was painted very large on the side of their vans, including the one we were about to go off to Amsterdam in which had the nickname “Big D”.  They ran a number of shops in South London selling a range of goods, including drug paraphernalia such as hookahs, bongs and soapstone chillums, cigarette papers, scales, stash boxes, incense holders, temple incense, joss sticks, underground records and books, clothing and footwear.  They also ran two cafes and small bar.  All of this had been financed by a successful smuggling operation in 1967 when they opened their first shop selling Afghan sheepskin and goatskin coats from Ghazni province, situated between Kabul and Kandahar.  These coats had a very pungent aroma when first bought from the local Afghani traders and Joey had used this smell to great effect when he drove a truckload of coats back from Kabul to England underneath which he had concealed 1000 lbs of top quality hashish. That works out at 16,000 ounces, at a street value of £40 per ounce that is £640,000.  Joey had sold the lot at £300 per pound, after costs of £50 per weight (lb) the net profit was a cool quarter of a million pounds which was a substantial sum in 1967.  The customs dogs never came near this stinking heap of rancid clothing and the customs officers had just waved him on when he came through Dover as they did not believe anyone would be so audacious, but this was Joey all over, a total risk taker beyond belief. This half ton of dope had given them the capital they needed to set up their Big D empire.  Before I had become a card carrying member of the Bayswater Road Artists Association I had trained as a plumber and met them when I was asked by a mutual friend to carry out a small emergency repair in the kitchen of their cafe in Greenwich.  I had immediate rapport with Joey and from then on we had become good friends.

They owned three adjacent shops in Deptford High Street, a clothes shop, a record shop and a cafe, and they had converted the basements into a giant communal living area by knocking through the walls and strengthening them with RSJs.  This led to it becoming the major partying venue for that part of London frequented by rock bands, hippies, junkies, writers, and groupies and it was just the most fabulous permanently midnight tripping space south of the Thames.  I was an outside observer of the mayhem, having never taken up the offer to join the consortium but I knew most of what went on and was often included in the inner sanctum when special events were taking place.  The whole set up was based on using capitalist processes to fund a totally hedonistic venture and, somehow, their in house accountant was keeping the whole show on the road, or so he said anyway.  They had expanded into mail order clothing and were selling thousands of pairs of leather loon pants via full page advertising in the rock music press and had many famous rock and roll stars on their client list.  Life was cushty for the Dynasty and they lived like there was no tomorrow.

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, the sound of Joey pumping on the horn in The Big D transit van outside my flat pulled me out of the armchair and I grabbed my bag and a brown leather bomber jacket and left the flat.

Ricky Roach leaned over and opened the van door for me, I swung myself up onto the bench seat and tossed my bag over into the back of the transit.  As I closed the door Ricky handed me a joint with a grin on his face,

“Alright Frenchie,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m fine man. I’m ready for the off.”

“Ok then, next stop Bexley” said Joey and we pulled out of Greenwich Circus, turned left past Greenwich Police Station along through Burney street and into Greenwich Park. Joey had been to New York earlier in the year and had come back with an in car cassette player and stereo speakers, a truly innovative revelation to me as I didn’t even know such things existed, and this was installed in Big D and as we pulled into the Park the opening notes of The Changeling by The Doors from their album LA Woman started blasting into the cab.  I looked across at the Royal Observatory, the blue sky above the Chestnut trees and late summer sun shining on the big red ball above the domed telescope and I felt really happy, of course it could have been the Citrali dope that Ricky had handed me, he always sourced the highest quality narcotics and this gear was no exception.  I settled back into a mellow reverie as Joey drove us across Blackheath on the way to Bexley Mental Hospital where the unsuspecting Kelvin awaited us.  “Don’t You Love Her Madly” played as we headed up Shooters Hill Road, and we all sang along as this seemed the perfect lyric for Kelvin. “Don’t you love her madly as she’s walking out the door.”

Twenty minutes later we pulled off the A2 and into Dartford Heath and very quickly we drove into the grounds of Bexley Hospital and parked outside the Victorian administration building.  Joey got out of Big D and said “You guys wait here, I’ll just go in and get Kelvin, this shouldn’t take too long.” And with that he breezed into the main entrance.

“So how’s it going then Ricky?” I asked

“Oh OK I suppose, I’m not making a lot of dosh these days and things are a bit slow in the building game.  Still I’m hoping this trip will sort me out a bit.” He said

“Are you still seeing that girl, Julia?”

“Oh yeah mate, it’s the real thing with us I think, we’re probably going to get married later this year.  Probably going to have to when her mum finds out I’ve got her up the duff.” he laughed

“You haven’t?”

“Oh yeah, she told me two weeks ago and I’m very happy about it, not that I particularly want to get married but she does and if we don’t her mother will go fucking ballistic.”

I laughed as he said this.  Julia was a beautiful eighteen year old from Catford and Ricky had met her six months earlier at a party in the basement in Deptford.  They had shared some Mandrax and had retired to his bed where they stayed in stoned out state of mandied bliss for a full seven days.  I have to admit I was not really surprised that she was pregnant as they were obviously loved up to bits and also both enjoyed being out of it most of the time.

Ricky had originally been part of the Dynasty but he had a penchant for betting on the horses and playing cards and had got himself into serious debt in 1970, so much so that Joey had to bale up by buying out his company shares for £20,000.  Ricky used £10k to pay off his debts and spent the next month slowly frittering the other ten grand away culminating in losing his last £1500 in a late night poker game in a Chinese gambling den in a basement just off Gerard Street in Soho.  These days he worked for Dynasty doing bits of building work for them and also he worked with a couple of old mates doing dry lining and plastering jobs.  He was also a very strong opponent of the Tories and had a habit of veering off into long political rants about Ted Heath and seeing as they had won an election in June 1970 he was likely to go off on one at any time, especially if he had been smoking a lot of dope, which was most of the time to be fair.  He had a flat over the top of the Dynasty shops in Deptford High Street and so spent a lot of his time partying in the basement and recently he had started to learn how to play the bass guitar and was often found jamming with any musicians that were hanging out there.  I guess you could say that he had effectively dropped out most of the time and was doing less and less actual work the more he got into his white Fender Precision bass.

We were contemplating rolling up another number when Joey and Kelvin came out of the doors and down the steps towards the van.  It had taken Joey precisely 15 minutes to find Kelvin and convince him that he needed a holiday. So we left Bexley and got back onto the A2 Dover Road.  Joey handed Kelvin his stash box and pipe and Ricky said “Hello mate, make us a good old Kelvin special pipeful eh and we can get this journey going properly.”

“OK but can someone tell me just exactly where we are going?” he asked

“You’ll find out when we get there, let’s just say it’s a special surprise just for you Kelvin, a kind of Magical Mystery Tour.” Said Joey and we all started laughing, Kelvin looked puzzled but he opened the stash box and was very pleased to find quarter of ounce of Nepalese Temple Ball hashish wrapped in tinfoil in the box along with his lighter and a packet of his favourite Drum tobacco. “OK geezers, if you say it’s going to fun, then I’ll come along for the ride I suppose.”, and he started building the pipe.

It didn’t take Joey long to drive down to Dover and they pulled into the ferry terminal at half past twelve.  Kelvin was pretty much spaced out by this time having not smoked any drugs for a fortnight and so he was out there, somewhere, but not far enough gone not to recognise where they were.  “Where are we going?” he implored, “On to a ferry?”

“Don’t panic Kelvin, you’re going to be ok, trust me.” Said Joey

Kelvin murmured “OK man, whatever you say.”

As we sat in the queue waiting to embark I looked at Kelvin and thought about his chaotic life up unto this point.  He was half gypsy and found it very hard to settle down to any form of straight existence.  As a child his parents had been travelers, living in a trailer van, following fairgrounds from town to town and his school life had been totally disorganised.  He had left home in 1961 after reading Kerouac’s On The Road, and had found his way to Soho where he had started hanging out with Fred The Carpet and all the other London beatniks who frequented The Duke Of Yorks pub in Rathbone Place and this was where his love affair with Mary Jane (marijuana) began.  He never went home again and spent the next five years drifting from one sofa to another in bedsit land.  He learnt to play guitar and wrote a lot of stoned poetry.  Eventually he met a red haired girl called Candy who was the spitting image of Elizabeth Siddal (Rossetti’s Pre Raphaelite muse).  They got married after a whirlwind courtship and moved into her studio on a plot of land next to the banks of the river Quaggy in Lewisham.  She was as fiery as the colour of her hair and Kelvin and her were always arguing, mainly about his failure to do anything about making money.  She was a moderately successful painter who was making waves in the modern art world, Kelvin spent his time trying to write poetry and starting novels but was mostly just too stoned to ever get it together properly and she became increasingly disenchanted with his indolence, until she eventually walked out on him and moved to New York.  He was devastated by this and, as is always the way, finally realised that he had messed up big time losing the love of life and he fell into a deep depression.  He had contemplated suicide but was too apathetic even to carry this out.  He felt utterly rung out and this was why he had entered Bexley as a voluntary patient on the suggestion of his GP who had written a letter for him recommending this course of action.  He had taken a couple of empty notebooks and a few pencils into the hospital with him and had started writing the outline for TV comedy series based on the activities of two lavatory attendants called Poe and Lavvy who looked after the Ladies and Gents on a busy railway station.  Not smoking dope was good for him and he had drafted out the plot-lines for a pilot episode and in fact he was well on the way to recovery from his mini breakdown when we had picked him up, although we didn’t know this until later.

Joey drove forward to the ferry terminal window and handed over the travel documents and our passports to the bored looking official behind the desk. He looked at the passports and eyed us suspiciously before stamping the tickets and issuing Joey with the embarkation cards. He handed the passports and paperwork back and said “Head towards lane 20 for the Ostend boat and wait to be guided on board from there. Have a nice trip.”

“Thanks man, we’ll try.” Said Joey

“Oh so we’re off to Belgium then?” asked Kelvin

“Yes, to start with” said Joey and the three of us looked at Kelvin and started laughing.

Joey slipped a cassette of The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album into the player and we sat at the back of lane 20 listening to “Brown Sugar” as it filled the van with Keith Richards guitar and Mick Jagger singing “Brown Sugar, How come you taste so good” and we sang along with him.

After 25 minutes as The Stones launched into Bitch we were ushered up onto the gangplank and drove into the back of the RoRo ferry.  Joey parked where he was told and we got out of Big D and headed straight for the bar.  We bought a bottle of Cotes de Rhone and sat by the window staring at the lorries waiting to be loaded on.

Kelvin said, “I’m going to get a cup of tea, I’m off the alcohol at the moment.”

“OK” said Joey

Kelvin stood there looking a bit sheepish and then Joey said “Oh I’m sorry man, you aint got any bread have you.” And with that he pulled out a wad of notes and peeled of a couple of fivers and gave them to him saying “This will tide you over for a bit.” And he grinned.  Kelvin smiled for the first time since we lifted him and we all smiled back.

He went off to the cafeteria and we looked at each other “So far so good” I said

“Yeah I know it’s amazing what happens when you reach out the hand of friendship, most of the time people are ready to take it and will go along with the idea of love man.” Said Ricky and we nodded as sagely as three twenty five year old freaks could and picked up our wine glasses and drank  away and as we did so the boat pulled out of the harbour.

We drove off of the ferry four hours later and as we cleared customs the Stones were singing “Sister Morphine”, we pulled onto the A10 and headed towards Gent.  Joey knew this road very well as he had been trading in second hand clothes from the warehouses near the flea market in Amsterdam for a couple of years for his high quality speciality clothing business supplying TV and Film production companies. We sped past Gent and Antwerp and crossing the river headed into Holland, the traffic on the motorway to Amsterdam was very light and the sun was just beginning to set as we pulled into the city at 8.00pm European time.  Joey headed towards the city centre and pulled off the main road near to The Milky Way (Milkweg) at  the end of Lijnbaansgracht but there was nowhere to park and after driving around for about ten minutes Joey spotted a yard with only one car parked in it and so pulled in there for a smoke.

Kelvin was asleep and I shook him gently saying “Wake up Kelvin, we’re here and we need you to build a pipe.”

He sat up and slowly rubbed his eyes, “Where is here?” he asked.

“Welcome to Amsterdam” said Joey “Now build a pipe for us before we go exploring.”

“Fuck me, Amsterdam, I love Amsterdam.” said Kelvin and loaded up his pipe.

We had just started smoking it and Big D was choc a bloc with Afghani fug when there was a knock on the driver side window.  Joey turned down the tape player and opened the door to be confronted by a Dutch police officer in full uniform with a gun and everything.

“Who is the driver?” he asked

“That is me.” said Joey, getting out of Big D.  As he opened the door a cloud of dope smoke enveloped the cop.

“You cannot park here. It is illegal and you must pay a fine now.” he said after the smoke had cleared away a bit.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Joey, calmly, “why is that?”

“This is a police station and you cannot park here.  You must pay a fine of 20 guilders.”

“I see, I didn’t realise, hang on, I’ll get some cash out of the van.”

He opened the door to be confronted by three quivering wrecks who were convinced we were all going to be arrested for drugs.  Joey calmly got his wallet out of his pack and pulled out a twenty Guilder note and handed it to the policeman.  He had written out a ticket in the meantime and handed it to Joey in exchange for the cash.

“There is a public car park just around the next corner, I suggest you park there.  Now please leave the police station and enjoy your visit to Amsterdam.”

Joey climbed back into Big D and we drove out of there very quickly.  The cop was smiling as we drove off.  We all felt very relieved and burst out laughing, it was like something from a Cheech and Chong album.  Joey parked in the car park and we tumbled out onto the side of a canal and looked at the reflection of the street lights in the water.

“God I’m hungry boys” said Ricky “Can we get something to eat and quick?”

Joey said he knew a Chinese restaurant nearby and we went there for a blowout.  Kelvin ordered more tea with his meal and we drank beers.  An hour later we were back on the canal side in jolly mood and Joey suggested we head for the Paradiso where we would probably hear some music.  After a short walk we were there and onstage was a Dutch band playing Pink Floyd style music, we paid a few guilders and went in.  We were immediately confronted with a guy selling hash. “You want to buy dope man.  I have good shit for a good price, come over here and try some.” We sat down at a table with him and he pulled a joint out of his shirt and lit up.  It was top quality pink Lebanese hash and he wanted 20 guilders for five grammes.  I liked it so I bought some.

We spent the next three days smoking drugs, drinking beer, watching bands, chatting up Dutch girls and talking with Kelvin about what he was going to do when he got back to London.  Slowly but surely his mood lightened and we could all tell that the black dog had left his side and that he was forgetting all about Candy.

On Thursday morning we were just about ready to leave for London when Ricky said “Hey boys, I’m going up the railway station for a bit, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“The railway station? What the fuck for?” Kelvin asked

“I’ve got to report my stolen luggage to the station police.” He said

“But you aint got any luggage.” I said

“I know,” said Ricky, “it’s been stolen.”

With that he sauntered off towards Amsterdam Centraal station which was about half a mile away.

We sat it a cafe drinking coffee with two young Danish girls called Vibeke and Alana.  They were hitching a lift to Berlin and we said we would drop them off near the motorway.  They asked us whether we would like to smoke something with them and of course we said we would love to.  We left the cafe and piled into Big D.  Alana reached into her backpack and pulled out a small vial of white powder.  Vibeke was putting skins together to make a joint and Kelvin passed her a packet of drum and she loaded the tobacco into the papers, Alana sprinkled a small amount of powder into the joint and Vibeka rolled and licked it.

“What’s in the joint?” I asked

“Oh it’s just a bit of smack darling” said Vibeke

She lit the joint, took two tokes and passed it to me.  I had not smoked heroin before, I guess there is a first time for everything, I copied her and took two tokes as well and passed it on to Joey.  He took one toke on account of he was going to be driving soon and passed it on to Kelvin who took two hits and passed it on to Alana who finished it off with two more.  I settled back into the seat and looked out of the window at a beautiful clinker built botter moored on the opposite side of the canal.  Everything I looked at seemed somehow sharper, picked out in vivid relief and I had a feeling akin to being wrapped in the softest woolen safety blanket whilst at the same time I felt I could deal with anything with absolute clarity of thought.  This was dangerous for me because it felt too nice, so nice that I resolved then and there that I would never use Captain Jack ever again, and so it has been ever since that afternoon.  I can’t answer for the others but I could sense the danger for me as I knew that I would easily be won over by the delicious comfortableness of it and as I had already lost two close friends through the awfulness of junkydom I just knew it was too much of a risk for me.  We all sat there in a calm and chilled state and Joey put a cassette of John Lennon’s Imagine album on and we chilled out to it whilst we waited for Ricky to come back from the station.

As Lennon sang “And the World is so tough; Sometimes I feel I’ve had enough” in the penultimate track of the album Ricky opened the door to Big D to find a bunch of very subdued hippies lolling on the cushions at the back of the van.

“Look lively people and make me a joint, I’ve just had it right off.”

Kelvin opened his stash box and started putting three Rizlas together, I asked Ricky what he meant and he said,

“Well Frenchie it’s like this, I need a new Marshall bass stack to go with my new Fender Jazz bass guitar but I am short of wedge at the moment so this afternoon I have started an insurance claim on my stolen luggage.”

“But you didn’t have any luggage…..” I said

“Ahh you know that, I know that, we all know that but the station police don’t know that and they have just taken down a full statement verifying that I have had my large suitcase stolen on the station precinct whilst drinking a glass of old Geneva gin at the cafe bar there.”

“How does that work?” asked Kelvin

“Oh come on, get it together” said Joey, “Ricky insured a whole load of valuables before he set off, and now they have, unfortunately been nicked.” he laughed.

“Joey’s right,” Ricky said, “I went round all my mates and got them to give a load of receipts for some pretty valuable gear, I should get about a grand when I get back and put the claim in.  The assessors will check things out with the station police here and, ‘cos the Dutch old Bill are so efficient at bureaucracy they will have no option but to cough up.”

We all fell about laughing, Kelvin passed the newly rolled reefer to Ricky who lit up.

“It’s time we hit the road” said Joey and he started Big D.  We pulled out of the car park that had been our base for those three days of Hunter S Thompson style mayhem and headed for the Motorway.  We dropped the girls off at a service station, we gave them most of the dope we had left as we were wary about going through English customs carrying, and I gave them my phone number just in case they ever made it to London.  Of course we never heard from either of them again.

We got back to Ostende in four hours having had to stop for Kelvin to have another cup of tea and a final pipeful before we got on the ferry.  After an uneventful crossing we cleared Dover without any hassle and were back in Deptford by 10.00 pm sitting in the Oxford Arms eating cheese rolls and downing a pint each, except for Kelvin who had yet another sweet tea.

“Well Kelvin,” I asked, “are you going back into Bexley to carry on with the treatment?”

He looked at me and a beatific smile broke across his face as he replied “Nah Frenchie mate, I’m feeling a whole lot better, just like my old self again.” He looked around at all of us and said “You geezers are just the most far out friends any one could ever have, thanks for getting me back on the track, I won’t forget this.”

I looked over at Joey and he winked at me.

A month later Ricky duly got a cheque from the insurance company for one thousand and sixty five pounds and brought the amp and speaker cab that he needed for his band The Happy Acid Star Hoppers (The HASH).  Kelvin moved in with the wife of the manager of one of The Dynasty’s cafes and started writing a screenplay about fairies and dragons whilst eating lots of mushrooms.  Joey and the rest of the Deptford Dynasty carried on expanding their empire and spending money like it was going out of style.  I carried on selling my art on the railings for another eight years until Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, the exchange rates tightened up and the world on Bayswater Road changed forever.  I don’t know what happened to Big D but it was a great van and I wished I had it now.  I’m about ready for another trip to Amsterdam now that I’ve turned 65, where is my phone book……….. I must check those guys out again!

(Any resemblance to any events or anybody living or dead is entirely coincidental, know what I mean man!!)

Halloween At Henlan – a short story by Harry Rogers 2/3/2013

The railway yard was filling up with cars as people arrived for the annual Halloween night ride on The Ghost Train.  Station Master Stanley Ford had decided that, this year, it would be fun to make the evening a fancy dress event with a series of prizes for the best costumes for both children and adults.  Tickets had sold like wildfire and a number of local businesses had donated some spectacular items for prizes and Stan was very pleased with himself.  He stood in the ticket office watching the miniature ghouls arriving with the mummies and monsters, the vampires and the werewolves decamping from the Hyundais and the Land Rovers, the witches, the warlocks, the zombies and the skeletons all gathering in front of the refreshment room and light railway platform.

Stan’s long suffering wife Arlene was standing behind a long trestle table serving two types of Halloween drinks, bright red blood coloured punch for the grownups and an amazing fluorescent green limeade concoction for the children.  There were also some special beastly burgers, supplied by the best butcher in Newcastle Emlyn, and Stan and Arlene’s son Frank was wielding the spatula and dishing the onions.  The Fords had gone as members of the Adam’s Family and were quite the part and, had they been allowed to enter, they would have been shoe ins for a prize.

Frank was very happy barking out his sales mantra in a blood curdling voice “Get yer beastly burgers ‘ere, they’re really ghastly and ‘orrible.”.  He was doing a roaring trade.  God knows the railway needed the money having been refused funding yet again in the latest round of the European grant circus.  Stan had big plans for the run down tourist railway.  He had worked hard developing the business plan which outlined a spanking new station bar and restaurant, new platforms, an extension of the line all the way into Newcastle Emlyn, and a beautiful replica of a Victorian ticket office and station buffet.  He had also designed a new children’s play ground with under cover areas.  He had really thought it all out and was certain that this time the local authority would back the application for £2,000,000 all the way, after all there were going to be quite a few new local jobs created.  Yet again it had come to naught as the economic development officers in the planning department advised the politicians to support an alternative plan for a modern Celtic dance centre in Aberystwyth.  They basically argued that the puffer nutter community were happy running their trains up and down the two miles of track and therefore they would have to stand aside this time.  The board of directors at the trust said they were as upset as Stan was but he knew this was not true.  The planners were right, the board were just a bunch of railway enthusiasts with no ambition to expand the site into a thriving and successful business, they were happy to come in on weekends and put their boiler suits and oily railway issue caps on, smoke roll up cigarettes, drink large tin mugs of builders tea and get covered in grease and coal dust.  Stan was initially spitting feathers when the final rejection letter first arrived but he was sort of over it now, after all this was the third attempt they had made to lever major funding into Henllan and he was getting used to failure.

The rain was miraculously holding off and, even though it was quite chilly, everybody was happy.  Stan had booked a Zydeco band called Flaky Jake and the Steaming Locos for entertainment and they were busy setting up their kit on the raised platform next to the refreshment hut.  Frank and a couple of his mates from school had rigged up some stage lights and when the band started a quick sound check the lights bathed the whole stage area in a deep red glow.  Frank looked up from his burger flipping and was very pleased indeed with the effect.  They had hung a few white cardboard cut-outs of stars, moons, skulls and Celtic symbols against a black backdrop and the whole thing looked spooky and magical.

Stan strolled across the yard through the thronging, blood splashed, axe wielding, broomstick waving children and loped up onto the stage.  He took the microphone in his hand and said, “Good evening everybody, welcome to the annual Teifi Valley Railway Halloween party, it is so great to see you here in such numbers.  The ghost train will run in about an hour’s time, after which we will judge the fancy dress competition.  That will be followed by more music from our band, who have travelled here all the way from London, but first they will play a few suitably devilish songs to get us in the mood so please give a great big hand for Flaky Jake and the Steaming Locos…”.

All the children started cheering as Jake stepped out onto stage with his accordion followed by the rest of the band, guitarists, sax player and drummer.

“Hello Henllan.” Jake said, “We’d like to open up with our Zydeco version of that old Boris Picket number “The Monster Mash”, hit it boys.”, and with that the band launched into a blistering swampy version of the great horror rock classic.  The children went wild and started cavorting in the most ecstatic way, after all it was true to say that Henllan had not had any rock and roll for at least fifteen years, ever since the woodland theatre had deteriorated into the undergrowth.  Stan still had it in mind to resurrect the open air amphitheatre in the woods and it was on the pile with all the other dream projects he had sitting on his desk.

Stan stood by the side of stage looking out over the crowd and he had a warm glow inside.  This was a success, for a change, and he calculated that the event was going to make a profit of at least a couple of grand.  His eyes roamed across the audience and he started looking at the costumes.  “People are inventive.” he thought.  There was a young man wearing full hospital surgery green overalls with cap and mask covered in spatters of blood and with a selection of blood covered plastic tools hanging from a belt, next to him was what could only be described as a cross between a vampire and the mummy, also covered in fake blood.  Between them they were wheeling a blood drip stand with a genuine blood transfusion bottle hanging from it filled with red wine.  Every so often they took the plastic tube dangling from the bottle, let out fiendish yells before opening the catheter at the end of the tube and taking a deep swig of wine each.  Stan had them down as contenders in the competition straight away.   He looked across to the far side of the stage and there stood what he thought was the best get up for the evening. A tall man with very long thick red curly hair stood wearing what looked like a matted goat skin secured on to his body with plaited leather thongs in classic Bronze Age style.  He had tattoos all over his arms and legs and also on his cheeks.  He was leaning on an intricately carved stick with large bulbous knobbly bit on the end.  Stan thought it looked like a large shillelagh that would do serious damage if it ever got used in anger.  Hanging from his side was a two foot gold coloured sword which looked as if it had fancy engraving on the blade and a jewel encrusted handle with a solid silver hilt.  Circling around his biceps were two reddish golden armlets in the shape of dragons. “This guy has splashed the cash on the props here.” he mused.  However, it was not the weaponry, the jewellery or the tattoos that made him stand out from the rest of the crowd, it was the blue dye that covered every inch of his skin.  This was a proper make up job and it made the guy look every inch like an early Celtic warrior. Stan was convinced. He was the winner.

The band played on and everybody had a great time, every time someone shouted out the name of their favourite Halloween song the band started playing it.  Stan knew he would book them again, they were pros.  At nine o’clock the steam engine pulled out of the engine shed and everyone knew the ghost train was ready to roll up the track to the halt at Shaky Bridge.  After a further ten minutes the five carriages were attached to the old narrow gauge mining engine and it pulled alongside the platform.  The band played their final song at the end of the first set, Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs’ scary number “Little Red Riding Hood”.  Stan stepped onto the stage again, “OK everybody, all aboard the ghost train.”

More cheering came from the audience and everybody made their way over to the platform.  The carriages were all decked out with artificial cobwebs and larger hairy spiders and Stan had rigged up a speaker in each carriage through which the eerie sounds of people wailing and screaming could be heard.  A couple of small children started crying but Stan easily consoled them with a couple of chocolate chomp bars he carried with him for just this very happening.

The train driver pulled the chord for the train’s whistle and let out a long blast followed by two short ones and train slowly pulled out of the station.  The train track to Shaky Bridge was only just over a mile long and so travelled very slowly in order to make the journey take longer. Alongside the railway in the trees and bushes Stan and Frank had been busy and there were life size monsters and ghosts hidden in them, with lights that flashed as the train slowly went past, and the scariest object was the body swinging from a rope on a tall sycamore tree.  Also Stan had enlisted the help of a dozen children from the local school who wore black body suits with luminous skeleton designs appliquéd on them.  These kids lay deadly still as the train drew alongside them and as soon as some of the kids started shouting out “Look at the skeletons, Look at the skeletons.” they all jumped up and started dancing about.  This was always a winner and everybody was laughing as the bones kept on shaking and jiggling as they ran alongside the train as it pulled into the little station by the waterfall at Shaky Bridge.

Arlene was waiting on the platform with a giant sack and all the children got off the train and queued up for their little trick or treat bags.  The adults were glad to see Frank there dispensing cups of tea from a giant urn set up at the far end of the platform.  Stan rolled himself a cigarette and walked down to the end of the train and was slowly smoking in a very contented way when he saw the blue warrior open the gate to a footpath and make his way down to the underside of the bridge.  This was not allowed and Stan followed him to see what he was up to.  By the time Stan caught up with him the warrior was underneath Shaky Bridge, by the side of the Neolithic leet that drew water along to an ancient encampment in the forest.

Stan shouted out “Hoy, you. What are you doing down here?  It’s unsafe in the dark.  You can easily lose your footing and slip into the stream here.  Please, come back to the platform.”

The startled blue man turned and looked at Stan, staring into his eyes with a fierce look on his face, then, turning, he took a leap across the stream. It was a rushing torrent as there had been nonstop rain for the previous six weeks and there was a lot of mud and leaves on the bank.  As the warrior leapt he slipped on the mud, only just making it across and, as he landed, the short sword eased from his belt and fell into the raging water.  The warrior hauled himself up onto the opposite bank, turned to face Stan and, shaking his club as he let out a threatening roar, he slowly disappeared into thin air.  Stan stood agog for a moment then went back to the platform.

The following day he told Frank his story and they went back to the leet.  The stream had slowed down quite a lot and Stan looked down into the water.  He saw something glinting there and leapt in with all his clothes on.  Frank was astonished as he pulled out the sword.

Two months later the chieftain’s sword sold for a record breaking ten million pounds as the finest Neolithic weapon ever found.  The railway’s share of the treasure trove meant that there would be some jobs in Henllan after all.