England's Bonny Bride  (poem)
by David W Westwood

Glimmering Glasgow, pride of the river Clyde
Will you be forever England's Scottish bride
Remembering Queen Mary, who gave her head too
Bring together the red, white and blue
In the union of marriage, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Island too
This poem is short
This poem is sweet
This poem says, Scotland,  England secretly love you.

(c) copyright David W Westwood 1982

Heartbeat  (1993)
By
David Westwood
1993
 
“Oh no..!” shrieked Mildred.  Horrified she sat up in bed and put her hand to her heart; the pounding in her chest stopped.
 
“Fred! Fred!” she called out in the darkness.  Mildred then listened to the silence, as she waiting for her husband to stir from his sleep in the next room.
 
“Calm yourself, it was just a nightmare,” she said aloud, reaching for the bedside cabinet.  Her fingers fumbled in the dark for her bottle of heart tables. 
 
“There…” she muttered, grasping the bottle for a sense of security.
 
For a moment Mildred recalled her nightmare.  In her dream she had taken her tablets to fight off the pain in her chest.  “Fred!” she had called out, as her heart took its last beat.  It was just a nightmare,” she assured herself, her thoughts returning to the present.
 
“Where is that silly old fool – Fred!” Mildred called again.  “He must be in one of his deep sleeps,” she concluded.
 
She released the bottle of tablets and reached for the bedside lamp.  The switch clicked as it was pressed but the room remained in darkness.  “The light bulbs gone, that’s all,” she muttered to herself, dismissing the feeling that there was something wrong.
 
Delirious and tired, Mildred climbed clumsily out of bed and made her way in the direction of the door.  She ran her hands across the wall to the main light switch.  Pressing the switch, she gasped with horror, “the power’s off!”
 
The thought that there might be an intruder in the house crossed her mind.  “My old heart will never take this,” her quiet fearful voice came.
 
Opening the bedroom door, Mildred’s imagination toyed with her as she stepped onto the landing.  She felt her way to the door of the next bedroom.
 
Nervous on the edge, she listened for the signs of an intruder but there was nothing, not even the sound of Fred snoring.  The creaking of the floor boards, beneath her feet and the ticking of the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs, seemed to magnify though the silence.
 
As Mildred crept into Fred’s bedroom, she cursed the day that she had used his heaving snoring as an excuse for moving into the spare room.
 
“Fred...?” Mildred said softly, afraid of alerting any nearby intruder to her presence.  She moved quietly over to the curtains.  Pulling them back, the light from a street lamp outside the window flooded in.  The illumination of the room brought Mildred another terrible shock.  Fred was not their; his bed had not been slept in.
 
Involuntarily she brought her hand to her heart and waited a brief moment for the sharp pain which usually followed such a sudden shock.  On this occasion, Mildred was spared the agony.
 
Mildred had dreaded telling Fred, she did not want him anymore and wanted a divorce.  His reaction to such news could be extremely unpredictable.  The empty bed and the thought he might have left her of his own accord, would have brought a smile to her face, where it not for the electric being off.  There was clearly something sinister going on.
 
For a moment she contemplated the idea that Fred had found out about her love affair with Herbert Simpson.
 
“Fred loves this house to much to leave it,” Mildred thought, crossing the room to the wardrobe.  She opened its doors to reveal his clothes.
 
“He’s trying to frighten me,”…her thought’s continued.  “The silly old fool’s turned off the electric.  He want’s to play games?”
 
Now convinced that there was no intruder in the house and that the only persons she had to confront was her husband.  Mildred’s fear dissipated.
 
Feeling more confident she walked towards the bedroom door.  “Fred, you old fool..,” she said in aloud domineering voice.  “What are you playing at?”
 
After many years of marriage, Mildred felt as is she hardly knew her husband at all.  Over the years his character had changed so much that they had drifted apart.  She was left wondering what he would do next.
 
As she hurried down the stairs, Mildred almost expected him to pounce on her from the darkness.
 
Trying her inclination, she opened the cupboard under the staircase.  On finding the mains box, she flicked the switch.  There was sudden buzz of power.
 
In the light her search of the downstairs of the house began.  The lounge and the dining room where as they should be; everything seemed normal but there were no signs of Fred,
A bottle of herbal tablets on the kitchen table was her only clue.  Picking up the bottle, she examined it and it contents.  The tablets looked just like her own heart tablets.
 
“Why divorce me and take half of everything, when he can bump me off and have it all,” Mildred utter softly under her breath.  The idea of Fred wanting to murder her seemed almost unbelievable but there was both a motive and evidence.
Pacing back and forth across the kitchen, Mildred considered the amazing idea, that her nightmare might have been a psychic vision; a warning from the sub-conscious.
 
Even the electric being switch off, suddenly began to make more sense, as her eye’s glanced around the kitchen at the fitted units and tiled floor.  Everything carried Fred’s D.I.Y stamp.  He had long formed the habit of turning of the electric when leaving the house, even it just for a few hours.  He was paranoid about losing his home to fire.
 
“He thinks he’s left me to die.  He can’t have the house burn down before he finds my lifeless body,” said Mildred to herself. 
 
Exchanging heart tablets for herbal ones, to make death look natural, had been done so many times in the films and books.  She felt please with herself, that she had woken to discover his evil plan.
 
Mildred felt anger, horror and amusement at Fred’s malicious activities.  For a moment, she considered phoning the Police, but then dismissed the idea.  After all her belief that Fred was planning on murdering her, would be very difficult to prove.  ”I don’t need the Police to teach him a lesion, I can do it myself,” she laughed, unforgiving.
 
With the light of early morning coming in through the windows, she returned to the mails and switched off the power.
 
The sound of the key in the back door triggered her fiendish plan into actions.  Mildred ran quickly and quietly up the stairs.
 
“I’ll lie down on the bed and play dead,” she sniggered.  “That old fool’s heat is no better than mine.  When I jump upon him, he’ll be the one going out of here in a coffin.
 
Mildred could hear Fred talking to himself.  Stood by the bedroom door, she listened.  “Mildred thinks she’s going to make a fool of me – carrying off with Herbert Simpson while I’m at work.  I’m not losing my home to him,” he mumbled on.
 
Mildred could hardly contain her amusement, as she heard his footsteps coming up the staircase.  “What a way to end a marriage.  Herbert, me and this mortgage free house,” she thought, opening the bedroom door and hurrying inside.
 
A ray of sunlight came through a crack in the curtains.  Cast across the bed, it gave Mildred her final shock.  Her nightmare had been no premonition but a reality; she looked down on her dead body.
 
Suddenly her vision became blurred, as she began to lose contact with the real worlds; she recalled her nightmare and her last heartbeat.
ends
(c) copyright David W Westwood 1993

Run Away Chris (1993)
By
David W Westwood
 
            “The car won’t move; I’m snowed in the cottage.  I did phone in this morning…”
            “I got your messages,” Doctor Hodden’s stern voice came down the phone; “I ‘m calling on a somewhat more important matter.”
            “Oh…what is it?” replied Christine politely.  She glanced up at the ceiling with despair.
            “One of your patients has escaped.  Due to the weather we’ve been left short staffed.”
            “Who is it?” she questioned anxiously.
            “Chris Peterson.”
            Her blood ran cold at his name.
            “We’ve notified the Police in Cranfield but they seem to be having problems with the weather too.  I am worried he’ll freeze to death out there in the snow.”
            “Any other man would, but not him.”
            “He must be going somewhere.  You’re his Psychiatrist, have you any ideas?”
            She knew all too well where he was going.  For a moment Christine was struck dumb.  After an awkward moment she spoke.  “He’ll be looking for me.”  She recalled having told Christopher that she lived near the village of Frithwood.  What a fool she had been, he knew where to look for her
            “Seems like he has developed an infatuation for you,” said Doctor Hodden, cynically.  “This is what happens when you have beautiful young women around dangerous men.”
            Christine frowned at his sexist comment. Doctor Hodden was a dinosaur.  He was old enough to be her grandfather and had out dated attitudes and ideas.
            “Can you get to the village for help?”  Doctor Hodden questioned.
            “I’m not sure, it’s over a mile through the blizzard and it’s getting dark.”
            “Under no circumstance must you confront him in the dark.  In the light he is difficult enough but in the dark, he is the devil.
            “I know all too well what he’s like.” Christine’s professional composure gave way to her true feelings as her senior rang off.
            It was common for strong winds to bring down the power cables.  To her relief the gloomy hall was illuminated.
            The next hasty move was to lock the front door.  She then headed on into the lounge where a log fire burnt.
            Nerves on edge, Christine rushed around putting on the light and drawing the curtains.  She then went on to light the kitchen and so on around the cottage.
            “I know he’ll find me,” she said aloud. 
            On her return to the lounge, pulling back the curtains and peering out the window, the snow on the ground appeared undisturbed.
            “He’ll go to the village to find me,” her deep thoughts uttered from near still lips, as if she were speaking to an invisible friend.  Then the thought came to her, she could phone the village Police Station.  The idea took hold of her and with feet of optimism she headed for the hall and the telephone.
            She picked up the phone and with in an instant, her thoughts that salvation were dashed.  The line was dead.  “No, no it can’t be him.  The winds have brought down the lines,” she said it in a loud reassuring voice,  as if she was trying put any doubt out of her mind.
            Night had moved in, like the wings of a great black bat, folding around the cottage and expelling the day.  Christine returned to the lounge to wait for morning.
            The ticking from the wall clock paced the hours away.  Back and forth the time piece’s pendulum swung, like a caged animal might pace across it cage in some zoo.
            In almost unendurable silence, she sat mortified by the coal fire.  Her mind drifted with the passing of time, she recalled her first meeting with Christopher.  It was her first day at Cranfield Maximum Security hospital, for the criminally insane. 
            “I am Doctor Christopher Peterson,” a tall, blond hair man had said.  “I hope you will let me show you around. “
            He was extremely handsome and she felt instantly flatter by his gentle manners.  His pretty pale blue eyes had met with hers and he seemed so reassuringly normal.  It was later she learnt he had once been a promising Psychiatrist, but a psychopathic disorder meant his vulnerable patients soon became with victims.
            As the evening dragged on Christine kept up her guard.  Her body was tired and her sharp senses began to distort with every sound.  She listened to the silence and though it began to hear things that were not there. 
            It was the banging of a window on the upper floor that startled her.  She reached for the fireside poker and with breaths of constricted anxiety Christine went to investigate.
            She stood at the bottom of the staircase looking up.  “Christopher..?”  Suddenly a strong wind howled through and the cottage and the light went out.  She recalled that in the dark he was the devil.
            Christine dropped the poker with shock and brought her hands to her mouth as it to stop a scream.
            She moved slowly towards the front door, grabbing her coat from its peg; she unlocked the door and made her escape into the drifting snow.  As she ran away from the cottage, she was too frightened to look back.  Afraid she would see him following her.
            Salvation came after a long hard sprint.  The village was quiet, with it inhabitancy shut away in their homes and then the Police station.   Christine stumbled through the door of the village Police station.  She found there was only one Police officer on duty.
            The middle aged Policeman stood behind a desk.  Christine focused in on the single candle in front of him.  Its flamed danced dangerously in the draft room, casting phantoms into the corners.
            “Help me!” she blurted out.
            “Alright, calm down and catch your breath.  Everything is going to be fine.”
            “There’s no time for that,” she panicked.  “I am being followed.”
            “Allow me to help you with this,” a familiar voice came.  Turning Christine saw Christopher standing behind her.  Seeing him she felt like running but there was nowhere left to run.
            “I was sat behind the door when you came in.  I asked the Police Officer to help me find you but now he won’t have to, because you have found me.”
            “Don’t do this,” she screamed, as the realisation that he had never been to the cottage, took hold of her.  She had run right to him.
            “Think someone’s chasing you?”  Turning to the Police Officer he continued, “…the effects of schizophrenia.”
            “I know this woman’s face,” intervened the Police Officer.  “Would you take a seat Doctor?  I have a few questions for her.”
            Christine noticed the security badge Christopher had clipped on his coat.  He had changed her photograph for one of himself.  The badge read, Doctor Chris Road. 
            “You don’t understand Officer, this woman’s dangerous.
            A battle of wits followed, Christine claiming to be Doctor Roads and Christopher insisting she was an out patent of the hospital. 
            “You’ve not been coming for your treatment Christine.”
            “If I was dangerous as you have said, why would I only be an out patent?”
            The Police Officer looked very thoughtful.  “That is an interesting observation, what is your answer?” he asked Christopher.
            The storm outside grew worse.  As the wind blow it entered the room, through a gap under the floor.  The candle flickered dangerously.
            Seeing her opportunity she seized Christopher by the arm and forced back his sleeve to expose a tattoo.  As sword with the name Christopher Peterson was written though the handle.
            The shadows settling around them and the light stabilized. He realised he had been defeated.  Christopher’s illness came to the fore as his character changed.
            “I am sorry, I love you,” he cried like a naughty child.
            “When he is like this I can do anything with him,” she explained to the bewildered Police officer.
            “Can I do anything?” asked the Police officer.
            “Do you have a cell we can hold him in until we can contact the hospital?”
            “Yes” replied the Police officer.
            Confident she had won, Christine took hold of Christopher by the hand.  Then the wind rushed into the room again and the candle blow out.  In the dark he was the devil.
The end.

(c) copyright David W Westwood 1993

The Last Laugh (1993)
By
David W Westwood
(This short story inspired my novel, Deep Fried - constipation and purgatory.

“Hello there Gwen,” came the annoying high pitched voice of Minnie Marshall.
Looking up from her drink, Gwen saw the old lady sitting at the bar.  Oh no, she thought as Minnie made her way across the lounge.
“That’s a nice frock, it’s got plenty of colour,” said Minnie, as she sat down at the table.  “I’m going on the orange juice myself,” she continued, her eyes fixed on Gwen’s Gin and Tonic.
A smile was the only reply Gwen could manage.
“I was told you’d put on weight but that hair styles nice.”
Biting her lip, Gwen frowned at the comment.  What else could she expect from her mother’s best friend?
“Guess who I say yesterday?”
“Surprise me,” snapped Gwen, breaking her silence.
“Hattie your mother, that’s who.”
Minnie’s remark brought a smile to Gwen’s face.  “My mother passed on two weeks ago,” Gwen replied.
“Well it is nice to see you’re not upset by it,” said Minnie, sympathetically.
There was a moment’s pause before Minnie made another polite attack.  “She’s looking ever so well.  I’ve never seen so much colour in her cheeks.  Remember how ill she looked when she was in hospital? – of course you don’t you never went to see her.”
“I have to be going,” said Gwen getting to her feet.
“Well she left that brother of yours, Raymond isn’t it? – yes she left him alright with the eighteen thousand pounds.”
Gwen’s face became intense as she sat back down.
“What eighteen thousand?” she inquired.  “What are you talking about?”
“It’s in the bungalow and Raymond knows all about it,” Minnie replied.  “Pity you signed everything over to him.”
The blood in Gwen’s veins boiled.
“All mother had got was a home full of junk.”
“Mrs Morton knows more about it than I do.  She went with Raymond to the insurance company.”
“Insurance..!”
“I don’t want to miss my bus,” said Minnie, hastily getting to her feet.
As Minnie walked away, Gwen’s thoughts because frantic; she’s making it up to annoy me.  Mother was so mean she made Scrooge look like Santa Clause.  Mother had not insurance, she thought.
With her afternoon in the pub ruined, Gwen decided to get the bus home.  The thought of eighteen thousand pounds tormented her mind.  As the bus made its way down the High Street her mind ran riot.
“A lifetime of saving..?” she mumbled to herself.
No longer being able to stand it, Gwen alighted from the bus and made her way to her brother’s home.  If I’ve been took for a fool there’ll be trouble, she thought as she approached the house.
Much to Gwen’s dismay, the door was answered by the trim appearance of her sister-in-law, Ann.
“Hello Gwen, how nice to see you,” she said cheerfully.
“I’ve come to talk to Raymond,” explained Gwen, feeling inadequate in the presence of her sister-in-law.
“I’m afraid Ray’s not in, he’s taken Marie into town to her a new school uniform,” replied Ann, “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“I was talking to Minnie Marshall today.  Mother’s been to see her,” said Gwen, inviting herself in to the house.  “She seemed to think mother looks healthier dead than she did when she was alive.”
“Oh! – how strange,” replied Ann, as she lead the way into the lounge.
“Did mother leave any money?”
“I thought Ray had explained, there were only her personal belongings.”
“Well, you paid for the funeral so you’re welcome to her junk.”
Although Ann was annoyed with Gwen’s attitude she maintained her pleasant composure.
“Would you like a seat Gwen?”
“It’s not a social visit,” Gwen replied bluntly.
Stepping out of the house a thought crossed Gwen’s mind.  “Can I have the keys to the bungalow?  I’d like to see the place before it’s cleared out.”
After a thoughtful moment, Ann reluctantly agreed.
On entering the bungalow Gwen remember the last worlds of her mother, “I’ll have the last laugh.”
Hurrying to open the curtains the light flooded in exposing a room full of old furniture.
Looking around the room, Gwen could still feel her mother’s presence.  The thought of being unwelcome did nothing to deter her investigation.  Removing her coat, Gwen began searching through the old writing desk; she examined every piece of paper.
The afternoon dragged on as Gwen continued her search.  There must be something, an insurance policy, bank statement, or some other evidence.  Mother was notorious for hiding things, thought Gwen, as she searched high and low.
Three house later, the lounge having been turned upside down, with papers strewn everywhere, pictures taken from their frames and the furniture in disarray, Gwen headed for the kitchen.
With thoughts of the Bahamas on her mind, Gwen continued her fiendish search.
“I’ll tidy everything up afterwards, she said aloud, her hand delving into every cupboard and draw.
It was in the fading light of early evening that her eyes rested on the small china teapot, sitting on the top shelf of a cupboard.  A lump in her throat, Gwen recalled buying it her mother out of her first week’s wages.
Gwen was oblivious to the frail outline of a woman standing in the corner of the gloomy kitchen.  A pair of eyes studied her, as the soul to which they belonged searched for a reason to forgive.
Memories of a happy childhood days softened Gwen’s features.  Then Harold came along.
“I’ll never let you marry him,” her mother had screamed.  “They are family of criminals and they will bring you down to their level.”
As Gwen had gone to the altar, her mother’s prediction had become a reality.
Not one to let sentiment get the better of her, she dismissed her thoughts and continued with the rape and pillage of the bungalow.  The power to the property having been turned off, Gwen lit a candle.
“Money, money, money,” she sang anxiously.
Finally her dream of a Caribbean cruise for Harold had herself, faded as her search came to an end.
“I could do with a drink,” she said, looking at the destruction around her.
Minnie had said something about insurance, eighteen thousand at the bungalow, Gwen recalled thoughtfully.  There was just one last hope, one last place to look.  It had to be here somewhere.
The atmosphere became strange as Gwen dragged piece of furniture out of the bungalow and into the garden.  Exhaustion overcome by determination, she took an axe to the furniture.
As each item met its fate, Gwen’s hopes began to fade again.  Tormented to near insanity, she set about the final item, the writing desk.
“Hey- what do you think you are doing?”
Shocked, Gwen looked up to see the resident of the bungalow next door, peering over the fence.  Suddenly a second face appeared; it was Minnie Marshall with Ivy Morton, the neighbor.
“Lucky we came back from bingo when we did,” said Ivy.
“That furniture belongs to Raymond- it is criminal damage,” replied a horrified Minnie.
For the first time in her life, Gwen was speechless.
“You go phone the Police Minnie, while I keep an eye on her,” instructed Ivy.  “Lucky thing Raymond got out that insurance policy.  Antique that furniture is – worth eighteen thousand pounds and you smash it up.”
“Antique!” shrieked Gwen.
“That’s right, your mother told Raymond to sell it, but she told me to get him to insure it.  It was as if she knew he’d get the insurance money off it,” Ivy explained.
Gwen dropped the axe and put her hands over her ears.  Her mother’s words ringing in her head, deafening her.  “I’ll have the last laugh my girl, you’ll see;  I’ll have the last laugh.”
The end

(c) copyright David W Westwood 1993