Worcestershire Life Short Story Competition in conjuction with the Worcestershire Literary Festival

By Worcestershire Life on July 13th 2011

Karen Henshall of Droitwich Spa was declared the winner of the Worcetershire Life short story competition ran in conjunction with the Literary Festival. Karen and runners-up, Suzanne Nevitt of Worcester and Julie Winstone of Cropthorne, Pershore celebrated at a tea at Worcetershire County Cricket Club. All three stories can be read below.

Doorways by Karen Henshall

Her first thought was that you could live somewhere practically all your life and yet it could still take you completely by surprise.

Normally, Audrey didn’t have much reason for using this road, coming back into Worcester this way through Witley, but now, returning home from a journey she’d hoped never to have to make, she couldn’t believe she had no memory of ever seeing this before. Surely she couldn’t have missed the bright golden dome of a church top shining through the trees? It dazzled in the sunshine, irresistibly drawing the eye, and then, as the car rounded the bend, she saw what lay alongside: the roof and columns of some great palatial mansion, dramatically outlined against the sky.

The scene vanished as suddenly as it had appeared as the road turned once more, the trees swallowing it up. But it was a sight which instantly called to mind another time of splendour and glamour. Of dreams and fairytales.

For a moment, she was sixteen again: a lonely, awkward adolescent with far too much hair and rather too many ideas, but never too much imagination. When she knew very little about anything, really, except that all doors, all avenues and ambitions, were still open to her and lying out there waiting. She didn’t really fit into her own skin or know quite what to do with herself, and she wondered sometimes if she ever would have, but chance brought a pale, freckle-faced girl called Ellen into her life and thereby changed it forever. Now there was someone else who understood.

Ellen never would have allowed her to miss this. Even over fifty years on from when they’d first met, Ellen believed that only the ordinary got to have adventures and become extraordinary, that you should always walk fearlessly into the mist and see what was lying out there, and that you certainly didn’t drive past something that was practically on your doorstep and go home to make a solitary dinner as though nothing had happened.

Audrey, though… Sensible, practical Audrey, with her grey hair cut very short and neat now, was aware that the afternoon was growing late, that her back ached from all the driving and sitting down waiting, and that if she hoped to make her weekly dance classes at all then now was probably not the time for a sudden diversion.

You are such a wimp, said a familiar-sounding voice in her head. You can do that daft dancing of yours any time you like. Haven’t I said a million times that if you don’t explore, you never discover?

So it was for Ellen’s sake that she turned the car at the sign that said Witley Court. And almost certainly for her own as well.

Once inside, she politely refused the offer of a guide book from the girl in the shop – you didn’t spoil a story by reading the ending first, after all – but she rather reluctantly agreed to take a small plan of the grounds. She’d thought she was something of an authority on the many historic houses in the area, but apparently not.

“It’s been a quiet day here and you’ll almost have it all to yourself at this time.” The girl had pretty dark eyes, and was managing to smile quite cheerfully at the tiresome woman who kept turning down all offers of assistance put to her. “The tea shop’s still open for another hour or so and I can vouch for the coffee and walnut cake.”

Audrey usually liked a slice of Victoria sponge. Or a cream tea. She and Ellen had knocked back a fair few of those over the years, with Ellen always moaning if the scones didn’t come up to scratch or if the cream portion was verging on stingy.

“It’s so different here. Special, really.” The girl was still radiating enthusiasm. “It probably wouldn’t be the same if you could go round all the rooms, you know? It’s as though you can fill in what’s missing with your own ideas. But it’s a long walk round and you’ll be glad of that tea!”

Cream teas were meant for sharing, though. Not for eating alone…

“Enjoy your visit,” said the girl, no doubt automatically, but she looked as though she meant it. Audrey wondered how old she was – mid-twenties, perhaps – and wanted to tell her how fast time went. That you were never given quite long enough.

She didn’t, because while you could get away with being mildly eccentric in public, embarrassing was for when it was just you and the cat who’d laugh at anything as long as he had his head in a bowl of tuna. Instead Audrey found herself outside, looking at the signpost which promised interest in all directions but deciding, as she’d come for the house, that that was the way to go. The path took her downhill, through tall rhododendron bushes and on towards what Audrey thought of as a lake and the map in her hand rather modestly referred to as a pool.

Audrey paused to take it all in, saying hello to a man with a little red cap and jacket – pillar box-like - who overtook her as she stood there. He, at least, had the good sense to have a camera with him. But never mind that; Ellen and she had always believed in words, had told stories late at night to each other as young girls under a silent, star-strewn sky, and it would be a good test to see if she could still bring to life all that she was seeing here. That mass of chattering blackbirds in the trees for a start, as though someone had just opened up a pie.

She couldn’t wait any longer to see the house, sensing it waiting just around the corner. And so it was: even bigger than she’d imagined, perfectly positioned to command views in all directions. At first, all she could think was how full of light it must have been with those tall, arching windows and the endless rooms on two floors. Easy to hear the swirl of full length skirts and the click of heels on marble, see embossed invitations coming through the door, feel the desire to attend a party here and dance the night away with the wealthy and famous. Years ago, the conversations and arguments and laughter of a large family living within these walls had all left their echoes in the stone.

Years ago… Why not now?

Audrey looked up at the house, feeling she was back in one of those can’t-quite-take-it-all-in moments. Like when Ellen had first told her she was ill. Ellen had laughed her loud, contagious laugh as though ridiculing the very idea of anything even daring to take her on in open combat, let alone creep up on her unawares. Then she’d carried on every bit as pale and as tough-as-nails as she’d always been. But all the while they’d both known they were waiting. That something was very wrong.

There was something wrong here, too.

Even allowing for the bright sun she was shading her eyes against, it was hard to not see the obvious, only to wonder how she had. The house was a ruin. She’d been told as much back at the entrance, and she hadn’t listened. It was a golden empty shell of what once was vivid and full of life. No wonder there was so much light streaming through for there was nothing to keep it out.

She walked rather blindly through to the other side, coming out onto a gallery which looked out towards a spectacular-looking fountain with a necklace of gardens lying all around. All jaw-droppingly beautiful, along with the farmland and countryside which stretched beyond as far as the eye could see. But she urgently needed to sit down so she headed for the nearest bench, not caring that the small man with the little red cap on his head, the one who’d passed her by earlier, was sat at the other end.

At least she didn’t care until he asked, “Are you all right?”

Drat the man: why couldn’t he let her be? But, of course, she was the one who’d apparently come and joined him. He probably thought she was keen for a chat.

“Oh, yes. I’m fine.” It was the British way, wasn’t it - to insist all was fine when in fact you were anything but. It had certainly always been her way. Ellen and she had argued for hours about whether sensible, polite heroines were ever the ones who saved the day in books or films, or merely ended up as the dependable best friend with the dull boyfriend, the predictable life and the least interesting lines.

It wasn’t like that though, being the best friend. Life wasn’t written to order and sometimes all the lines worth saying were yours.

“No,” she said suddenly, changing her mind. “No, I’m not. I – well, it sounds a little crazy, I’m sure, but I’ve only just realized the house is a ruin.”

“Ah.” He was looking at her with interest, but it wasn’t in a I’ve got a right one here kind of way. “You were surprised, then?”

“I’d been puzzling over why I’d never heard of a great house like this in this part of the county. And I turned down the guide book,” she added quickly, in defence of the girl with the pretty eyes who’d tried so hard to be helpful to her. Along with the audio tour, and anything in fact that might spoil my preconceived ideas that this was a sign, a good omen on what’s been a terrible day.

He sat back and nodded, but seemed in no hurry to say anything else. “My wife’s family come from round here,” he said, after a minute or two of staring straight ahead at the fountain. “She loves coming to Witley – she’s in hospital for a hip operation so you might say I’m here for both of us today – and she’d tell you all about this place. How it was nearly destroyed by fire a long time ago, how it was all set to be knocked down several times over, and how it nearly crumbled away by itself as well. But it’s still here because people cared enough to want it to be. It might be fancy on my part, but underneath all the grand bits this feels like a happy place now.”

It does?

“All these people coming to see it, after all it has been through.” He was smiling a little now, almost to himself, the smile creasing his face into even more lines. But they suited him. “Right behind where we’re sitting here - that was the ballroom. There’s a picture in the middle of what it looked like and the dances and parties that were held here.” He pointed to the other side, the smile still in place. “That’s the kitchen, which my wife always says you could fit ours into about a dozen times over. And you should see when the fountain here is turned on and imagine it all lit up at night. Everyone stood outside and watching. Can you imagine what it was like?”

Audrey listened, looking back over her shoulder at the house. Now she was past the first shock, all she was conscious of was the sense of peace here again. All those lives the house had once been part of, not just the families who lived there but those who worked for them as well.

“So what brought you here today?” he asked.

Audrey nearly said “Two young girls who’d have loved this place, and made up so many stories about it,” but she owed him more than that. So she tried to explain a little about a long friendship that had survived good times and bad, though there was much she couldn’t bring herself to say. Not about the friend who today had been moved from her home to a hospice near to her family, nor that it felt like something relied upon for years was breaking down and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.

“I see,” said the man, and his eyes weren’t looking at her so much with sympathy, which she felt might have finished her off altogether, as with understanding. “She did a lot for you then.”

Oh, yes. She pushed me and she encouraged me, and she almost bullied me out of my shyness, and it was because of her, really, that I got my first job, and certainly because she insisted that I had to learn to speak out that I managed to ask my future husband out on our very first date. She’s a terror when she’s sure she’s right, which she always thinks she is, and she never knows when to leave something alone, but her whole life is being alive and relishing every minute.

“And you must have done a lot for her, too,” her companion added gently.

“Well, I never really thought—“ Audrey stopped, thrown, for a moment, by his words. And then she stopped thinking and knew the answers.

I thought I showed her little things, but who’s to say they didn’t turn out quite big? It was me who suggested we try Greece for a holiday, and look what that led to and the countries we’ve seen with our families. Me who showed her there were other kinds of music, not just her kind; who taught her to drive when she couldn’t pass her test, and who never told anyone she was scared to death like a little child of thunderstorms. I showed her that quiet people have just as much to say as everyone else, and that there were no limits to the places her imagination and mine, together, could go to.

And the laughs we had, which is what I always think of first. We’ve laughed through grief and over the daftest things imaginable, like when we both tried to learn to dance. Only she had two left feet and, as she always did when she couldn’t do something brilliantly straight away, dismissed it as rubbish and not worth bothering about. She still laughed at herself though, and her attempts to waltz gracefully, nearly as much as I did.

Her companion was watching her, waiting. Audrey nodded, smiled. “We’ve had a lot of fun together.”

“I’m sure you have.” He stood up a little stiffly, glancing at his watch. “I must bid you farewell. It will be hospital visiting hours soon, and somehow my wife always knows if I haven’t been round the house with the hoover before I see her. It must be a female trait?”

Audrey laughed. They said goodbye and wished each other well, and then she was sitting there all alone, watching the shadows lengthen on the ground in front of her. Too late to try the tea shop now, but she’d come back and do that another day. Time to go for her as well, that nice girl and others would want to lock up soon and go back to their homes. If she hurried she could probably still make that dancing lesson, but she didn’t feel like hurrying anywhere right now.

What was it he’d said? You might say I’m here for both of us today.

She started to walk back up towards the house, stepping through the open doorway into what he’d said was once the ballroom. The light streamed through from all sides and above, touching Audrey, warming her. It definitely wouldn’t be the same with a roof on and the glass in. She could almost hear Ellen’s excited voice saying that it was the sort of room where, if you walked into it at the right time, under the right moon or arrangement of stars, then the world behind you would disappear and you’d find yourself in another one entirely.

Possibilities and dreams. Wasn’t that what they’d always believed in? Things that had no ending, but what they chose to make of them.

Doorways all around, which you only had to step through if you had the courage to do so.

Audrey spread her arms out and turned her face up towards the open roof of the waiting house, towards the sun and towards the light. Towards where great chandeliers would have once hung and a band played on the steps behind her. And then she spun round and danced for those two young girls whose friendship would always endure.

______________________________________________________________________

Telling Times by Julie Winstone

‘Pata ot!’

‘It’s not pasta and it’s not hot. It’s a sandwich!’

Darcey looked down in dismay at her cold lunch on the chipped fairy plate.

‘You like cheese!’ Rosa watched as the small child dismantled each carefully prepared bite of bread to remove its filling. She glanced up at the large, numberless clock on the buttermilk kitchen wall. What an impractical colour! Was that half past one or already half past two? James had spotted the clock last month, while on one of his numerous business trips to Edinburgh. True, it was stylish, but he didn’t have to decipher the hands several times each day.

Rosa’s attention was drawn back to Darcey by the crash of her plate on the cool terracotta tiles. Small crusts of brown bread fell with it. Rosa quickly scooped them up and placed them back on the wooden tray of the highchair. She knew what James would say about her lack of hygiene, but Darcey needed to learn to finish her meals.

‘Eat those and you can have some grapes.’

Darcey’s face brightened and she beamed a wide open smile, eyes gleaming. It was moments like these that made bearable the incessant emptying of cupboards, the fights to put on shoes, the debris of toys across the floor.

Just that morning Rosa had gone into the small village school to explain the red wax crayon on every page of William’s reading book. William had been distraught, cross with his younger sister and worried about Miss Berry’s reaction. Naturally the teacher was very understanding. This wasn’t the first such treatment of a school book, but Rosa had felt the critical eyes of others upon her.

It reminded her of the incident in January when the PTA had organised a competition to design new playground equipment. School had been closed for two days due to the snow and, after a morning sledging on the hill, Rosa had been pleased to have the task for William to focus upon. He had diligently drawn and coloured, sat at the worn pine kitchen table, but was then forced to submit the crumpled sheet of paper she had later fished out of the stainless steel flip-top bin. She’d also discovered several pieces of Lego, a soft rabbit and Darcey’s lost plastic milk cup. The Chair of Governors had been kind, awarding William second place and a Thomas the Tank Engine annual.

Still, such incidents only served to increase Rosa’s growing feeling of not fitting in. The locals in the picturesque village at the foot of Bredon Hill had welcomed her warmly enough: they were friendly, always smiling and saying ‘hello’, sometimes even commenting on the weather, but never more. Rosa was aware that her looks and clothes set her apart. She enjoyed a Saturday trip to Worcester town centre, ambling alone along the pedestrianised High Street, past the Guildhall and the cheap bright clothes of the chain stores. She didn’t want to dress like the others at the school gate; Mums today looked so, well, old.

Rosa had once related to James how different she felt, but he’d just told her not to worry. ‘The women are probably jealous of your lovely legs and the men too terrified of their wholesome, capable wives to do more than smile!’ he’d said with a laugh in his voice. His unsympathetic response was not altogether surprising; he was rarely out and about in the village and it was unusual for the two of them to speak of more than the children.

James had not been best pleased either when Rosa had announced a girls’ night out in Birmingham with some old student friends. She’d been a little apprehensive about the whole thing, especially as James often played tennis in Pershore Sunday mornings, but he’d agreed. He’d even suggested a trip to Ragley Hall with the children. Rosa’s eyebrows had risen unconsciously.

‘Don’t look like that, Rosa! I am capable of taking my children to the park, you know!’ James had snapped. Perhaps he cared more about the tennis match than he was letting on. He could definitely be more tense these days.

‘More grabe?’ Darcey pleaded, holding out her plate. Rosa’s mind was brought back to the present.

‘No, no more grapes, but if we’re quick we can go for a walk.’ Rosa checked that clock again. An hour to pick-up. She lifted Darcey from the sticky highchair and set off in search of coats. She stopped momentarily before the sash window in the long hallway. The low cloud of the morning had lifted from the top of Bredon Hill, taking with it the drizzle. Ideally Rosa would slip on a pair of sensible flowery wellies, the current footwear de rigueur of women of a certain age when out and about in the locality. She had nothing so practical and instead forced her feet into her new black boots. The laces were tiresome and the heel somewhat high for the hill but they’d do; besides she liked the way they lengthened her legs. She wiped cobwebs from the inside of Darcey’s ‘bee’ boots, trusting the spider was long-since gone. This house must be teeming with his family and friends, thought Rosa, as she surveyed the tell-tale grey lines across the ceiling.

Outside the air was still damp, but it felt good to be away from the demands of the home. The pale stone cottage was situated right on the outer edge of the village, a good ten minutes from the centre, but well placed for a stroll on the lower slopes with Darcey that afternoon. The house had at first seemed warm and homely with its low black beams and old fireplaces, but Rosa was beginning to find it suffocating.

‘Oss! Oss!’ Darcey made to run across the field, as Rosa caught hold of the hood of her brown raincoat, appropriately printed with dusky pink horses.

‘Yes, they’re lovely, but we’ll watch from here. They’re much bigger than us.’

The enthusiasm of youth! Rosa looked down at the grinning girl, stamping her feet and clapping at the sight of the impressive brown beasts.

‘That’s it!’ Rosa hadn’t meant to speak out loud. She looked around sharply, almost knocking Darcey over. There was no-one to hear her. Few people used this footpath after the rain; it quickly became waterlogged in the Spring. She mulled the words over in her mind. Enthusiasm of youth.

Rosa followed Darcey along the footpath, her step a little lighter. Darcey’s slow pace would normally have irritated her, but not today. She was content to saunter in the strained warmth of the March sunshine, listening to the clash of birdsong and catching the occasional glimpse of bluebells through the trees. A plan was starting to form in her mind. The decision was huge, but she was still young, she told herself.

Later that week she hummed as she drove out to Worcester. She’d have to be back in the morning for the school run, but for now she felt free. James had accepted it surprisingly well. He’d seen her growing unrest over the Winter months and wasn’t at all unhinged by her decisive words, brimming with implications for them all.

There would be some sadness of course: for all their demands she’d miss the children, and they her. They’d built up a good relationship over the last twenty months or so since Tina’s untimely death. William was now more sociable amongst his peers and Darcey willing to accept anyone who’d sit and read to her.

‘So we’re sure to be able to find a replacement,’ James had reassured her. ‘And we’ll only need a new nanny for a few months: I haven’t found the opportunity to tell you until now, but I’m planning to remarry in the Autumn. Fi’s an artist in Scotland; she specialises in clocks. Perhaps I’ll ask her to make you one to take home to Milan.’

Rosa had smiled warmly at him. ‘As long as it’s got numbers on it!’

______________________________________________________________________

The Tale of The Black Pears by Suzanne Nevitt

‘Smoking hot, piping hot, who knows what I’ve got in my pot!’

The refrain of the baked pear vendor comes wafting through my open casement and takes me straight back to the summer of 1575 and the visit to Worcester of Queen Elizabeth. I was but 10 summers when the great Queen came to visit our town. We have a new sovereign on the throne now and I will soon be like a shrivelled black pear myself but the memory of that day is as fresh as if it were yesterday.

“Bessie! Bessie! Come hither child, your father has news for us!”

My Mother called to me as I was picking flowers in the garden to brighten our table. My Mother’s voice sounded urgent so I gathered up my skirts and ran into the parlour shedding blooms as I hurried into the house.

“What news, Father?!” I exclaimed on seeing that Father’s face had tuned a vivid crimson hue in his haste to get home from the meeting of his Glovers’ guild.

“Wife, Daughter, indeed such tidings have I to impart that I can scarce comprehend them myself!’

“Then spit them out, husband, lest the excitement of withholding this news causes you an apoplexy!’

My Father, who knew that my Mother’s tongue was dipped in vinegar but belied a gentle nature, puffed himself up to his full height (which still fell short of Mother’s shoulders) and announced:

“I bring news from the Guild that our town is to be honoured with a visit from our gracious sovereign Queen Elizabeth who will arrive in Worcester on the 13^th day of August and stay in our fair city for seven days and nights”

My Mother’s voice was temporarily stilled as she pondered on my Fathers’ words but not for long. Within seconds she was plaguing my Father with lots of questions:

“How will she come? Whom will she meet? Where will she visit?”

My Father answered her probing with an ease borne of long practice and many years of maintaining marital harmony:

“Queen Elizabeth will ride from Hartlebury after her sojourn with the Bishop of Worcester. When she arrives within the city walls she will be welcomed by the High Bailiff. The Queen and her attendants will process up the Foregate and there will receive a speech of welcome. Her majesty’s procession will then proceed to the Cathedral, where the Queen will pay her respects to the tomb of her uncle, Prince Arthur. From thence the Queen will process to the Bishops’ Palace where she and her court will stay during her visit”.

My Father was a prominent master weaver and his business dealings had equipped him well to relate important news.

My Mother swooned with excitement:

“We will stand near the Fore Gate and see Queen Elizabeth enter the city – what joy shall be ours at seeing the Queen with our own eyes! I shall have to sew new gowns for Bessie and me. We do not have much time. Come Bessie! Up to the attic with me to look thought the linen chest. I have some ells of cloth that I have stored for such an occasion”.

The hour of dinner was upon us but Mother bade our maid to tarry a while before serving, such was her haste to begin the task of attiring us in a state to be fit for our queen.

My Father’s eyes wrinkled with amusement:

“I do declare you are more in a pother about her Majesty’s visit than the High Chamberlain!”

And so it was that within the month my Mother had polished all the silverware, applied beeswax to all the settles and chests and made two new gowns to bedeck ourselves in. Father’s contribution to the preparations had been to arrange for the white-liming of our house according to the Sheriff’s instructions. My Father commenting on such industry, exclaimed that we wouldn’t have gone to any more trouble if the Queen herself had been coming to take tea with us.

The day of the Queen’s arrival dawned at last, a bright, clear day. I got up at daybreak to perform my daily tasks and was ready to set out with Father and Mother, as the Cathedral bells struck the hour of nine, to get a good position near the Fore Gate where the Queen was due to enter the City around noon . It had been a pleasure to walk the short distance from our house in Friar Street as the streets which were normally knee deep in rubbish had been especially cleansed for the occasion.

By the time the sun was high in the sky I was on the point of expiring with pent up emotion and near suffocation as the throng pressed against me. At last I heard the drumming of horses’ hooves on the cobbles which were getting louder and louder as each minute passed. I stood on tiptoe to be sure of catching first sight of the procession. Then, there it was, a confusion of men, horses and bright colours. At its head, sitting regally astride her grey palfrey was the Queen of England! My Sovereign! I would swear that she looked straight at me as she passed by! The crowd as one knelt before her as she processed. A few paces up the Foregate, the procession wheeled to a halt in front of the High Bailiff, the Low Bailiff and the High Chamberlain. The Bailiffs kissed their newly gilded maces and proffered them to the Queen who courteously returned them. At this point in the proceedings, Mr Bell, who had been appointed by the City Fathers to make a speech of welcome, offered up an oratory of such eloquence that made the citizens of Worcester very proud.

When he had finished this fine piece, with one voice the crowd cried out:

“God save your Grace, God Save your Majesty!”

To this her majesty rejoined:

”I thank you, I thank you all”.

The High Bailiff then gave Mr Bell a purse containing £40 in sovereigns to present to the Queen. (I knew this because Father supped ale in the ‘Cross Keys’, with a fellow who was a clerk to the High Chamberlain).Her Majesty seemed delighted and thanked the Bailiff most graciously for the gifts.

In one great surge of humanity, we followed the Queen along the Foregate to the grass cross where a stage had been erected and a black pear tree planted in the Queen’s honour. When Queen Elizabeth caught sight of this tree, she was so pleased that she declared that the black pears should hence forth be included in the city’s coat of arms and be an emblem for our fair city.

The Queen and the crowd were then regaled with an hour of entertainment. My friend ‘s brother along with two other lads had been chosen to act in a pageant telling a story about Worcester long ago. The Queen listened to them most attentively and thanked them for their efforts.

The Queen’s procession then started up once more and as the light was now fading fast , we lit our lanterns and held them aloft to light the way to the Cathedral. There the Bishop and the Dean were waiting to receive her Majesty. They presented her with a purse of crimson velvet and she entered the Cathedral accompanied by magnificent singing and music played on cornets and sackbuts.

Now we could go no further but stood and waited in a great press of our fellow citizens at the West Door until the Queen and her party came out some while later.The Queen then processed a short way to the Bishop’s Palace where she was to make her court for the next seven days. Weary with the day’s excitements we headed home to bed dreaming of our Queen in all her glory.

*****

I tell you all this as a true and faithful record of what happened on that eventful day but there is a part of my tale that I have refrained from telling a living soul until now.

******

“Bessie! Bessie!”

Aloud hiss pierced my reverie as I lay in my chamber one evening in high summer, a few days before the Queen’s visit. The heat had been suffocating that day. I had walked to Northwick with my Mother before noon to take a few provisions to a poor family that my Father had known when he was a lad. The journey was some two miles- not a great distance but the sun had beaten down on us and Mother had bidden me to retire early to bed as I was so exhausted. I was on the point of slipping into a deep slumber when someone calling my name startled me into wakefulness. I went over to the casement and looked down into the street to discover that little Tommy Wylde was standing below me, holding a basket, containing something I couldn’t quite see. When he saw my head appear, he began jumping up and down and almost lost purchase of the basket.

“Bessie! See what I have brought you!”

I urged him to keep his voice down as I didn’t want him to disturb Mother and Father.

“I’m coming down, wait there, and be quiet!” I chided him.

As I approached him, I was alarmed to see that amongst other things in his basket were a few small, unripe black pears, which I suspected he had obtained by illegal means:

“I’ve picked these for your Bessie”

As it was early August it was too soon for them to be ripe. Their harvest was two months off and even then they would have to be baked for hours before they would be ready for eating. In my opinion, Tom was a child of very little brain, but for all that was a sweet play fellow who believed himself to be in love with me and was often bringing me unsolicited gifts. I was tremulous when I asked him how he had procured these fruits as an alarming thought had befallen me while he stood there gawping. Two nights back I had overheard my Father talking to my Mother long after I should have been asleep. My Father was telling my Mother that the City Fathers were planning to move a Black Pear Tree from the gardens of the old White Ladies’ Nunnery to the Foregate where it would be in the path of the Queen’s procession and would delight the Queen as she passed by. My Father had said the tree would not be moved until the eve of her visit so it would not have chance to shrivel if the transplanting was unsuccessful. The dreadful thought that had struck me was that Tom had plundered the tree before it had had chance to display its fruit to the Queen.

”Whiteladies!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “I went there in the dark after curfew and although I was afraid of being caught, I thought the risk was worth it to surprise you! “

“You blockhead!” I screamed, “That was the tree set aside for the Queen to see! What have you done! If we are caught with these pears, we will be put in the stocks!”

The poor boy dropped the basket and sped off down the street as if the hounds of hell were after him. I scooped up the fallen plunder and gathered up my skirts, running after him. I caught up with him near the Cornmarket and blocked his path. Tom came to a sudden halt and dumbly looked up at me with beseeching eyes.

“Listen to me” I said realizing that I would have to be mistress of the situation.

“Did you leave any pears on the tree? “

“Yes, off course, the tree was groaning with their weight and I only had time to pick a few. There are still many more on the tree, I promise you”

“You had better be telling the truth, Thomas Wylde, otherwise we are both going to be in serious trouble. Run back home and leave me with the pears. I will get rid of them on the morrow before day break. Here, take your basket”

He realised from my tone that he had to get out of my sight as fast as his little legs would carry him, before I could issue any more dire threats.

I took the hard little pears that Tom had thrust at me and hid them deep into a pocket of my gown. I walked quickly homeward wondering all the while what I was going to do with them. I reached home and was back in my bedchamber before my absence was discovered.

I was too tired that night to do anything with Tom’s ‘gifts’, but the next morning as soon as it was light, I dressed quickly and went out into the garden where there was a patch of rough ground at the end by the garden wall. There, I buried the pears as deep as I could and then hurried back into the house narrowly avoiding the maid who was just getting up to start her day as I shook the soil from my pattens.

I didn’t see Tom again until a few days later on 13^th August, the day of the Queen’s arrival in Worcester. I felt sure that he had been avoiding me but as the Queen processed through the Fore Gate, I caught sight of him on the other side of the street, milling with the throng of people that were craning their necks to see the Queen. Noticing me staring at him, he gave me a cheeky wink and darted off into the crowd.

******

“Bess! Bess! wake up!”

I started awake and saw my husband of twenty years standing over me with a covered dish which promised sweet delights.

“Bess, Bess! Look what Alice has prepared for our supper to tempt us – a dish of black pears baked in cinnamon and cloves – come and eat while they are still warm. They are the first fruits of the year from the tree in your old garden”.

The years fell away and Tom Wylde was again standing before me, once more proffering me his gift of black pears ….this time I accepted them readily, without reproach but with a heart full of love.

Worcestershire Life Short Story Competition in conjuction with the Worcestershire Literary Festival

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