Dogs of War

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Phil Cosker writer

In the British press, there are often ‘accidental’ photographs of dogs included in the images of the horrors of Putin’s war crimes and invasion of the Ukraine. Many dogs have been abandoned by their owners who have fled or been killed, ending up as starving strays, with some seen gnawing at human corpses. Bohdan wonders if they’re Putin’s Dogs of War. For fear of being thought a superstitious lunatic, he doesn’t share the horrifying notion that some dogs are the Devil’s incubi.

Ever since the invasion, Anichka and her husband Bohdan have had one priority – protecting their seven-year old son, Danilo. A recently adopted, large stray all-white Borzoi they call Anton, has become part of the family; dog and boy adore one another.

In the late afternoon Bohdan sits just inside his front door, his rifle resting across his thighs, in case Russians come. Anton, gently snores lying on Bohdan’s feet, who sleeps and dreams of standing in the family’s vegetable garden. The sun shines. Beyond the garden wall a gentle breeze caresses the fields of ripe wheat, rolling and swaying like a glimmering sea from an imaginary golden age. The high-pitched screams of swifts fill the air. A sudden murmuration of starlings obscures the sun, then morphs, with a puff of black smoke, into a tank grinding forward, crushing the wheat, demolishing the garden wall and destroying a greenhouse full of tomatoes. A large brown mongrel sits next to the gun turret.

Bohdan wakens to the sound of dogs barking and hears Danilo shouting, Dad! Dad! Anton’s gone. Danilo dashes outside as Bohdan, half-awake, struggles to his feet, switches off his rifle’s safety catch and shouts, For god’s sake, wait for me! Anichka runs past him.

Outside, Bohdan is aghast; it’s as he dreamt, but now five soldiers sit on the tank, laughing and cheering, as the mongrel and Anton fight. Danilo grabs a spade from the porch and runs to the two fighting dogs. His parents scream, Stop! Bohdan takes aim. Anichka hits Bohdan’s arm, You’ll kill our boy. Danilo struggles to swing the spade at the mongrel but misses. Anton growls, bares his teeth, and jumps at Danilo who screams as the dog buries its teeth in his arm. Again, Bohdan takes aim. Stop! Anichka shouts, that dog’s helping Danilo. The mongrel attacks Anton forcing him to release Danilo. Anton, snarling, goes for Danilo. The mongrel buries its teeth in Anton’s shoulder. Somehow, Anton breaks free and once again attacks Danilo as the mongrel protects him. Dad! Kill him, Anton hates me. Bohdan fires his rifle. Anton drops dead.

The soldiers cheer. You got the right dog. The mongrel licks the boy.
It’s only then that Bohdan realises it’s a Ukrainian tank.
Another soldiers says, We were looking for that white dog; it made friends with kids before killing them. That’s one fewer of Putin’s dogs.
Anichka takes Danilo inside to dress his wounds, followed by the mongrel.
Another soldier adds, White doesn’t always mean good.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Please feel free to pass it on to others who may be interested. You can read my previous 500 word stories on my website www.philcoskerwriter.com under ‘Writing’.>>>More

© Phil Cosker 2023
Phil Cosker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved; no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any mean, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

Wishes

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Phil Cosker writer

An enormous bright orange carp languishes on an ornate leather chaise longue, its scales luminous under the glowing light, oddly pinkish green, of fluorescent Grolux tubes on the ceiling above the aquarium. Smoke gently seeps from the carp’s gills as it smokes a Black Russian Sobranie cigarette held in an ivory cigarette holder. There is no natural light. The tank is twenty feet long, ten feet high and two feet deep; its rear wall a painted diorama of Atlantis. A shoal of forty midnight-black mollys cruise between the elegant columns of a Greek temple. Sparkling bluish-green and carmine dotted lyretails flick through a clump of altermanthena. A small shoal of penguin fish hang tail down in the shade of a giant red plastic ludwigia, while another group scurry away.

The carp’s face is bathed in a look of longing. Oh shit, it thinks, I shouldn’t have wished for this. I’m a fish out of water. I wish I was at home in water.

Vivid red swordtails dance arabesques around the pinnacle of an Eifel Tower. A submerged water wheel slowly turns in the slipstreams of minute x-ray fish. A group of giant danios rest and scrutinise, pop-eyed, the charms of a large white, pink and green plasterwork mermaid. Harlequins rush across open space as lemon tetras dive past combomba. The only other sound in the room, other than the bubbling aeration of water pumps, is the sound of the carp puffing the last of its cigarette.

The carp slaps its caudal fin up and down on the chaise longue, and calls, in a popping hollow sound as if it were still under water, Cigarette! Cigarette! Now!

Moments later, a skeleton dressed in blue silk pantaloons and a cerise spotted puffer jacket struggles through the ankle length sea green carpet toward the carp. You do know that smoking will kill you? the skeleton asks, And chain smoking will hasten your death.
Be a good minion and light me another ciggie, will you? the carp asks proffering its mouth to have the cigarette holder removed, emptied, refilled and lighted. Argh, my lady nicotine, the carp sadly sighs, oozing smoke. I wish I was dead.
I’ll be back in a minute, the skeleton says. I have a surprise for you.

Standing in front of the aquarium, the skeleton clicks out the head of the humerus from the scapula and, gripping the shaft of the humerus, with his bony right hand, pounds the glass wall of the aquarium. For the first few milliseconds everything is in slow motion until the wall of glass explodes under the weight of the water. The torrent hits the carp on its chaise longue, and hurls them both across the room. Fish, in their, hundreds die. The carp lies dead, embedded with shards of glass amidst some thrashing brightly coloured fish.

Beware of what you wish for, the skeleton says, pleased that two wishes have come true at once.

The Incredible Shrikes

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Phil Cosker writer

It’s October 1952 and Hull Fair is encamped on wasteland adjoining Walton Street. P.C. Whitty is looking for the ‘The Incredible Shrikes’. At the far end of the encampment he sees two human size paintings of birds on the side of a caravan. A poster depicting the shrikes and their human trainers, in bird costumes, reads: ‘The Shrikes. They said we’d never train the infamous Butcher Birds. BUT WE HAVE!’

He knocks on the caravan’s door – there’s no reply. He shouts, Anyone home?
A woman opens the door. Behind her, inside the caravan, many shrikes swirl.
I’m sorry, Whitty says, I can’t think straight with all them birds swirling about.
The woman puts her fingers to her lips and blows a high-pitched whistle; the shrikes perch where they can.
Thanks, Mrs Shrike.
We’re not married. What do you want?
To speak with you both about the legality of your act.
Best come in. Ollie’s out. I’m his partner, Polly. Our act is legal.
Whitty retches behind a handkerchief over his mouth and nose.
Yeah, they do shit a lot.
Could we please open a window?
Cut to the chase, constable.
A concerned member of the public has made an official complaint. This asserts that
our fairground sideshow, featuring shrikes, is disturbing.
What’s disturbing about it? Great Grey Shrikes are predatory songbirds known as ‘Butcher birds’. They live here with us.
Good god. Why?
It makes us think like shrikes, sort of method acting; we get inside their heads, and they get inside ours.
So, they’re not pets?
No, they’re nasty; you wouldn’t want one as a pet. We’ve trained them to perform in a purpose-built big mesh cage by doing tricks before catching mice and hanging ‘em on barbed wire.
Isn’t that cruel?
It’s natural for the birds.
I was thinking of the mice. I must speak to you both. When’ll he be back?
I never know. I think the cheating bastard’s got another bit on the side. I’ve had enough. He’s got it coming.
What’s he got coming?
Hell hath no fury …. Try tomorrow about four; he’ll be costuming up then.

The next day Whitty arrives and finds the caravan’s door flapping in the wind. He goes in. There’s no sign of Polly, or the birds, but the stink of shit remains.

Outside, to the rear of the caravan, he sees someone dressed in a large grey and white bird costume. Mrs Strike, is that you? he calls.
Laughing, she takes off her costume’s head and says, He’s gone. On the ground, dressed in an identical costume, lies an inert body. She pulls off its costume’s head, revealing bloodied barbed wire tightly bound around the man’s neck cutting through his jugular vein and carotid artery. Meet Ollie, she says. Two shrikes peck at Ollie’s wounds.

Subsequently, Whitty frequently ‘sees’ shrikes feeding on Ollie’s neck. He hears shrikes and Polly shrieking and believes this to be laughter. He takes compulsory retirement due to a mental breakdown.

The Unicorn

Posted on January 15, 2023 by Phil Cosker writer

In 1956 JR and George are ten years old and the best of friends; their ‘playground’ is Stapleford woods. It’s a bright sunny day, when, near an ancient oak, they discover some spots of a silver liquid shimmering and sparkling on the grass.
Is it paint? George asks.
Dunno. There’s no tin. Bad people dump tins of paint.
What’s them? JR asks, pointing at tiny silver footprints amongst the silver spots.
George takes a closer look. Too small for a deer. Is it fairies?
Fairies? JR asks. You don’t believe in fairies, do you?
Nar, that’s a girlie thing, but it’s a mystery. We could pretend we’re detectives and follow the trail of spots.
We don’t have to pretend, cos they’re real, JR says.
They follow the trail.
You excited? JR asks.
Yeah. Wonder what we’ll find.
If it was a hurt animal, its blood it should be red not silver, JR observes.
If it’s bleeding, it could need help.
Do magical creatures bleed? What did Mr Southall say?
About what? George asks.
The Royal coat of arms has got a unicorn on it. He said it was mythical.
Teacher said they was as rare as hens’ teeth, George says. One of them girls said a unicorn has silver blood.
The trail leads them to a leafy glade. JR stares at the grass. Blood’s stopped, he announces. You search over in the bushes and I’ll go down to see if it’s at the bottom of the field.
George sets off as JR disappears into thick undergrowth. After a few minutes, he stops dead in his tracks. As he stares at an open tin of silver paint, he hears George shouting, Any luck?
JR hesitates. No, nothing here, he says and carefully buries the tin in undergrowth.
Back in the glade, George looks downhearted.
Cheer up; it’s been an adventure, JR says. It’ll be shy, or hiding. We gotta promise each other to keep our Unicorn secret; we don’t want him frightened off.
George uses his penknife he makes a tiny cut in their index fingers.
They rub their bloodied fingers together and swear silence.

Many years later they return to the village to celebrate their seventieth birthdays and agree that they’ll return to the glade for the last time.

Did you ever think the Unicorn was here? JR asks as they stand in the leafy glade.
Did you?
Not really. But I wanted to, JR says, wishing he could take back his lie.
The two men turn. In a bright pool of sunlight a unicorn whinnies and nods his horn. Get a photo, quick, JR says.
Using his phone camera George videos the Unicorn.
Let’s see, JR asks.
George presses play. Both men look down at the screen.
George shouts in triumph, We got him! We got evidence.
They look up; the Unicorn has gone.
Looking back at the screen they watch the images of the Unicorn disappear.

I need to tell you something, George, JR sighs.

A Bowl of Olives

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Phil Cosker writer

Arman, a Syrian refugee, spends his eightieth birthday in a tent in ‘The Jungle’, in Calais. He sits alone on a white plastic garden chair next to a suitcase wrapped in cellophane. It’s freezing cold, but his anger sustains him as he asks himself his perennial question, How could the enemy destroy acres and acres of olive groves in Idlib province, attacking our culture and pushing us into starvation?

I should be pleased. I am pleased, but I’m too old to be a refugee, an asylum seeker, or a survivor. If the Russian air strikes had been successful, I would be dead, should be dead, buried in the rubble that was our family home. I can still taste the concrete dust in my mouth, feel it in my eyes that even my tears cannot wash away. What is the purpose of my survival? My olive trees are destroyed. Only my granddaughter, Saabirah, lives and she is with child. I have nothing but my love for her and the child to come. There was no one else alive to protect her.

Does my hatred of Assam and Putin harm me more than them? I’m filled with sadness or, maybe, a sort of envy, that the West sees fit to fight Putin in the Ukraine but has done nothing to save Syria from the monsters of war, the barbarians, the murderers of children, the destroyers of the unborn, with their bombs, chemical weapons and terror. Envy? The thought disgusts me.

Even as I sit here I can hear village women wailing above the freezing wind outside. Hear the children of neighbours calling out my grandson’s name, Kaashif. The frantic digging of shovels, voices from beyond the grave. They said it was a miracle that there wasn’t a mark on me; the mark is forever in my heart and for that there is no sticking plaster. They found Kaashif’s body; he was only thirteen, just becoming a man. All the time I was washing his dead body, I expected him to wake up and tell me it was all a game. It was no game. I came here to protect Saabirah and the baby. The traffickers took my money and here we are.
You’ll be safe in England.
Is that you, Kaashif?
Yes, Grandpa. Do you remember when we picked olives and a man came and photographed us? I held the olives and leaves in a wooden bowl and you cupped my hands in your big hands. When the photographer showed us the picture on his camera, Mum was cross because our hands were so dirty. You laughed and asked how could they be clean; we are peasants. The photograph was beautiful.
Arman wipes tears from his eyes and gasps. On the upended suitcase there’s the same wooden bowl full of olives and leaves. He rubs his eyes.
Happy birthday, Grandpa.
Is it real?
It will always be real to you.
Where are you? Arman asks.
Unseen, but always near you.

© Phil Cosker 2022
Phil Cosker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved; no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any mean, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

Cabbage

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Phil Cosker writer

In pouring rain, Johno Jackson looks at the 1930s semi where he’ll lodge until he finds a flat. Standing in the porch, he dumps his dripping backpack and rings the doorbell. The intense smell of boiling cabbage hits him as the door opens; stepping back in shock, he unnecessarily asks, Is that cabbage I can smell?
It’s your dinner, Valerie replies. Are you my new lodger?
Yes, I’m Johno, and you’re Mrs Valerie Alsop?
Val, please.
Can I leave my coat out here to dry?
I didn’t expect you to have such long hair.
Is that a problem?
Only if you use all the hot water washing it clean.
I don’t wash my dreadlocks.
But you’re not coloured.
I’m like you, coloured white.
Come in and I’ll show you the room.

Here it is, she announces, opening a door.
Wow, Johno says, I wasn’t expecting a double bed.
Every man needs a double bed, Valerie says.
To his embarrassment, Johno finds himself flushing red as he sees a folded nightdress on one of the pillows. Jesus, he thinks, she’s propositioning me, but says, I’ll need a desk to work on.
The dining room is all yours. It’s just the two of us since my husband left. Tea’s at half-five. Just follow your nose and you’ll find the kitchen.
Just one thing, Johno says, is that your nightie on the bed?
Yes. Do you mind sharing?
It’s not what I was expecting.

In the kitchen the smell of cabbage is at its most intense. Johno struggles not to retch.
You look pale, Johno, it’ll be the excitement. Sit yourself down and pour us a glass of Blue Nun.
The glass of Blue Nun doesn’t help his nausea.
Here we are, Valerie says.
Johno stares at the plate of over-cooked potatoes, a pile of soggy pale cabbage and a grey slab of meat floating in a muddy puddle of gravy. He rushes out of the back door and vomits.
When he’s finally back inside, Valerie asks, Are you ill?
I’m vegetarian and the smell of cabbage makes me vomit. No offence, but your bed’s not for me. It’s the cabbage that’s to blame.

As Johno pulls on his still wet coat in the porch Valerie sobs in the kitchen.

It’s almost dark and raining so hard that the road, beneath streetlights, appears as a fast moving river. In a terrace of once grand Georgian residences, one has been turned into The Scrumpy House. A dishevelled man of indeterminate age totters out and stands on the top of the stone steps leading down to the road. Looking perplexed, he smiles, nods, gives Johno the thumbs up, and dives onto the road, as Johno shouts, No! Cars screech and skid to a halt. A greengrocer’s lorry, swerving to avoid hitting a spinning car, sheds boxes of cabbages over the unconscious man.

The man’s still breathing as Johno throws cabbages aside. Shit, Johno thinks, if you survive this, you’ll be a cabbage yourself. Fucking cabbages.

Perseverance Terrace

Posted on December 4, 2022 by Phil Cosker writer

‘Wildwood’, the last house standing in Perseverance Terrace, is a solitary gravestone in a desert of broken bricks, rubble, dumped rubbish and smouldering bonfires and has become refuge to generations of ghosts who were born, lived and died there.

Inside Wildwood, the kitchen is crammed full of ghosts; had they needed to breathe, many would have suffocated. Erasmus, their elected leader, explains, The only reason our home has survived this long is because of superstition. It only needs one man not to fear the retribution of ghosts and we’re gone, our safe haven lost.

Lester Field, a mortal, enters the kitchen.
Invader! The ghosts cry out. Alien!
I’m no alien. I’m just a man looking for help, Lester says. Goodness, there are hundreds of you in here.
Who are you? Erasmus asks. How can you see us?
I’m Lester Field and blessed, or cursed, with the gift of seeing your world as well as mine.
Why are you here?
I need a ghost.
Why? Erasmus asks.
To take revenge. I discovered that Thacker, leader of the Council, received huge backhanders for selling off public land. I tried to get it on the news. I got fired. But I have an idea. Thacker’s son, Henry, died in mysterious circumstances, I want to find Henry’s ghost and the truth about his death. Can any of you help me find him? Lester asks.
The ghosts shimmer and groan.
Erasmus explains, They’re afraid that if they leave here there’ll be no coming back and they’ll be lost forever in time and space.
Are they right? Lester asks.
I don’t know. Do you think you can get Thacker to stop demolishing Wildwood?
I do.
Then I’ll come with you, Erasmus says.

Thacker, at home, sits in his snug sipping whisky when the door bangs open and his wife bursts in. It’s our boy, she cries. Henry’s back.
You’re off your head, Lucy. He’s dead.
His ghost isn’t, Lester says from the doorway. He’s told me the truth about his abuse and how he died.
What? Lucy demands. What abuse?
Henry enters.
What did your father do to you, darling?
It’s a trick; there’s no such thing as ghosts, Thacker protests.
I’m here, aren’t I? Henry asks. You stop knocking down Wildwood, or I’ll tell Mum how I died.
You little shit! Thacker says.
And pay me the salary you owe me, Lester adds. Or I’ll tell the police.

It’s early morning as Lester, Erasmus and Henry cross the wasteland.
A giant wrecking ball swings from a crane and thunders into Wildwood. Thacker, standing by his Mercedes, smiles as he watches the demolition.
He lied, Henry says.
The ghosts erupt from Wildwood flying like wasps flung hither and thither in a maelstrom of roaring anger engulfing Thacker. His cries of agony pierce the eerie silence of the wasteland. The wailing ghosts vanish into the sky. Thacker lies dead on Wildwood’s threshold.
Erasmus grips Lester’s hand. Something of a Pyrrhic Victory, I think.

A Pawn Shop

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Phil Cosker writer

Once upon a time in Russia there was a very nondescript KGB spy called Putin. He had expensive tastes and supplemented his meagre spy income by driving a cab at night. His passengers were often drunk and either vomited, pissed or shat in his cab; soon, he hated everyone and thought, This can’t go on. If I’m to be rich and feared as a supremely powerful dictator, I need help – but who from? The solution came to him in a flash: Satan. He falls asleep at the car’s wheel to the smell of vomit. He dreams.

He sees himself lighting a candle in St Basil’s Cathedral, and hears his prayer of supplication to Lucifer. Out of the intense darkness an old priest, smoking a cigarette and wearing a cassock covered in ash, approaches Putin, who stammers, Are you really …

Yes, I’m Lucifer, he says as he unlocks a heavy door. They descend into an ancient crypt filled with the bright light of flaming braziers. Lucifer leans forward into the flames, and lights the cigarette in his mouth; his skin smoulders.
Putin sees glass demi-johns stored on shelves. What are these?
They are labelled.
Putin reads: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Genghis Khan. Something like a tiny hurricane twister is swirling inside the jars. Are they trying to escape?
Lucifer laughs. They pawned their souls for power and lost all moral sense.
Do they get them back? Putin asks.
Lucifer almost chokes with laughter. They failed to achieve my ambition of destroying God’s world; so they remain here everlastingly trapped in their unrequited rage. I’ve been watching you for some time Vladimir, and I think you might be the man to realise my dreams.
What do you want me to do?
Create hell on earth.

Putin wakes to find Lucifer sitting next to him in the taxi. A drunk staggers towards the car and pisses on the windscreen. Lucifer points at the drunk who explodes. The windscreen wipers clunk as they push fragments of bloody flesh aside.
Putin retches.
Wimp, Satan chuckles. Shall we visit your mother?
You know where she lives?
Of course.
Why?
I have a test for you.
She’ll be asleep at this time of night.
All the better.

Back in the crypt. Lucifer shows Putin a demi-john.
Is that my soul?
Yes, you passed the test; your mother never knew what was happening.
I didn’t know I was capable of doing such a thing, Putin says, crossing himself.
Compassion? Stop that nonsense. Crossing yourself is pointless. God doesn’t give a shit about you. Listen. You will provoke the West over and over again as you try to bring the USSR back to life. America will destroy Moscow with a nuclear weapon. You will retaliate.
You really want to destroy the earth?
It’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. So we’ll make hell here. It’s too late for second thoughts, Vladimir. Remember, I have your conscience in a jar.

Below Stairs

Posted on November 13, 2022 by Phil Cosker writer

Jed and his wife, Margie, are taking breakfast in the kitchen. There’ll be thunder today, she says, I can always feel it coming.
Just like a dog. Jed is unaware of Margie’s look of contempt as he continues, If this arthritis pain in my fingers gets worse I won’t be able to use my shotgun.
The rabbits will be pleased.
That’s all you can say? I’m suffering.
Might it all be in your head? Margie suggests.
That’s rich coming from you, hiding in the understairs cupboard afeared of thunder and lightning.
The doctor says it’s an abnormal hysterical reaction.
More like guilt.
The GP says I need therapy.
Therapy? Bunkum, Jed says. I’m off to the auction at Louth market.
You mean you’re going to the Boar’s Head to get pissed again?
What’s it to you?
Nothing anymore.

Alone, and hearing thunder in the distance, Margie goes to a kitchen cupboard, removes writing paper and a ballpoint pen. She writes.

Jed
When we married we were full of hope and excitement. Then we had our son, John, and we were happy. Too soon, it all changed one night with that freak summer storm of thunder, lightning and torrential rain. The noise was terrifying. Our baby, our John, was splashing in the bath. All the windows and the kitchen door were open. Rain was just pouring in on that expensive carpet you’d bought for our bedroom. I should have taken him with me but I thought he’d be ok for just a few minutes. As I ran back to the bathroom, I knew everything was wrong. He’d drowned. I tried to kiss him back to life. The lightning kept flashing like God was pointing at me. You called me a murderer. The verdict was accidental death. You’ve never forgiven me. He was your boy. You’ve forgotten he was my boy too. I agree, I’m guilty.
What’s the point of going on? There isn’t one – not without John and being trapped in your hate as a skivvy.
Margie.

As she leaves her letter leaning on the teapot on the kitchen table, the juggernaut of thunder crashes towards Margie; her skin prickles with fear.

Inside the large understairs cupboard she sits on a small wooden chair that Jed made for when his son was older. Jed’s loaded shotgun rests across Margie’s thighs. The thunder is ever nearer. Bright lightning flashes beneath the cupboard door. Her bitten lower lip bleeds. Massive claps of thunder shake the house. She imagines nursing John’s wet body. She picks up the shotgun, puts both barrels in her mouth but as she strains to reach the triggers, the door flies open. Jed leans into the cupboard waving her letter. This a suicide note? He shouts. Maggie swings toward him and fires both barrels at point blank range removing the top of his head. Covered in blood, brain and bone, she thinks, I just need one shell for me. Then I’ll be free.

No one hears the shot.

The Bed

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Phil Cosker writer

I’m eighty-two and I want a bed of my own. My last bed, our marital bed, was bought by the husband for our golden wedding anniversary.

I loved the husband but it was only after he died that I realised that the house was a kind of man cave; hardly surprising when we had three sons – four men in the house for years and years, and just one woman – me: invisible until needed.

Men smell different to us; it’s not necessarily offensive, except, of course, when they fart. When the four of them were at it they had a conspiracy of silence never admitting their stink; they just laughed at my objections. My father had the ‘Man Smell’ and his was a mixture of tweed suits, pipe smoke and bad breath. The husband, near the end, smelt like an old comfortable armchair covered in well worn moquette, plus the slight smell of shoe polish from his habitual brogues and we always laughed at his futile habit of chewing mints to disguise his whisky breath.

The décor, in the man cave, is as drab as a downpour in November. I tried to put a bit of colour into our lives; I gave the boys lovely bright colours in their bedrooms. As they got older they complained that their mates would think they were fairies. You’d think having anything pink within fifty feet was an indication of incipient homosexuality. Bloody rubbish, and I said so, but the husband wasn’t having jolly chintz when he could have brown. Even a footstooll upholstered in William Morris’ ‘Strawberry Thief’ gave him a fit of the Heebie Jeebies.

It’s about ownership. Not just the owning of me as me, but the me that’s expressed through the house. It’s never been ‘my’ house; it’s always been ‘their’ house, or ‘our’ house, but never mine.

I never wanted him forever dead; though God forgive me, there were times when I did. But he is, and now I’ve ordered a double bed of my own; a single divan would make feel that I was in a home. The curtains are ugly but they’ll keep me warm. The red and dark green Axminster carpet will see me out as will the rest of it, especially the endless brown furniture so polished you can see your face in it. I can’t be bothered anymore; I’m too old; it can all stay as it is.

The husband was bigger than me and over the years he’d made a big body-shaped hollow in the old mattress. I’d forgotten that just after he died, I used to sleep in his hollow; it was the nearest I could get to the husband and it fitted me nicely. It was a comfort; he was there but not there.

I’ve now had my new bed for a couple of weeks. But I can’t sleep; there’s no husband hollow to curl up in. I’m cold and lonely. I should have kept that mattress.

Phil Cosker

Writer & photographer

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