The Carpet Cleaner

The Carpet Cleaner

The carpet cleaners came

with brushes and hoses.

The odour of detergent

lingers in our noses.

They scrubbed away and washed

the curry stains and wine.

After hours of work

the carpet looked just fine.

The doors were all left open.

The windows left ajar.

The house smells like a woolly sheep.

I’m sitting in the car.

The water is condensing.

The window’s ringing wet.

The curtain’s in the spinner

and I’m sponging off the pet.

Why did I phone this man?

Why did I book the date?

Why ever did I go for this?

The house is such a state.

Tomorrow will be better.

The sun is booked to shine.

Lets open up a bottle.

Oh! Whoops, I’ve spilt the wine.

                Copyright Meg Gurney

Writer’s tale

They say you have good characters when they have a life of their own and do as they please instead of what you want them to do...

To writers’ group we weekly go

We’re told don’t tell but gently show

The characters, the place, the time,

Don’t worry though about the rhyme.

The plot like magic will appear

If character and place are clear.

I picture chap with long dark beard

And floating cape, quite naturally feared.

I put him in a graveyard, gloomy,

With gravestones and a tomb, quite roomy.

I draw on poets, authors, bards,

But all the time he just plays cards!

I bring in fog and rain and mist

But all the time the point he’s missed.

I introduce loud bangs and bumps

But he just calls “3 spades, no trumps1”

I try so hard to make it scary

But out from somewhere comes a fairy

She casts a spell to make it sunny

And they both think its rather funny.

The last laugh I will have, I’m sure

I place the graveyard on a moor

The Baskervilles who live quite near

Still have their vicious dog, I fear.

Too late, too late, we hear them cry

They both of fear will surely die.

But no, the dog just barks and plays

My story lasts for days and days.

                           Meg Gurney copyright

The Old Back Gate

Clang, the old tin bath struck against the wall.   Water trickled onto his trouser leg as he hung it beside theback door on the rusty nail. Reminding himself to renew the worn string, he rolled a Franklin’s Mild, lit it and took a long slow drag.   Immediately catching his breath, he coughed as if to dislodge a lung.   He spat the result into the spotless pan of the outside lavvie.   Still bare chested from his bath, he leaned his sinewy forearms on the iron gate as he regained his breath and finished his fag.

He gazed at his surroundings, damp housing,  peeling broken fences and crumbling brick walls.   Chunks fell from the fence outside Joe Rugby’s house as it rattled in response to a small boy’s constant try kicks for Wales.   

As the smoke drifted around his hardened fingers he thought of his first wife.   She’d died in childbirth trying to give life to a babe too weak to fight.   He hadn’t thought of her for a while. She had been a real beauty and no mistake.

The smell of nextdoor’s bacon cooking interrupted his thoughts.   He hitched his trousers and tightened the large buckle on his leather belt.   He remembered using it to give his son a leathering for stealing apples, donkey’s years ago.   Strange how things come full circle, he thought.   He thought of his brother, Ivor, and how they’d both had a leathering from their father for stealing apples from exactly the same orchard a lifetime earlier.

It’s funny how much sweeter those apples tasted on the days they didn’t get caught.   He laughed to himself as he recalled wrapping them in his jacket and eating them later, crouched amongst the ferns on the mountain.

Ivor had been the youngest, but the first to go, his life crushed by a runaway coal dram at Tirpentwys on a day shift when he should have been nights.

Williams the skiver, who swapped shifts still lives three doors down.   He’s got a wife and two beautiful kids that should have been Ivor’s by rights.  It’s Williams who should be the bachelor up in Cefn Cemetery, sleeping with the snails, under that heavy marble slab.

Taking a final drag and cough, he threw his fag end.   It landed amongst the rhubarb, struggling to grow in the impoverished earth between the garden wall and the uneven flagstones of the backyard.

He climbed the stairs, closing the latch on the stairs door behind him.   Exhausted he lay on the milpuff mattress, covering himself with the warm patchwork quilt sewn by his grandmother from cast off cotton dresses and shirts.

He needed to try to get some rest before his next shift down that black pit at the end of the back lane. Every day of his working life he descended not knowing if he would ever see the daylight again.

Copyright Meg Gurney

Tales and Stories

As a small child I was always taught not to tell tales, or tall stories. For several years now I have been doing just the opposite. I'd like to thank all those lovely people who have sat and listened and especially those who have given me praise and encouragement.

A brave and clever man I met a few years ago always said that writing should be "put out there." He insisted there was no point in putting it away in a drawer where no-one could see it. It takes courage, but I have tried to keep this wisdom in mind, and this blog is my way of trying to follow his advice.

My writing covers a wide range of topics and ranges from humorous to quite dark in tone, so I hope you will find something that you like. They say in Wales, "If you don't like the weather, then wait a minute." Well, if you don't like a story here, just scroll down a little and find another.

I have thought of writing this blog for several years and now I've finally taken the plunge I hope you enjoy it.

A lady serving the tea before one of my talks asked "You're not going to be boring, are you?" I promise if I see your eyes glaze over I will try something different.

Secrets

Lily Jameson watched the bin man locate her bin onto the back of the lorry. As it tilted and rumbled she thought of its contents falling into oblivion. The bin man would never realise the memories its contents held.

Lily Jameson thought of the wide pink ribbon around the ten red roses he had brought her, now in the back of the bright orange lorry, soon to be compost.

The Sunday paper parcel of chicken bones would soon be incinerated. He loved chicken; fried chicken, chicken nuggets, southern fried, but favourite of all was his Sunday roast.

Lily always served it with all the trimmings, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sage & onion, real gravy made from the juices in the roasting tin, not that stuff in a box.

She could remember his expression as he tucked in that last Sunday. Pure contentment. She knew he’d enjoy it. No question.

            “Ice cream or tinned fruit for afters?”

            “No thanks, I’ll just chew on that second chicken leg.”

A conversation they’d regularly had for a lifetime of Sundays, but no more...

A scrap of paper in his shirt pocket left out for the wash. It was so nearly tossed in the bin. She thought of parking tickets, train tickets, leaflets that she had previously discarded from his pockets without a second thought. What was different? Why had she read it?

 “Please ring 67723, Annie” it read. Perhaps the plea struck a chord. She tucked it into her pocket for later.

“Annie Jameson,” came the chirpy reply to her dialling the number later that afternoon.

She was really chatty and they met for coffee the following day.  

They had so much in common, what with their surnames being the same, and only living a few streets away, AND both being married to the same man!

After a few weeks Lily worked it all out. It would all be down to the second chicken leg.

After carving the chicken and serving dinner as usual, she doctored the second leg keeping it quite separate. Annie worked at the chemist and knew what to use.
At one point her heart skipped a beat as he stopped eating and studied the leg intently. Then he took a deep breath, a large bite and recommenced chewing.

Then, when he’d finished eating they went for a car ride.

            “Feel really drowsy now,” he said.  “Don’t know why.”

            “Its probably all that chicken,” said Lily casually.

Annie met them in the forest picnic area where Lily had played as a child. His mouth dropped open in surprise to see the two of them together. He’d never guessed over all those weeks they’d been planning.

They’ll never find him now.

Lily and Annie meet regularly for coffee and a chat, get on really well, but Lily never cooks chicken for Sunday lunch.

                                                                                              Copyright Meg Gurney