THE RISK

 
I have adhered to the rules until now. I’ve done what others have, made my home beautiful and stayed in it. I was happy in my obedience, but then I saw you. You had the same government sanctioned exercise slot as me and we jogged alongside each other, two metres apart. Even though it is not permitted, our eyes met as we passed under the cherry tree. I put it out of my mind.
You were there again the next day and I ignored you because talking is forbidden. You ran a little ahead of me and I saw you tack paper to the cherry tree, as I passed I tore it off and put it in my pocket. When I got home I read your note. It had your phone number on it. We began texting on the encrypted service. I told you about the colour scheme in my home, you told me about the furniture in yours. We talked about our jobs and the supermarket delivery service. Not much to say, every day is the same here but when you described your cosy sofa you made me feel like I was sitting with you on it, my head on your shoulder. The isolation receded and I was dizzy with happiness.
The next day I didn’t see you on my run, until I reached the cherry tree, you were standing beneath it, pretending to take a breather, but your eyes were on me as I ran. You stretched out your hand and for a second I brushed it with my fingers. I couldn’t stay home that night, the four walls could not hold me, I needed space. When darkness fell, even though it is not permitted, I went out. I ran to the cherry tree and touched the bark that you had touched when you tacked your note on it. I was about to go straight back to the safety of my home and forget this, when suddenly you were under the tree with me. We laughed at each other. Keeping two metres apart, we talked, hearing each other’s voices for the first time. We discussed the crisis, where we had been when it had started and how we coped with the isolation. Then we talked about the times before, when you could go somewhere and get to know someone, when we were free. We knew we had little time before we were discovered and that we should be heading back, but you suddenly said; “Will you take a risk for me? I want to touch you.”
I looked around, there was no-one. I gazed at your face, then glanced up at the tree above us and the stars in the sky. I closed the gap, step by step. Then I was in your arms, my lips grazing your cheek.
We stayed like that even when we heard the shouts and the running feet.

MISS HOPKINS GARDEN

Angela despaired of her mother, she was always over-reacting.  When they were driving to Miss Hopkins’ house she shrieked at Dad for breaking the speed limit.  He only went one mile an hour over, but she shouted at him about losing his licence and worse what if he ran someone over and even worse what if that someone was a child?  They arrived at an old Victorian house to help a crazy old lady with her gardening.  Mother led the way round the side, through a yard and a gate into an untidy garden which they were going to weed.

 

Despite the fact they’d only be gardening, Mother had insisted that Angela wear a dress and she herself wore some fussy tweed trousers and blazer.  “Miss Hopkins likes people to look smart,” she’d explained.  Dad wasn’t having any of it; he was gardening and so wore jeans and an old shirt.

While Mother and Dad got their gardening tools ready, Angela looked towards the house, it was huge on three storeys with big windows.  The old lady was watching them from upstairs, her white hair straight and short, a pair of spectacles perched on her nose.  She was in a black dress buttoned to the neck.  She did not wave and she did not smile.  Angela looked away uneasily; “Can I go and play?”

Mother looked up from the border she was getting started on; “Won’t you help?”
“I’m wearing a dress!”
“Go and play then, but don’t go into the greenhouse.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Mother lowered her voice, “Miss Hopkins is a bit doolally in her old age.  She saw mice in there and started to leave cheese for them.  Unfortunately this attracted rats and they got really big from eating the cheese, giant even.  You don’t want to be eaten by a giant rat, do you?”
Angela laughed scornfully and glanced at her Dad who rolled his eyes. 

 

Angela skipped up the shrub bounded path, her parents’ voices becoming fainter with distance.  The greenhouse was at the very end of the garden, old, shabby and neglected full of pots with dead plants in them.  There was no way there were giant rats though, Mother was exaggerating like she always did.  However, something slowed Angela’s approach and made her creep to the door; she told herself it was because she was doing something she shouldn’t.  She peered through the glass door.  The cutest brown mouse ever was nibbling cheese from a saucer.  Angela wanted to hold the mouse like she held her hamster.  She pushed open the door and crept into the still heat that smelt of decay.  The mouse didn’t run, Angela moved closer to it and heard the door bang shut in the wind behind her.  She reached out her hand and the mouse suddenly quailed and uttering a high pitched squeak it scurried away.  Angela straightened, a prickling sense of dread overcoming her.  Very slowly she turned, behind her was a rat as tall as her father, standing on its hind legs, teeth bared.  She screamed for Mother, but the sound was muffled by the heat and the glass.

 

Mother and Dad came up the garden to look for her; “I told her not to go into that greenhouse,” Mother said, “I bet she went straight to it.”

They peered through the glass door.  All that remained were Angela’s red shoes.
Mother sighed; “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this to the Police.  They’re going to think it was us, aren’t they?  They’re going to arrest us and the Court will find us guilty and we’ll end our days in prison.  I told her, didn’t I?  No-one ever listens to me.”

TRAGEDY

It wasn’t that Costas was abusive, he was just an unreliable liar.  He’d taken all the money Helena earned and ploughed it into failed businesses or gambled it on the stock exchange.  There had been nothing but the bare minimum for Helena and their children, so when they woke one morning and he was gone, everyone was rather relieved.  The children ran round the house looking for traces of him.

“His clothes have gone, Mummy!” Irina shouted.
“His car’s not in the garage!” called Dion.
“I think he’s left us,” Helena said.  The baby cried in the cot and Matthias sat down in his play pen with a bump.
“Good riddance,” Helena’s mother said when she arrived to look after the younger children.

Helena took her older children to school and went to work at the department store.  If she was careful, she’d have just enough money to pay rent and feed her family.  At least she wouldn’t have to worry about Costas anymore.

That evening a powerfully built man knocked at Helena’s door and handed her a bit of paper.

Helena read it; “This isn’t right!”
“Ring the helpline,” the man said.
Helena shut the door and stared at the letter again.  It was from the well-known loan shark ‘Immediate Money ForU’.  Costas had borrowed £330,000 from them.  No reputable bank would have given him such a loan; he didn’t even own a home to secure it against.  No wonder he’d ran away.  She tried his mobile for the twentieth time.   Five minutes later and her phone rang, it was a woman called Angela ringing from Immediate Money ForU; “You owe us £330,000,” she said aggressively.
“No Costas  …”
“Costas has gone abroad, he’s signed the debt over to your family’s name.”
“He can’t do that!”
“You were his partner at the time, you’re liable for the debt.”
“But I don’t have any money!”
“Your family will help you …”
“It doesn’t matter if they do!  We can’t pay it back, it’s impossible with the amount of interest you’re charging …”
“Helena!” Angela’s voice was patronising, “you can’t borrow money and not pay it back.”

The next day at the school gate Helena could hear the whispers from the other mothers:

“She borrowed £330,000 from the IMFu and can’t pay it back.  Poor Angela is at her wit’s end.”
“Her whole family has been brought into it.”
“They’re refusing to pay.”
“Well, if she refuses her children should be expelled and the department store should sack her, she doesn’t deserve any support!”
At work it was the same, Helena was irresponsible, untrustworthy and reckless, no-one sat next to her at lunch time.

That evening Helena’s family visited, her mother held her as she wept; “It was Costas!”
“I know.  We’re trying to find him,” her father told her.
“We’re all in this,” said her sister, “and we’ll stick together.”
“The IMFu are acting like bullies, we’ll refuse to pay!” her youngest brother stated.
“Hold your head up high, ignore what they’re saying about you,” the eldest one said.

“I’m sorry,” the manager at the bank said; “I’m going to have to take the bank cards of you and your family, the IMFu have told us not to give you anything unless you start paying them back.”

“But how will we feed ourselves and our children?” Helena asked.
“Not my problem,” the bank manager said.

Helena had to do it, she left her children with her sister and went to see Angela.  Angela was very nice, she made Helena tea, she said that the loan could be paid off over an indefinite period of time; “Your children can leave school aged 16 and work for me.  I will take the pensions of your parents and they can go back to their jobs, your brothers and sisters can make cut backs to their lives and their children’s lives.  You will all work together and pay the debt …”

“But my parents are retired and my children want to go to university.”
Angela shook her head; “You should have thought of that before borrowing the money.”
“Even if we all work, my mother, my father, my brothers and my sister, even if our children start to work now, we can’t cover even the interest you’re asking for!”
Angela sighed; “Don’t worry, Helena, I have a solution, why don’t you speak to one of our advisors about another loan.”

FEEDING THE THING DOWNSTAIRS

“Any questions?” Mr Lyre asked.
Joseph and Marcia exchanged glances; “We didn’t see behind that door,” Marcia said.
“That’s the basement where the Thing lives,” Mr Lyre replied, “you’ve just got to feed it.”

Later, Joseph and Marcia sipped Chateauneuf Du Pape; “I know lots of houses have them,” Joseph said, “but it’s stretching us to buy the place as it is.”

“It’s our dream house and Mr Lyre said it eats anything.  We’re moving in.”

 “FEED ME!” the scream from below was deafening.  Maria and Joseph sat upright in bed, heads thick with champagne.

“What the f ...?”
“FEED ME!”
“There’s no decent food, the noise’ll wake the neighbours.  This was a bad idea!” Joseph stumbled round the bedroom, pulling on clothes.
“Just throw it some bread,” Marcia sighed.

It wasn’t happy with bread, chips, steak or chocolate.  It had developed a taste for luxury food and wanted five percent more than Mr Lyre had fed it.  Joseph and Marcia spent the week trying to keep up, stopping at the supermarket on the way back from work to buy food.  Anything to stop the neighbours hearing that they couldn’t keep their Thing fed.

The credit card bill arrived.

Marcia gulped on Jacob’s Creek; “We’ll starve it.”
They went to bed wearing ear plugs to block the screams.  They didn’t hear crashing or slithering movements as the Thing crawled up the stairs.  Joseph heard Marcia scream and saw the twin red eyes hovering over the bed; “I want seven percent more.  Feed me, now!”  It tore the duvet off them with its teeth and retreated into the basement.  Marcia went straight to the supermarket.

The demands of the Thing were constant.  Joseph got a second job at the supermarket.  Marcia became ruthless in her sales job, selling carbon credits to older people who didn’t know what they were buying.

“I can’t go on,” Joseph said, pouring the Value Red Wine.
“Stop whining!”  Marcia threw her glass over him and stormed out of the room.
“FEED ME!” screamed the Thing.
Joseph opened the door, down in the basement, the twin sets of red eyes stared at him.
“I want more,” it whispered sibilantly, “eleven percent.”
“It wants eleven percent more!” Joseph yelled at Marcia.
She came downstairs; “I remember you used to call me darling, we used to spend time together,” she muttered and left for the supermarket.

Marcia called in sick, but Joseph went to work as usual.  Driving back he saw a red glow at the top of the hill, when he got closer he saw fire.  Marcia and their neighbours stood in the garden, watching the inferno, listening to the screams of the Thing downstairs.

“I barricaded it in,” Marcia whispered.
Joseph watched all he owned go up in flames; “You’ve destroyed everything.”
“We don’t have to feed the Thing anymore,” Marcia said loudly.  The neighbours stared at her, while sirens wailed.  That night they slept in the car, Marcia’s head on Joseph’s shoulder.  They woke in the early hours to a deeper red glow and the smell of smoke.  All around them were flames and the sound of the monsters screaming.  The British were burning their castles.