Afternoon Tea at Hotel Parrott

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Susi Lovell

She is a most admirable woman. Everyone says so. Always so kind and generous to those less fortunate. What charity! What munificence! What benevolence!

She picks the silver tea spoon up from the white tablecloth, polishes it with the linen napkin and smiles at her reflection in the spoon’s bowl. She really can’t think of anyone more deserving of admiration than herself.

She always thinks about this on Sundays for Sunday is the day she distributes her largesse.

Every Sunday she invites – she likes to think of it as ‘sponsoring’ – some impecunious young man to afternoon tea at Hotel Parrott.

This week’s fortunate fellow is a philosophy student. He’s clean, which has not always been the case with some of the young men.

How he’s tucking in! The cucumber sandwiches, the petits fours, the tarts, the scones, cream and jam.

More? she asks.

He can’t manage another mouthful but she urges him on. More! she says. More! More!

How grateful he’ll be, how he’ll thank her. That’s only right of course.

And as for him? He forces down the last cranberry scone and gazes through the window, admiring the blue rooster in the square. So proud and calm on his plinth.

More! she says, waving to the waitress to bring another plate of scones.

*****

2016 is my Year of the Blurt. Each week I’ll try to take advantage of odd spare moments to write a quick Blurt which I’ll post Thursday mornings. Probably the Blurts will mostly be fiction, but who knows!

Thank you for dropping by to read this week’s Blurt. It was inspired by the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Admiration.

The photo is of “Hahn/Cockerel” by Katharina Fritsch, Trafalgar Square, fall 2014.

Please note: all material on this website, except for comments by others, is © Susi Lovell

If Not The Ghost Man, Then Who?

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Susi Lovell

I know Oliver claims to have been the first to see the ghost man, but in fact it was Tommy.

Tommy was heading home for breakfast with two brook trout he’d caught in the stream that meanders through the town when he caught sight of the ghost man emerging from the forest.

He’d wolfed down two helpings of french toast before he thought to mention the ghost man to his parents.

Word spread in no time. By elevenses there was quite a crowd in the park where the ghost man had installed himself on the bench beneath the big old oak.

No, that wasn’t the ghost man. This fellow was far too solid to be a ghost man. But if not the ghost man, then who? close-up of bannister finial

“The mushroom man!” said the mayor.

Of course! Of course!

The first thing they all noticed about the mushroom man was obviously that he was extraordinarily pale.

Of course he’d be pale, they told each other, with the forest so dense and tangled that no sunlight could penetrate. (But really, how would they know? Which of them had ever dared venture into the dark, dank, silent forest?)

The second thing was that he looked at them with eyes that saw more than they were comfortable with.

The third thing? That Continue reading →

At Dinnertime, As The Crows Gather

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Susi Lovell

She’s decided on macaroni.

What could possibly go wrong with macaroni? All you have to do is to boil it, then smother it in cheese sauce.

It’s absolutely essential that nothing go wrong.

Jon, Timothy, Sol, Freddie, Barry, Hugo, Ryan… what disasters she’d had with the meals she’d cooked for them.

Martin would eat her macaroni and love it.

She opens the fridge door, takes out cheese, cream, pepper, then pulls out the drawer for the cheese grater, a kitchen utensil she’s always been fond of.

No, no, Martin is absolutely not a shredded cheese guy. He’s more spicy tomato.

She replaces the cheese and cream in the fridge. Reaches for the last two tomatoes that remain in the plastic tub, some red pepper. She slices the slimy soft edges off the red pepper.

A soft rustling sound outside.

crow It’s only the crows. They always gather around dinnertime. In the trees, on the Continue reading →

See The Future In An Apple Peel

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Susi Lovell

Marnie leans forward and gazes into the translucent sphere. A sky blue thread and a wisp of gold drift through the crystal ball.

“What do you see?” she whispers.

“A handsome young man with golden hair, piercing blue eyes and…”

Marnie leaps to her feet, sending the chair toppling backwards. Jeremy? No! It cannot be! Never!

The cards are worn and creased. They are not easy to shuffle. A couple fall out of the pack. Marnie picks them up, shuffles again.

“Focus,” says the young woman with the long shining hair, tapping the ash off her cigarette on to the floor.

Marnie focuses…his wavy dark hair, the tattoo on his left…

She places Continue reading →

The Illuminated City

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Susi Lovell

It was a bitterly cold night and the bus was late. The young lad in the bus shelter checked the bus timetable again by the flickering light from a nearby lamp post.

He shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and looked at the girl in the jeans ad on the side of the bus shelter.

What a mane of blond hair! What plump lips! What a deliciously curved waist! What shapely hips! What he would give to have a girl like her to take to the school prom next Saturday. The jeans clung to her long legs, smooth as melted chocolate.

“What are you staring at?” snapped the girl in the ad. “I’m sick and tired of people always staring. Haven’t they got anything better to do?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.” He wished he had a cigarette. He wished he smoked. “The bus is late,” he said.

“It’s always late.”

A light ripping sound, nothing more than a whisper really, and she Continue reading →

Beware the Half-Light

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Susi Lovell

graveyard Beware the half-light, was what her grandma used to say. ‘Tis the time of mystery and nefarious shenanigans.

Beware the broken mirror, her grandma also used to say. ‘Tis only the five minutes you have to make good.

And yet here she was, in the garden in the half-light, hacking at the hard, frozen ground with Grandma’s old trowel. Five minutes to bury the broken shards of the mirror.

Not even a crumb of earth could she dislodge.

Five minutes. More like four minutes. She must have used up at least a minute throwing salt over her left shoulder, turning around three times widdershins, and grabbing – carefully – shards of the broken mirror and running to the potting shed for Grandma’s trowel.

The wind sighed Continue reading →

One Love – In Code

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Susi Lovell

My aunt Cicely was singing in the kitchen. Of her love. At least, that’s what my mother said.

“For Uncle Jeremy?” I giggled. It was hard to imagine Uncle Jeremy as anyone’s love. He was old for one thing, almost fifty. And had very little hair and a lot of stomach. And only talked about how many dragons he’d slain in his video game.

“Shhh,” my mother hissed. “He’s in the sitting room, he’ll hear.”

Uncle Jeremy wasn’t to hear? Aunt Cicely had a secret love!

Poor Aunt Cicely! To be married to Uncle Jeremy and love someone else.

All that summer we stayed with them, I often heard Aunt Cicely singing in the kitchen of her love.

I tried to catch the words but couldn’t make head or tail of them.

“…spotted koi, light in the leaves, chocolate chip ice cream, buzzing bees, my sister Marie in her yellow dress, sandwiches with cream cheese and watercress…”

(Marie was my mother.)

Obviously Aunt Cicely was singing in code so Uncle Jeremy wouldn’t understand.

I imagined her love – he’d be tall, with a blond mane of hair and one of those long low sports cars. He’d have a name like Gideon, or Hawk.

When I heard Continue reading →

The Questions Desk

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Susi Lovell

The party of twenty would arrive shortly, at 8 pm. At last all was ready – the table laid, the chairs in position, the candles waiting to be lit, the flowers in the vase, the crown roast in the oven. She hesitated. Something was not right.

The little white ferret, crouched beside the grandfather clock in the hallway, was watching her too carefully. It also knew that something was not right.

Did the curtains not match the carpet? Were the pictures on the wall too somber? Had she forgotten a spice in one of the recipes? Was the party of twenty allergic to leek soup? What was wrong? What was wrong?

She put on her hat and ran down the street to the Questions Desk. The queue was very long, as was to be expected on a Friday evening. How would she Continue reading →

The Fire Seller

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Susi Lovell

The fire seller is always there on Tuesdays. Only Tuesdays.

Even before I see her, I hear her calling out in that high-pitched, slightly raspy voice of hers: “Flames for sale. Pretty flames for sale. Seven-a-penny. Special price! Today only! Sweet, bright flames for sale.”

Don’t worry. I’m not going to buy any. I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m a law-abiding citizen. I know it’s illegal.

But after work on Tuesdays, especially if I’m tired and feeling useless to the world, and if the sky is overcast and heavy, what’s the harm in Continue reading →

A One In Six Chance

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Susi Lovell

Mid-February!

On the other side of the window, icicles, and beyond them, the children’s playground, white and desolate.

Old George shivers. He longs for spring, for crab apple blossom and tulips.

He longs for summer, for hot blue skies, for dahlias and peonies, for dragonflies, and ice cream cones that you have to eat fast, before they melt, for the shrieks and laughter of the kids playing on the swings and slides and splashing in the wading pool.

The pool!

Instantly he thinks of typewriters and young women.

Specifically, of the young women in ‘the pool’ as they called it in those days. ‘Girls.’ That’s what they were then.

Long ago, yes, but he still remembers lifting the receiver of the black phone, waiting for the dial tone, listening for a moment to the muffled laughter and clacking typewriters at the other end, then saying those magic words Continue reading →

Susi Lovell

short story writer

Tag Archives: flash fiction