The Gift at the Hospice, by Catherine Redfern

They are already assembled, this Monday group. Cars, mini-buses, an ambulance have gathered them. Now they sit, a few in wheelchairs, drinking their coffee. They chat quietly. Some call across the room. There is laughter.
   An introduction, and theyquieten. They smile encouragement. They don't see her fear, nor her doubt. Surely on the terrifying edge of life, their thoughts must be tunnelled down; narrowing, narrowing. How can they possibly be interested? Isn't all this irrelevant?
   
She opens they case, and they look. They exclaim at the rich mahogany varnish, at the gleaming keys, at the way all the sections fit together.
   She crows on the reed, and they laugh at the unmusical sound. But then all is assembled ....

   She plays, and they listen. They listen to folk songs, to Mancini, to "Land of My Fathers" (one man sings along in Welsh), to Gershwin's "Summertime", to "When I'm 64" ("Make that 74!" "84 for me!", to "Where e're You Walk" (again, a rich barione joins in, and others hum along), and finally Sarastro's aria from "The Magic Flute"; her own favourite melody. It's a prayer really, and a good last piece.
   They fire questions: som many. What is the wood? Where is it made? How heavy is it? Is it very expensive? Do you need a lot of puff? All those keys: are they difficult to remember? Do you have to use a new reed every time? They haven't seen one, nor heard one, nor, for some, heard of one. She is amazed and humbled by this group: yes, by this life-affirming group.

Their thanks are warm and generous. One man stands and says, "I wasn't sure: I didn't think I'd be interested in a bassoon; but I was. I'm an engineer, so I can appreciate the skill needed to make a complex instrument like that. And that last piece you played - did you say Mozart? - well, I found there were tears in my eyes. That's never happened to me before".

She packs up, warmed by this gift he has given her. She knows that music - that sound alone - can move the listener deeply; but she had not understood that here, far from being irrelevant, its power may be all the more intensely felt.
   Goodbye. Thank you. Will you come again? She heads for her car. In the office, a date has been set. Yes; it is goodbye. The date is six months away.

Police Report on a Double Death, by Alice Hutchinson

The case of Alexei Pavlovich Tikhonov, following the discovery of the two bodies, has awakened much interest throughout the city. Although not all the facts have yet been ascertained,enough has been discovered for most of the story to be constructed.
    Tikhonov was a middle-aged scholarly bachelor, and most of his immediate circle were people like himself. His life had hitherto been blameless: the only one of his acquaintances known to the police was his disreputable schoolfriend Ketsbaia the Tatar, who was suspected of being a receiver of stolen goods. But Tikhonov's quiet life was to be overturned Yelena Borisovna Chetskaya.
   She is described as being young, vivacious, friendly and very pretty. She remains something of a mystery, in that the police have been unable to trace a single relative of hers. It has been suggested that she was, as the old saying goes, "no better than she should be", but no firm evidence on that point has yet come to light. Why she was attracted to Tikhonov is not at all clear (it could hardly have been for his money, for he had little), but there is no doubt that he quickly became besotted with her. Rather than take her back to his sparse bachelor apartment, he installed her in an expensive hotel, where they lived together for several weeks. He bought her clothes and jewels, and accompanied her to the theatre and other public events attended by the cream of society.
   Tikhonov's limited finances were soon exhausted. He sold such of his possessions as were of any value, but then had to turn to other methods of raising money. His old friend professor Razminsky has reported that several rare old manuscripts are missing from his collection, so it seems likely that Tikhonov stole these and then sold them on through Ketsbaia. He may have committed other thefts as well. But He must have known that his crimes would be discovered before long, and he would face exposure and punishment. He therefore obtained a measure of poison, and on the third of June poured it into glasses of wine, which he and Yelena then drank.
   Tikhonov's suicide is readily explicable, but, why he should murder Yelena is harder to understand. It was not only pointlessly cruel, but goes entirely against what we know of his character. It is better to think that the two of them, having briefly found happiness in each other's company, resolved to depart this life together.

The Laburnum Tree, by Andrea MacDonald,

They can’t find me

And I can see everything

They’d never think to look for me here

We were forbidden to touch or go near you

An immediate allure

Poisonous tree

 they said

Shelter for me

Under the boughs

Gateway to my secret orchard

My halcyon hideaway

We met in May at the end of the garden

My secret place

With log stools and a table

Purloined from the wood pile

Call Call Call me

I will not come

Me and my toys are here

Do Not Disturb

Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense, by Kwaku Gyamfi

I am selling my mum's shop when Mary comes. She is about seven years old. She has these deep dimples that can break your heart, and she is always smiling. She wants a bottle of Pepsi. I put my laptop on a chair beside me and get up to take the product for her. Out of curiosity, she inches closer to the laptop. I give her the Pepsi but she still stands looking at the machine. I am reading from it.
“Are you doing your homework?”
I turn to look at her, “No Mary.”
“O.K, you are learning so you can do your homework.” She made it sound like a question.
“No. I am not studying for my homework.”
She wouldn’t give up. “Oh I know. You have an exam.” She speaks excitedly, like a scientist who has made a major discovery.
“No,” I say. I see confusion in her eyes, they beg, questioning.
“I am learning because I will use it one day. I am learning for life.”
She still appears perplexed. I don’t know how to make her understand me.

The day the circus came to town, by Peter Morford

          It’s funny how the memory works. You’d think that it would be the big things that you’d remember all your life.  What I call the “peaks” – first day at school, or the new job, your wedding day, the first-born child.

If you’d scored a century at Lords, you’d remember – and I suppose no one forgets the dark days of clangers and embarrassments. But amidst all these big things are the little events which make a distant day stick in the memory.

Mention D-Day 1944. It was also my tenth birthday and we were all looking forward to the summer holidays.  Dad was probably in Normandy with the first wave – we couldn’t be sure. As I finished breakfast Mum put sandwiches and an apple into my lunch box.

          “You’d better take this with you,” she smiled.

          It was a new cricket ball.  Not a proper leather one but a hard, red composite with a moulded seam.  I knew it would sting my hand when I caught it but unlike a real cricket ball it would keep its shape.

          “Thanks Mum, I can try it out in the lunch break.  Johnny Vaughan’s got a new bat. I’ll bowl this so fast that I’ll break it,” I boasted.

          School was a mile away. Johnny was waiting for me at the cross roads and we had to run the last half to arrive, a bit breathless, just as the bell was ringing.

          All through that morning’s lessons I planned how I would bowl my new ball. It would leave my hand at 80 mph, pitch on just the right spot, break away to the left and take out Billy Anderson’s off stump.  The next batsman would fall to my leg break and –

          “What did I just tell you Charlie Morris?” Mrs. Skeet yelled. “Stand up.”

          But before I could say anything, the noon bell rung and I was saved.  Far louder was the howl of the siren, the air raid warning.

          “A fine time to have an air raid,” Johnny muttered. “You wouldn’t think the Jerries would have time to come here.”

          “Right class, bring your lunch-bags and gas masks and follow me,” Mrs Skeet shouted, leading us to the shelter.

          We had to cross the yard and go down about a dozen steps into a cold and dim place with bare concrete walls and ceiling. Against the long walls were benches for the girls on the left facing the boys on the right.

          The caretaker brought in a crate of milk and went out again, slamming the heavy door behind him.

          Mrs Skeet lit a candle and we waited for the bombs to fall.

The Salutary Tale of Ed Punch, by Peter Shilston,

Despite his impeccably middle-class background, Edwin was always fascinated by organized crime and the activities of gangster leaders. This led to his hanging around in the bars and clubs of Soho, hoping to be noticed by the Kray twins and their associates, who at this time were enjoying the heyday of their power in the district. This made him feel superior to his less adventurous friends.

   For a long time he was simply ignored, but one evening a thief who was being pursued by the police thrust a piece of jewellery into his hand with the words, “Hold that for me, mate!” Quite probably he had mistaken Edwin for someone else in the gloom. The police arrived shortly afterwards and questioned everyone on the premises, but Edwin, with his respectable appearance and accent, was allowed to leave without being searched.

   He felt immensely proud of his coolness under pressure. A few days later he was approached by two threatening-looking men in dark suits who hustled him into a car and demanded that he handed over the stolen item to them. For a wild moment he considered answering them with snarling defiance, but common sense prevailed. Managing to show no trace of the gnawing fear he felt inside, Edwin answered them respectfully and politely, complied with their wishes without protest, and indicated that he was willing to undertake any similar work in the future. Feeling, probably correctly, that his real name of Edwin Prosserly, was nowhere near hard enough for a would-be gangster, he told them that he was called Ed Punch. His self-regard increased greatly in consequence.

   Before long he was approached again. Edwin sensed that he was being tested, with increasingly important tasks. He was asked to dispose of a pistol, which he duly chucked into the Thames near Windsor early one Sunday morning. Was it, he wondered with a thrill of vicarious danger, a murder weapon? For this task he was rewarded with a considerable amount of money in old banknotes. He decided to devote himself to this new, exciting and potentially lucrative life; and he dropped out of college.

   He rented a flat in Old Compton Street, where shortly afterwards he was required to play host to Tony, a young man he had never met before. Edwin felt very uneasy in Tony’s presence, and took great care not to annoy him, for the young man showed every sign of being a psychopath. He was most relieved when after a couple of weeks Tony disappeared and was not seen again.

    Other tasks followed over subsequent months. He drove getaway cars and later disposed of them, he kept account-books for semi-literate criminals, and occasionally vacated his flat when it was required for other purposes by persons unknown. He was well paid for his work, but the tension was beginning to take its toll. He could sense that, although the mobsters occasionally found him useful, he wasn’t really one of them and never would be: he was just a middle-class kid who thought it was cool to hang around with gangsters, and that they might cast him off or betray him at any moment, without a second thought. And did he really want to spend the rest of his life in company with men like Tony?

     Then one day the police conducted a swoop and arrested the entire gang. They were all interrogated separately, on a charge of involvement in a murder. It should surprise no-one that Edwin was the first to crack and turn Queen’s Evidence in return for immunity from prosecution.

    He is believed to be living in South Africa under an assumed name.  It is safe to assume that he never admits to ever having been called Ed Punch.  

Single, by Andrea MacDonald,

There’s a mark on the wall where the cupboard used to be

The one we were given by your family

But now we’re not ‘us ‘

We’re just you and me

That cupboard is my heart and it’s empty

You lied by omission

The unspeakable truth

Old habits die hard

Your misspent youth

I gave you love for love's sake

Then fought a war of attrition

That cupboard is my heart and it’s empty

So I took all that love and

In a fit of pique

 I crammed it in it in that cupboard that you sold after a week

I’m not sorry that I loved you I’m just sorry for your loss

That cupboard is my heart and it’s empty