Short fiction: Don't Let Your World Be Grey

A portrait on a summer terrace

My phone rang when I was on the loo.

“I’m working for The Guardian,” he announced.

Well good for you, I thought.

“Yes?” I asked. I had noticed the toilet roll was used up and was wondering whether I dared call my wife for assistance.

“I am calling about your uncle’s obituary,” he said.

“He is not dead,” I replied.

He let out the most appalling laugh, the sort of loud, fluting sound one might hear from malign bird in a malarial swamp somewhere. “No, no, you misunderstand,” he said. “We have a file of obituaries ready for press, just in case. Naturally we get them down off the shelf and dust them off a little now and then, to make sure they’re ready to use if we need them.”

My uncle was in fact frail, but I doubted if he knew that. “I don’t think there is much to add,” I said. “He stopped painting quite suddenly when he was a young man and told no-one why, as you will know. He went to teach in a secondary modern in the North-East. Frankly he did nothing of note thereafter.”

Albert_Edelfelt (1854-1905), The Parisienne (Virginie),1883

“I understand.” He paused a moment. “I should say that I do also write, now and then, on art. I have therefore been able to add certain details, and it may be wise if they’re checked. Besides, obituary apart, one should love to know why things ended as they did.”

“He’s told no-one in 60 years,” I said, “and I doubt he will tell me now. But if you wish you may send me a text with your name, in case that should change.” I thought for a moment. “Perhaps you would email me a copy of the obituary you have?” I asked. “It will be fastest for me simply to check it, and update it if necessary.”

“I shall. Thank you,” he said, and emitted another avian shriek. Any man with a laugh like that, I thought, must surely dismember small mammals in the night.

He rang off. I heard my wife’s footsteps in the kitchen outside.

“Jane, darling!” I called.

“In the cupboard above you,” she said wearily.

*

He did send the draft obituary and I sat down at my desk to read it. The main facts of Uncle Tom’s life were known to me, of course. Birth in postwar austerity, in a coastal coal village in the North-East  where the seams went out under the sea. (“It was a shithole,” he told me once, when I was in my teens. “But the people were OK, weren’t they, Uncle Tom?” I asked, almost anxious. “It was a shithole,” he repeated.) The father whose chest was weak, and took what work he could; the mother who’d borne three boys before him, all three of whom worked in the mine like the rest of the village and did not live to be old. Then the art master who saw something he did not expect. The scholarship to art college. The loan of a King’s Road studio. The shock of The Dying God, which was still in the Museum of Modern Art, though they rarely hung it. The summer in Tuscany with the Contessa Clara della Rovercella, whose portrait he was to have painted, but did not. The…

“What?” said Jane. She came into my study, wiping glue off her hands; she had been mending a teacup.

“Who,” I asked, “was, or is, the Contessa Clara della Rovercella?”

“I have heard that name.” She sat down on the edge of the sofa, avoiding the books and papers strewn there. “Wasn’t she some fashionable socialite back in the 1960s? Often seen in the art world, I think.”

“According to this, he was to have painted her. But didn’t.”

“Why don’t you search her?”

I did. A string of results came up, but most were old newspaper headlines, some in Italian or German. The Wikipedia item was only two or three paragraphs; it confirmed that she had been a noted socialite and added that she was a patron and collector of modern art. The faded news pictures suggested that she had been quite lovely. The birth date was uncertain.

“It seems Uncle Tom spent a summer in Tuscany with her,” I said. “And she was rather beautiful.”

“My goodness. She was, wasn’t she,” said Jane, looking over my shoulder.“ Is she still alive?”

“No.” A brief obituary had appeared in The Times about 30 years earlier.

“Well, fancy the crafty old sod not mentioning her,” I said. “I’m going to see him on Saturday. I shall ask him about it.”

“Are you sure you should?” she asked.

*

I never liked visiting Uncle Tom; but that was not his fault. He had been kind to me when I was a child. I remembered sitting on his knee and daubing the rough grey paper he always put on his easel so that I could play. In later years he said little, but always welcomed me, and later Jane too, when we passed through the North-East on our way to Scotland. Even now he greeted me warmly. But he said less than ever, and the care home depressed me; a converted Edwardian businessman’s home, large, detached, extended, in its own grounds, yet somehow lacking in warmth. The staff were kind but busy. When he had moved at last from his cottage, some well-meaning soul found an old easel in it, and brought it down to stand in his room; but at first the staff stood it in front of the window, where it blocked off his light until I moved it. Now that he could no longer easily get out of bed, a nurse would come to help him to the toilet – a quick, clinical process that I felt must depress him though he gave no sign of it. I blessed the older nurse who, as she helped him, always talked to him about something else; the weather, the World Cup, a volcano lately erupted in Indonesia. He knew why she did it and she knew he knew but that was not the point and he liked her for it, and so did I.

I parked, and picked up the The Economist, which I always brought for him though I was unsure if he still read it, and a recent detective novel whose author he had said he liked. I went into the hall, signed my name and my time of arrival and jotted down my number plate. In his room, I found him lying back on the pillows; lately he had begun to sleep more in the day, but today he was wide awake.

“Thought you’d come today,” he said.

“Why?”

“It’s raining. You can’t work in the garden, can you? And Jane can’t drag you out shopping. So you come round here.”

“Still a Northerner, aren’t you, Uncle Tom,” I said.

“How is she, all right?”

“She’s good,” I said.

“She’s not good. She’s well,” he said. “Silly modern language.”

 “All the same in the end, isn’t it,” I said.

“I know that. But that’s me, isn’t it. When I finally bugger off, they’ll all say what a grumpy old man I was,” he said. “Right to the end.”

“That’s it. Grumpy Old Sod Dies at 110, it’ll say on your obit,” I said.

“Obit of me! No bugger’s going to bother, I’ll tell you that now,” he said.

“You’d be surprised,” I said. “Matter of fact I meant to tell you. I got this call from a man at The Guardian on Thursday. He was a little odd.”

“Well, he would be, from The Guardian, wouldn’t he. What did a bloke from the papers want with you?”

“Nothing,” I said. “He was interested in you.”

“Oh.”

He looked at me, and there was a sudden caution.

“He was updating your obituary,” I said.

“I’m not dead yet, the cheeky sod.”

”I did tell him that. But they update and fact-check them now and then.”

“So I suppose it was all about how I was born in a blast furnace and sent down the mine when I were nine years old and made to torture pit ponies,” he said.

“Didn’t know about the ponies. I’ll tell him.” I took out the printout of the draft obit. “One thing I meant to ask you. Who was the Contessa della Rovercella?”

He looked at me again but said nothing, and his face was like thunder. Then he looked away, and his face seemed to soften and split into many parts.

“She was,” he said, “beautiful.”

*

“it was the year I painted The Dying God. Roddy Miles-Brett had lent me his studio in the King’s Road. He hadn’t been painting much that spring. I had told him I wanted to paint this allegory, of a God disintegrating – into artefacts… Cogs and nuts and suchlike and a TV. But you’ve seen it, haven’t you? It was that April it came to me. It was the famous Time  cover that month. Is God Dead? it said, in stark red letters on a black background. Its articles asked, had Nietzsche been right? Had the selfish nature of Man destroyed God? Did we now seek a theology without religion? The cover, and the issue, was a scandal at the time.

“In any case, I was finishing the piece. It was a late afternoon in May; we had had cold weather that spring, but that day was warm and there was that very clean light, so unlike the summer in London then, and it was streaming through the skylight, although it was coated in grime; the air was dirty then. I was in a good mood as the work was nearly done. I caught a feminine scent on the air, and turned round. Roddy was standing there, in his brown tweed herringbone jacket and his green tie, his hair just a little too long. And with him was a slim woman of about thirty in a white summer dress, her hair a thick, glossy chestnut, her eyes a deep blue, her face split by a challenging, brilliant smile; and there was a delicacy, a compelling femininity about her. My heart flew, and I at once felt like a clumsy hulk in her presence; a Caliban, or Grendel.

“’Thomas,’ said Roddy, ‘this is the Contessa Maria Clara della Rovercella.’

“’Really, Roddy,’ she said, smiling, ‘Chiara will do.’ Her voice was low and smooth. And I swear my bowels turned to water.”

He stopped for a moment then, and his head relaxed back onto the pillow; I wondered if he had lost the thread. I was about to prompt him, but he continued:

“’What on earth is that painting about?’ she asked, and I replied, ‘It’s called The Dying God.’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘Oh, my goodness me,’ she said, and crossed herself.

“Clara is a good Catholic girl,’ said Roddy.

“‘Oh, do shut up, Roddy,’ she said, and hit his arm with her glove; but she started laughing. Then she stopped, and turned to me. ‘Will you tell me about it?’ she asked. ‘If you wish. If you do not insist – as some do? – that a piece speak for itself.’

“So I began to explain – about Nietzsche’s phrase, about what he had meant by it and what he did not, that he did not propose a literal death of God. And I talked about the recent Time cover, and where theology could go in a world where the spiritual dimension was being ripped away. She seemed to follow me closely, asking a question or prompting briefly here or there. After some time Roddy tried to interrupt, fearful I think that she would be bored; but she shushed him gently. I felt the entire object of her attention; I would find that she could do that, and you would reveal to her your very soul.

“In the weeks that followed I saw her now and then, at exhibitions, or at picnics on the river, or garden parties with other former students. Roddy I saw less and less. Then one day I received two notes. The first was a brief – very brief – note from Roddy; he required the return of his studio at an early date. I was puzzled, but moved my belongings to a friend’s bedsit in a nearby mansion block.

“The other note was in a lavender envelope, and I fancied I caught her scent. She would return to her home in the Apennines for the summer, she said; but would I consider joining her after a week or two, and perhaps – if I wished to – paint an informal portrait of two of her? Her husband had wanted it done for some time. I wrote at once and assured her I would come. Two days later, a man arrived from a Kensington travel agent, bearing an envelope with a ticket for Rome. I was taken aback to see that it was by air.” He looked at me. “This was 60 years ago, remember. Only the wealthy flew, unless on business.

“The day before I was to go, I ran into Roddy outside the Crown in Dovehouse Street. It was early evening but he was rather drunk. ‘I hear you are going to Clara’s,’ he said. His voice was thick with alcohol, and was not friendly. I explained that her husband wanted her portrait done. ‘Her husband?’ he said, and laughed – not pleasantly. ‘He spends his time in Tangier.’ I asked what he would be doing in Tangier. ‘Looking for lithe young boys to bugger,’ he replied. I must have looked a bit shocked. I began to reply, but he said: ‘Oh, go away.’ And he went into the bar.

“The next day I went to the West London Air Terminal to catch the BEA flight to Rome. As I sat on the bus from the Terminal out to London Airport, I happened to look at my ticket. It was in an envelope from the travel agent’s, and on the outside the name Roddy Miles-Brett had been crossed out and replaced with mine. I thought nothing of it.

“And at Rome her driver met me in a blue Lancia saloon.”

He was quiet for a while and this time I did prompt him. “So what happened, Uncle Tom?”

“What happened? A beautiful summer.” He looked out at the grey dusk beyond the window; it was wet and blustery, and there were branches moving in the wind. “It was warm,” he said. “We ate on the terrace that night, then drank limoncello as the sun went down over the valley below, sending shafts of late light onto the walls and lighting them with warm tones. I thought of the grey stone at home, and summer drizzle. Later her maidservant, I suppose that’s what you’d call her, took me to my room, a large square chamber with a ceiling of wood beams, and paintings of saints and rural scenes on the wall, not by expert hands, but oddly beautiful; I judged from the paint that they were 18th century. In the next few days we sat together on that magic terrace, drinking what she called limoncello artigianale, made she said by relatives in Campania. In the evening we would have a simple pasta dish; it was always good. And we talked. Of art, of course; and books – I read a lot then. I cannot even remember much of what we said; I can hear only her voice, low and smooth, he constantly changing expressions, her deep sparkling eyes, her lustrous hair framing her oval face against the backdrop of the valley and the cypresses, and one night the westering sun moved round behind her and lit her hair gold and I said, ‘This is how I shall paint you.’ And she smiled and said, ‘Bene; così farai; so you shall.’ And I did.”

“So everyone was wrong, Uncle Tom? There was a painting!”

He did not answer, but looked first at me and then at the window again; a gust of wind had blown a filigree of spray against the pane.

“I posed her for two nights,” he said. “She sat straight-backed, but with her legs swung round to her left; she wore a white evening gown but her feet were bare, and she had arranged a fine silver chain around her ankle. On the third night she reached to the gown with her fingers and eased it apart, revealing her breasts; she covered one of them with her fingertips and left the other bare. Then she watched me as I worked. She could see that I fought to concentrate. But she knew exactly what she was doing. At length the light was gone, and I could do no more. Then she stood, her gown loose across her chest, and took me by the hand and led me to her rooms.”

We stayed silent for a while.

“It ended,” he said, his voice quiet and rather weary. “For a month or two we were happy. Then she said – quite out of the blue – that we were spent; that she must welcome others.”

“But you were in love,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And she made you go?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Not long afterwards she was joined by a wealthy collector from New York. But I found that out later. The day before she was to go, her chauffeur brought me my ticket back to London. The painting, he said, was to remain on its easel in my room.”

“And you left.”

“Yes.”

“And no-one ever saw the painting,” I said. I suppose she wasn’t satisfied with it.”

“It’s toad-in-the-hole tonight!” A cheerful face looked round the doorway. “You ready, Tom? You keep saying like it’s your favourite!”

“Well, I must admit it is.” He looked up and suddenly he was smiling.

“Good. And we got some of that HP Sauce you like,” she said.

“Right.” He pointed at me. “Just let me get rid of this tosser and I’m all yours.”

She chuckled and went off to the trolleys in the corridor.

“It doesn’t matter now, you know,” he said to me. “Maybe it never did. I came home. I got messages from galleries and art reporters and that, but I’d been patronised enough; and I never did answer them. In time they stopped coming. And I went off back north and taught art to schoolboys. Snot-nosed little sods. But thing is, I knew who they were, do you see? And I knew who I was too.”

He thought for a moment. The cheerful nurse was wheeling the meal trolley towards us; I could hear the wheels rumbling in the corridor. Another gust of rain blew across the window; it was nearly dark.

“I was just some raggedy-arsed clod from a mining village,” he said. He spoke quite slowly now. “There was nothing there. I’ve told you before. It was just a shithole.”

“Yes,” I said.

“The place were as ugly as sin and the weather stank and there was no beauty; no love even; my mum and dad meant well enough but where’s love when every day’s a struggle. And then suddenly people were looking at me. And this beautiful creature came wafting into my life. And the cypresses and the golden light. I was defenceless. Don’t let your world be grey, or you’ll fall to the first ray of colour that enters it.”

I nodded.

The toad-in-the-hole had arrived, with a bottle of HP Sauce and a bowl of chips.

“I’ll bugger off now then,” I said.

“Thanks for coming, lad,” he said. “I do like it when you come.”

I drove home through the rain. Jane had made a spaghetti sauce. She wanted to watch the figure skating, so we sat and ate together in front of the TV. At about 10pm my phone buzzed. I wondered if I could be bothered to answer, but at length swiped it. There was a message to call the nursing home. Somehow I knew why at once.

*

Two days later I collected Uncle Tom’s belongings, such as they’d been; he hadn’t kept much when he’d moved in there. The older nurse he had liked gave me a trunk with his clothes, his books – there weren’t many, but he’d still liked to read – some letters he had not yet answered, and an a cardboard box five or six inches deep and about four feet square. The latter mystified me. “He was adamant,” said the nurse. “He kept it under his bed. He said as it was to go to you and your lady wife. Don’t let the lawyers snarl it up, he said. It’s theirs in the will, anyway.” I put everything in the boot, except the box, which I put on the rear passenger seat. Then I passed quickly round the floor where his room had been, thanking the staff and shaking hands; they were kind but busy and it did not take long.

The following afternoon Jane and I went through them together. The clothes could go to the Oxfam shop. There were a few keepsakes that we would not want to throw away, though I was not sure what we would do with them. And there was the cardboard box. “I’ll get a knife,” I said.

She frowned.

“I think,” she said, “that we should open it very carefully.”

The canvas slid slowly out of the box. I breathed in sharply. Jane took it and stood it on a chair at the end of the room. The autumn sun streamed in through the window and lit it with a gentle gold.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”

“He must have taken it when he left Italy,” I said. “And kept it in this box. I wonder if he ever looked at it.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s seen it for sixty years.” She sniffed. “Oh, God. She was beautiful. Beautiful,” and I saw her eyes glistening.

I took her hand.

“Don’t let your world be grey,” I said.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

We knelt together in front of the portrait as the November sun sank slowly, and it fell into shadow.

________________________________

More short fiction from Mike Robbins

The Key It's more than a key to Fleur
Sport is Character-Forming A migration through a muddy river
It Turns on a Sixpence The CEO has a rotten day
The Man Who Lost the Plot When the character you write is cardboard
The Long Road from the Black Death A history lecturer retires
Who Killed Walter Williams? Don't ask, even now
A Difficult Life When the world dislikes your birth
Come and See the Chickens A rather English love story
In Search of a Plot  Be careful. Elspeth may put you in a bacon slicer
A Question of Character Pity the nation...
The End A gun on a brownstone roof
The Last Time A figure skater leaves the ice
After the Flood An end? Or a beginning?
Remembered Time The past is a dangerous place
A Train Journey One's sister comes to visit
Time After Time When you have to warn the children
Fashion Wokeness and subversion. With style
A Time of Darkness History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes
Another Time A tear in the fabric
Evolution The world is turning
When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square
Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala
A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip
A History Lesson Why do we study it? So we can spot it happening
The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here
Homecoming A sort of love story
Solitude A Cold War memory
Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography
Hiraeth A yearning…
Strange Places A spirit in the sky 
A Sideways Journey Things might have been different
Displaced Encounter on E94th Street
Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
Follow Mike on Bluesky, Substack, Twitter or Facebook.

Short fiction: The Key

He had drawn the car up a few feet from the steps that led to the front door. The latter was some feet above him and he could not see through the open doorway, but he saw his wife standing in it, the huge iron key in her hand. 

He could imagine her staring into the hallway at the walls with their oil paintings, mostly of hunting scenes and ancestors with their favourite hunter or dogs. They would be half-hidden in the dim light – it was mid-morning, but a grey November day.

Gemini AI

He had glanced inside earlier, and the sheet-covered furniture had stood out in the gloom, with here and there a glimmer of light on a candlestick or the brass armrest of a chair. He had shivered, and hurried away. “I’ll wait in the car,” he told her, and anyway he knew that she would rather be alone with her thoughts for a few moments; she wouldn’t pass this way again. So he sat behind the wheel of the Ford Pilot and waited.

At length she seemed to straighten up; she pulled the door to, inserted the huge key, turned it and jiggled it for a moment to extract it from the lock. Then she turned round and came crisply down the steps, the key in her hand, a tall, slim woman in her middle 30s, in a smart wool coat of prewar quality, its signs of wear well hidden.

He pushed car the door open for her.

“I can drop the key at the agents when we get back to town,” she said.

“Good.”

“Bloody death duties.”

“Indeed.” He glanced at her. “But Fleur, so much has changed. Would we ever have lived there?”

As soon as he asked the question he realised he should not have done. They relapsed into silence. He drove for five minutes or so. It started to rain as they entered the village. They reached the crossroads in the middle.

“Will you stop here for a few minutes, please, darling?”

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“I want to remember the last time I saw Hugo,” she said.

He pulled out the handbrake.

“It wasn’t a day like today,” she said. “Not at all. It was a beautiful early-summer afternoon. The sort you only seem to get in England, and only once or twice a year; the sky is deep blue and the trees so green they almost sing, and there are swallows everywhere. I was twelve. We weren’t expecting him; we hadn’t seen him for months. He came up the drive in this bright-blue sports car, it was French I think and very snazzy. And I sort of worshipped him, you see. My funny glamorous elder brother…”

*

“Beg pardon, Sir, but Master Hugo is here,” said the maid.

“So I see.” Lord Remington had been about to join his wife for tea; she had had it served out on the lawn, which pleased him in this weather. He frowned.

“Shall I tell him tea is served outside, sir?”

He frowned.

“No,” he said. He turned around, towards the east wing of the house. “You will please show him into my study.”

“Very good, sir.” The maid bowed her head slightly, and turned back towards the front door. Neither saw Fleur, who was lurking behind a stone pillar in the passageway. She decided she must leave the building without being seen; this she did, via the library and its window, which faced onto some rhododendron bushes. These afforded her valuable cover as she hastened around the wing of the house and took up position on a pillar just outside her father’s study. Here she could hear what was said within and could, with care, peer around the stonework and see the figures in the room. As she assumed her perch, she heard her brother’s voice, clear, a little mocking.

“Oh, Father.” There was a hint of a chuckle. “Really. I assure you that I am quite the reformed character.”

“Are you indeed.” Lord Remington had a piece of paper in his hand and appeared to be waving it at him. “Then what in the name of thunder is this?”

“A misunderstanding,” said Hugo.

“I can assure you,” said his father, “that nothing has been misunderstood. It is a letter from the Regiment with respect to your mess bills. I have agreed that I shall pay them, since you seem unable or unwilling to do so.” He paused and glanced at the paper. “! am aware that the Regiment prides itself on its cellar. You appear to have availed yourself of it with gusto. And there have been frequent guests from other regiments.”

“I invite them down to hunt,” said Hugo. “And on occasion for golf. That is scarcely conduct unbecoming.”

“No.” Lord Remington approached his son and seemed to tower over him. “Not paying one’s mess bills, however, is. And so is the wife of a brother officer.”

“Father, that was simply a rumour.”

“That is as maybe but you are lucky that you were permitted to resign your commission. For God’s sake, man, you could have been cashiered!”

“I have done nothing improper, Father, I can assure you,” said Hugo. His voice sounded smooth, yet there was a note of uncertainty. “But I appeal to you. If I am to have no allowance, how shall I manage?”

“That may indeed require more character that we have instilled in you.” Lord Remington turned back to his desk and slapped the papers onto the blotter. “Still, you have run through the sum settled upon you on your majority. So I suppose that without my support, you will find some way to embarrass us.”

“Really, Father, I have scarcely said so,” said Hugo.

“You have not needed to. Very well.” His father turned back towards him and stood with his legs somewhat apart, his arms crossed. “I am prepared to make you an allowance of £600 a year.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Hugo said:

“Thank you, Father. I had hoped for closer to £1,000. These are uncertain times…”

“You will find that £600 will serve you in your likely location.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a condition attached,” said Lord Remington. “The allowance shall be payable provided you remain outside the British Isles. That includes the Free State. You may reside in the Empire if you wish; Australia would serve, or perhaps the Barbadoes.”

There was another silence. Then Lord Remington asked:

“Do you accept?”

“I suppose I do.”

“Very good. I shall go to town on Monday and ask Goodwood to draw up the papers. You may be gone abroad by September; he will communicate with you as regards the terms.”

Nothing more was said. Fleur saw her brother stand and go to the door. She dropped like a cat to the ground and slipped through the rhododendron bushes, reaching the veranda doors off the living room just as Hugo stepped through them onto the patio, where his mother was standing anxiously, her hands clasped together. The maid approached from the lawn. Behind Hugo came his father.

“Pardon me, madam, tea is ready and I have laid a place for Mr Hugo,” she said, sounding a little nervous.

“Mr Hugo,” said Lord Remington, “will not be joining us for tea.”

“No,” said Hugo. “I am so sorry. I have a golf engagement in Sussex.”

He shook hands with his father and kissed his mother on the cheek. Then he walked across the lawn towards the bright blue Salmson Grand Prix tourer parked on the drive. He wore plus-fours and a flat cap; a golf bag filled the passenger seat, and a valise was lashed to the luggage rack.

Fleur called out: “Hugo!”

He turned, and stopped.

“My dear,” he said. He reached out to her, and smiled, though she thought he looked sad. “My dear Fleur. Am I still allowed to tickle you?”

“No,” she said, proud. “I’m getting too big.”

“Then I shall give you a little hug.” He did; then he lowered himself behind the wheel of the Salmson, adjusted the ignition and choke and started the car, which emitted a throaty bark and a cloud of blue smoke. Then he drove away down the drive, a cloud of dust from the wheels catching the afternoon sun that slanted across the lawn and lit the polished silverware laid out for tea.

*

She pushed the car door closed and went over to the granite cross in the middle of the junction. There was nobody in sight. It was beginning to rain. She stood there anyway. After a few minutes he got out and went to stand beside her, The Remembrance Sunday service had been held two days before, and there were wreaths at the foot of the cross. The front face of the base was carved with the names of the village’s dead from the first war; the side panel, with the second. She pointed at the side panel.

“There he is,” she said. “Hugo Sterling. They don’t say anything on these, they just give the names. Everyone’s the same when they’re dead.”

 “You’re getting wet, you know,” he said.

“He got the MC,” she said. “At Monte Cassino.”

“Yes,” he said.

“He was a reformed character, you see,” she said. She looked up at him. “They all were, then. The cads and the bounders and the spivs and petty crooks. Redeemed, somehow. All of them.”

“Yes…. Yes. Come into the car, you’re getting wet.”

She sat in the car and he shut the door behind her, then went round to the driver’s door. He put his hand on hers and they sat still for a few minutes. Then he grasped the huge iron key and removed it gently from her hands.

________________________________

More short fiction from Mike Robbins

Sport is Character-Forming A migration through a muddy river
It Turns on a Sixpence The CEO has a rotten day
The Man Who Lost the Plot When the character you write is cardboard
The Long Road from the Black Death A history lecturer retires
Who Killed Walter Williams? Don't ask, even now
A Difficult Life When the world dislikes your birth
Come and See the Chickens A rather English love story
In Search of a Plot  Be careful. Elspeth may put you in a bacon slicer
A Question of Character Pity the nation...
The End A gun on a brownstone roof
The Last Time A figure skater leaves the ice
After the Flood An end? Or a beginning?
Remembered Time The past is a dangerous place
A Train Journey One's sister comes to visit
Time After Time When you have to warn the children
Fashion Wokeness and subversion. With style
A Time of Darkness History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes
Another Time A tear in the fabric
Evolution The world is turning
When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square
Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala
A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip
A History Lesson Why do we study it? So we can spot it happening
The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here
Homecoming A sort of love story
Solitude A Cold War memory
Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography
Hiraeth A yearning…
Strange Places A spirit in the sky 
A Sideways Journey Things might have been different
Displaced Encounter on E94th Street
Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
Follow Mike on Bluesky, Substack, Twitter or Facebook.

Short fiction: It Turns on a Sixpence

The CEO has a bad day

When Phil became CEO he had the desks and chairs ripped out and the partitions between workstations knocked down. Then he had new desks installed that went up and down at the touch of a button, and swivel chairs with multiple adjustments. Everyone had two big screens now, and a docking station on their desk and another at home so their laptop could click into place on a kitchen table. The windows in the executive office were changed, too; now they were big single panes of glass.

It was beside one of these that Sally sat one wet late afternoon in April, watching gusts of wind blow fine sprays of rain against the glass. She caught her reflection. She could see the acne scars on her cheeks. She’d thought those’d have gone by now; she was 28.

Grok

She glanced across at the desk across the aisle. Robyn was buried in some spreadsheet or other, or purported to be; but now and then her hand would reach out to one of her monitor cables, which had several little toy koalas that grasped it between their sprung paws.

“I thought you were going to get rid of those,” said a sharp voice. Robyn looked up. Sally did too. Phil had soft-shoed down from the executive suite, unheard as usual; he was small and jowly and reminded Sally of a picture she had once seen of a past President – who was it? –the one who resigned when her mum and dad were young. She had never really understood why. He was standing above Robyn, holding some sheets of paper.

“I like my abseiling koalas,” said Robyn.

“We will have a lot of shareholders and the Chair around tomorrow,” said Phil. “I don’t want them to see toys in the office.”

“OK,” said Robyn.

“By the way I have just had a major shareholder ask why you have a boy’s name,” said Phil. “He asked me if you were a transsexual.” He didn’t wait for a reply but turned towards Sally. “You’ve got the workstation and everything arranged with the hotel?”

“Oh yes,” said Sally. “They host AGMs quite often. I’ve given them the attendance list. They know what to do.”

“Good. And don’t forget my flask of coffee. Make it here. I’m not drinking the hotel shit.”

“I shan’t forget. I’ll have it with me.”

He turned away. Sally stuck her tongue out, then realised Robyn was looking at her and her face held a warning; she could be seen in the opposite window. She grimaced.

“Wayne,” said Phil to the next desk. Wayne was a tall thin man in his mid-20s; he was always pale and vaguely sweaty and Sally wondered sometimes if he drank heavily, or used drugs. “Wayne, this deck of slides is shit.” He waved the sheaf of papers at him. “I want a new deck. Quickly, please. I want to grab the audience, all right? This is a crucial AGM. We are announcing a revolution. Not a Women’s Institute cake bake.” He threw the sheaf down on Wayne’s desk and turned back towards his office suite.

Wayne made a V-sign at Phil’s retreating back. “OK, you get a new deck,” he muttered. “Dickhead.”

Sally looked at her watch. It was past six.

“I’m off,” she said. “I’ve got almost everything in place for Thursday, and I can run over everything tomorrow and make sure.” She started shutting down her PC. “You two sticking around?”

“I have to do that dick a new deck,” said Wayne. He was leaning back in his seat, his legs stretched out.

“And I have to do a new draft of the press release,” said Robyn. “He didn’t like the last three.”

“Pillock,” said Wayne.

“Well, good luck. I’m going to stop by my sister’s for tea.” Sally put on her puffa jacket. “Still raining.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Robyn. “I’m missing the Sunshine Coast right now.”

Sally went. The other two worked on, saying little. At length Phil stalked past on his way out, dressed in a smart new wool coat; he did not say goodnight. The door of the executive office slammed behind him.

“What a dick,” said Robyn.

“It’s because you wouldn’t shag him,” said Wayne.

“’ He asked me if you were a transsexual’, said Robyn, imitating Phil’s voice. “Nasty little man.” She stood up, stretched, and glanced over the partition at Wayne’s screen. “Hey, Wayne!”

“What.”

“You can’t access that kind of stuff over the company network!”

“Don’t worry. I’m using a VPN.”

“For fu – Jeezus, Wayne. I don’t care. You can’t look at things like that in the office. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Not what you think,” said Wayne. He smiled sweetly.

Robyn was silent for a minute. Then she smiled too.

“Wayne,” she said, “you’re a conniving little shit. And I think I love you.”

*

Sally sank into an armchair in her sister’s living room and sighed deeply. Although it was April, it was still cold outside, as well as damp, so her sister had lit the wood-burner. It filled the room with flickering warmth.

“He’s a twisted character,” said Sally.

“He does sound it.” Her sister Eileen was a short-haired, slim, crisp, practical bachelor girl in her 30s. She was herself just in from work and had not yet changed; her white lab coat was flung over the back on the settee, its hem embroidered with the name of the small pharmaceuticals company she ran with a partner.

“I mean, he goes on and on at poor Robyn all the time about her having a man’s name. She doesn’t. It’s Robyn with a Y, she’s an Aussie.”

“Did she refuse to shag him?” asked Eileen.

“I think maybe yes,” said Sally. “Why?”

“Well, that’s often why men bully women.” Eileen put a bowl of crisps in front of her and started rummaging in the drinks cupboard.  “Anyway, you need a jolly big G&T.”

Sally smiled. Then she frowned.

“And I’ve got to have his Thermos of coffee ready when he does his presentation on Thursday.” Like Robyn earlier, she imitated Phil’s voice. “Don’t forget my flask of coffee. Make it here. I don’t want to drink the hotel shit.”

“Oh dear,” said Eileen. Then she paused in the act of mixing the G&Ts. “This coffee flask,” she said. She looked at her sister.

“Oh no,” said Sally. “No. Eileen, that’s evil.”

She began to laugh.

*

The morning of the AGM was wet. Sally stood beside the hotel entrance. She wondered when warm spring weather would come.

The hotel was generic; a five-star city centre offshoot of a large chain, once distinguished and independent but long bought up and sanitised, the potted palms and faded artworks banished in favour of chrome and steel. The reception desk was of Carrera marble and Sally wondered briefly what would become of it; when the next architect was wheeled out to remodel the hotel, where would it go, and who would see the beauty of its stone?

She felt her phone vibrate in her inner pocket and took it out. There in 2 min it said. Black Audi. Chairman’s driver. She looked up and down the street in the rain. At length a pair of digital LED headlights stood out from those around it; the car signalled and swished smoothly to the front step, where Sally stood ready with an open umbrella. She opened the door and the company Chair emerged, bending past the door jamb. A tall man in his seventies, he had a full head of white hair and a moustache, and his well-cut suit was half-hidden by a lambswool coat not unlike Phil’s although the Chair's lambs had been to better schools.

“Good morning, Sir Peter,” she said.

“Ah, Miss – Ms Bailey?” he said. His voice was deep and rich, but had something oddly tentative about it.

“Yes. Sally, please,” she said.

“Sally.” He turned to the driver. “Thank you, Craig. I shan’t need you for several hours. Find somewhere congenial, with coffee. A parking fee will be quite acceptable.”

She heard the driver chuckle his thanks. She held the umbrella over the Chair as they mounted the steps to the entrance. “My dear, you are getting rained on,” he said. “Let me get wet. At my age it scarcely matters.” He had a stick in his right hand, but moved it to his left and reached for the umbrella handle.

“Oh really, Sir Peter.” She smiled at him. “It is so nice to see you.”

“Likewise.” He smiled back, then frowned as she shook out the umbrella in the hall. “I am sure you have the copies of my speech ready for those that want them. I have to say, I am less easy in my mind about my remarks – than…. last year….”

“You have concerns, Chairman?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, then: “No. I should not have said that.”

He patted her arm. “I suppose I should greet the rest of the Board. I expect they are in there networking, as we call it nowadays.”

She took him to the meeting room, where Robyn was handing round copies of the meeting press release, marked with a 2pm embargo. She heard Robyn politely batting away questions about its content, suggesting they be raised with the CEO after his speech.

Phil himself was in a small side meeting-room hired for the day, pacing up and down and waving the printouts of his slides around while Wayne sat at the table making frantic amendments to the presentation on Phil’s laptop, pausing every now and then to output the revised slides to a small portable printer. Sally put her head round the door.

“The Chair is here,” she said.

“F*** him,” said Phil, and continued to pace up and down.

Wayne was fingering something in his shirt pocket. It looked like a USB stick.

“I’d better come and see him, I suppose.” Phil dropped the printouts on the table and Sally followed him out. As she did so she saw Wayne take out the USB stick and slide it into a USB port. She wondered for a moment what Wayne was doing, then decided she did not need to know.

“Is my coffee ready?” asked Phil over his shoulder. “I can have it while the Chair is giving his speech. He’ll be boring, anyway.”

*

As always in an AGM, the order of business started with the Chair. Sir Peter opened the meeting and indicated the Board of Directors. He formally confirmed that the meeting was quorate (it clearly was; the room was packed). He held the stick in one hand, the presentation clicker in the other. It occurred to Sally that he had not had a stick the previous year, and he looked older. But his voice was still strong.

He moved on to the Chairman’s Address.

“Some of you are aware,” he said, “that our company has shifted its strategic vision somewhat in the last year. This has reflected the priorities of the Board since Mr Philip Baldwin’s appointment as CEO last year. You will hear more from Mr Baldwin on the latest progress, but in sum we will increasingly move from retail space and staff-driven operations to automated warehouses from  which orders can be fulfilled. We will use artificial intelligence to integrate these operations with online marketing…”

“Will we?” asked a voice from the audience. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Sally looked at the speaker. It was the representative of the shopworkers’ union.

“Mr Johnson, we will take questions later in the meeting,” said Sir Peter.

“From shareholders you will,” said the representative. “Not from me.”

“You should have appointed a shareholder to act as a proxy,” said Phil. He poured some coffee into a cup from his Thermos flask.

Sir Peter tapped the stage with his stick.

“As Chair, I am making my address to the AGM. I should prefer not to be interrupted,” he said. He looked at the union rep. “Mr Johnson, we have known each other for many years. You must know that I will always be pleased to hear any representations from you after the meeting.”

“Idiot,” muttered Phil. It was not clear who he meant. Sally sensed a tension in the room. Her eyes were drawn to the flask.

In due course Sir Peter finished, and handed the floor to the CEO. Unlike the Chair, Phil had a slide presentation; for as long as Sally could remember, Sir Peter had never used one – a strange omission now, when most presenters welcomed the screen image as a way to take the audience’s eyes away from them.

“The world,” he began, “is changing. So is the role of human agency.” The first slide came up. “A Changing Role for People,” it said.

“No role for people,” muttered Johnson. He looked distressed.

“We are in a race,” continued Phil. “Those who, out of misguided qualms or caution, keep on a larger workforce than they need will quickly find themselves out of business.”

“So will you if there’s no-one with a job left to buy your goods,” said someone. “Yep,” said Johnson. The Chair rapped the floor with his cane.

“Continue, please, Mr Baldwin,” he said. He looked grim.

Phil clicked the presentation clicker and a new image slid onto the screen. “We cannot avoid the realities of the AI revolution. This schematic shows how technology will affect the workforce…”

There was silence for a moment. Then someone said: “Yes, it does, doesn’t it.”

Someone chuckled. Someone else gasped. Sally’s eyes opened wide. Robyn, standing by the door, seemed to be suppressing a grin.

“Good God,” said the lady from the Financial Times.

“My goodness,” said the man from the Mirror. “She’s a big girl, isn’t she.”

Phil looked puzzled, then realised no-one was looking at him; everyone’s gaze was rivetted on the screen. He turned. Instead of his schematic slide, the screen displayed a naked couple performing with no restraint whatsoever.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said. He lunged at the keyboard. The mouse moved in response to his hand, but mouse clicks had no effect. He jabbed the Esc button at the top left of the keyboard, but nothing happened.  “Oh God,” he moaned. “Oh God.”

As luck would have it the soundtrack emitted just these words from both performers, albeit with more enjoyment.

“I say,” said someone, “is that even legal?”

His neighbour gazed at the screen, mouth agape. “So that was what my wife meant,” he said at last. “So that’s what she meant.”

“I am sorry, so sorry,” said Phil. He pressed key after random key but the keyboard was plainly locked. Then suddenly he stood up straight; his eyes stared. “Oh my God,” he yelled, and clutched his stomach. He bent over, straightened again and charged off the dais, his hands clasped over his belly; his face had gone white and he was sweating. “My stomach!” he yelled. “My stomach!” He smashed through the room’s swing double doors just as a waiter was entering with a large silver tray piled high with finger food. Both went flying. Phil picked himself up and disappeared down the corridor, leaving the waiter sprawled amidst a debris field of vol-au-vents.

For a minute or so nothing happened; the meeting gazed at the screen, mesmerised. Then there was a loud click and the screen when blank. Sir Peter had returned to the dais and had unplugged the computer.

The audience was silent. Sir Peter looked around, and saw Robyn emerging into the room from the corridor.

“Where is Mr Baldwin?” he asked.

“He is in the bog, Mr Chairman,” she said.

“I see. Is he returning to the meeting?”

“I doubt it. He’s chucking his little heart out.”

There was a titter through the room.

“Very well.” Sir Peter stood at the front of the dais, his cane in both hands, touching the floor. “The Annual General Meeting has been disrupted and it seems it cannot continue. As Chairman, I must declare it adjourned. I shall ensure that it is reconvened at an early date and in full accordance with the Companies Act 2006. Thank you for your forbearance.”

He nodded briefly to the room, and left the dais.

*

They formed a knot in the corner of the room beside the fallen vol-au-vents.

“You must be off your head, Wayne,” Sally hissed at him.

“Don’t look at me,” said Wayne. “Where’s that bloody thermos flask? You’d better get rid of that quick.”

“I can’t find it,” said Sally. She looked frightened.

“It’s in my shoulder-bag,” said Robyn. “In an hour or two it’ll be on its way downstream in one of those rubbish barges, never to be seen again.”

“Thank you. Thank you,” said Sally.

“Where’s Phil the Dick?” asked Wayne.

“He’s still in the dunny,” said Robyn. “I wondered if he’d get out of there alive for a moment. He seems to be barfing less now. I don’t know how we’re getting him out of here though. No cabbie’s going to take a bloke who’s crapped himself like that.”

“Maybe,” said Wayne, “we should just leave the fucker.”

“We might have to,” said Robyn. “Where’s the Chair?”

“He’s been saying goodbye to folks and apologising,” said Sally. “But I think he’s nearly finished.”

“Maybe you should go schmooze him,” said Robyn. “Wayne’s got some stuff to do with Phil’s laptop. And he’d better bloody do it quick if you ask me. I’ll get rid of your bloody Thermos. Jeez, if we’d known you were going to do that…”

“I’ll go schmooze him,” said Sally.

She found Sir Peter in the corridor. He had been deep in conversation with Mr Johnson. “It may be that he was not the right choice,” she heard Sir Peter say. “But we are a public company. There are proper procedures. Please leave this with me for now. We will talk again.”

They shook hands. Sir Peter turned towards her. He looked tired and, suddenly, old.

“We will have to find out what happened today,” he said.

“Yes,” said Sally. “Quite.”

“I will ring Craig and tell him he is needed earlier than expected.”

“I will do it.” She took her own phone out and dialled the number. The driver answered at once, his words muffled by a Scotch egg; she could hear a newspaper rustle. He would, he said, be there in ten minutes.

“I will go to the lobby,” said Sir Peter. “Will you wait there with me?”

“Of course.” They walked slowly down the corridor and he took her arm.

“We will have to find out,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said again. Then she burst out:

“Sir Peter, he was a horrible man.”

He nodded slowly.

“I think I knew that,” he said.  He looked at her. “You speak of him in the past tense.”

They had reached the lobby and sat down in two rather uncomfortable steel-and-leather armchairs. It was still raining outside and the bright lights inside made the street seem dark, although it was midday.

“My father loved my mother the moment he saw her,” he said.

She looked at him.

“In Hamburg. He was a soldier. She was clearing rubble. His commanding officer did not want to let them marry. ‘She’s a German,’ he told him. ‘I’d rather you warried a n*****.’”

Sally flinched at the word. I wonder why he is telling me this, she thought.

“It took a long time before he could marry her and bring her home. His family did not really welcome her. But they built a life. They were happy at last. Then when I was 10 she took me out shopping. A dog ran out in the street and a car had to brake. It was one of those Reliant things, a three-wheeler, and it skidded and mounted the pavement. And she was gone.”

“Oh.”

He reached out and touched her arm. “We have seen a man destroyed today,” said Sir Peter. “He was not a very nice man. But he was a man.“

“Yes.”

“Life is random,” he said. “A person’s fate can turn on a sixpence. And it will. Let Fate do its work; it needs no help; it has no need of you.”

They said nothing for a minute or two. Then the Audi slid up to the kerb outside the hotel. He stood, a bit slowly, and she gave him her arm so that he could steady himself. They went out together into the rain. She held the car door open as he eased himself down into the seat. He reached out and squeezed her hand. Then he pulled the door to, and the car swept away through the rain.

________________________________

More short fiction from Mike Robbins

Sport is Character-Forming A migration through a muddy river
The Man Who Lost the Plot When the character you write is cardboard
The Long Road from the Black Death A history lecturer retires
Who Killed Walter Williams? Don't ask, even now
A Difficult Life When the world dislikes your birth
Come and See the Chickens A rather English love story
In Search of a Plot  Be careful. Elspeth may put you in a bacon slicer
A Question of Character Pity the nation...
The End A gun on a brownstone roof
The Last Time A figure skater leaves the ice
After the Flood An end? Or a beginning?
Remembered Time The past is a dangerous place
A Train Journey One's sister comes to visit
Time After Time When you have to warn the children
Fashion Wokeness and subversion. With style
A Time of Darkness History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes
Another Time A tear in the fabric
Evolution The world is turning
When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square
Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala
A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip
A History Lesson Why do we study it? So we can spot it happening
The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here
Homecoming A sort of love story
Solitude A Cold War memory
Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography
Hiraeth A yearning…
Strange Places A spirit in the sky 
A Sideways Journey Things might have been different
Displaced Encounter on E94th Street
Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
Follow Mike on Bluesky, Twitter and Facebook.