Out on the moors we were horribly lost. TPR caught his feet in the heather, tripped, and Brian the dog fell out of his arms. That was it: the dog was gone forever.
The only creatures that came near us now were the vicious black and white sheep.
Out on the moors we were horribly lost. TPR caught his feet in the heather, tripped, and Brian the dog fell out of his arms. That was it: the dog was gone forever.
The only creatures that came near us now were the vicious black and white sheep.
TPR came out of retirement to do one last rotation in the US. We lived ‘open plan’ in a gym-sized hall alongside many other people. This meant that we had to share furniture and dress in front of the others. I was often confused as to whether the clothes on the chair next to my shared dressing table were actually mine.
On this occasion I found a short red soft Tweed jacket and almost-matching skirt. My dressing table partner told me that DM had left them for me. This got me thinking about how TPR and I were spending our time in the US. Why had we not yet made a trip to the outlet stores?
It soon became clear that the demands of my new job meant that I was spending a lot more time in the company of X, especially after-hours. Indeed, I was beginning to feel that my role was more escort girl than academic.
Meanwhile TPR was becoming used to my early evening phone calls alerting him to the news that I would not be home for dinner – again.
I got up early and settled down to some work at my computer in the study. Soon afterwards TPR followed me into the room with my breakfast. This was not my usual 40g of museli, but a bowl of mixed vegetable soup, a plate of mixed vegetables, and a portion of chips. I remarked that this was hardly appetising. TPR defended his culinary choices by explaining that he had lots of spare vegetables to use up. I instructed him to take away my unwanted breakfast. I would transform it into soup later.
Our student lodgers CWFR and JM then came to join me in the study so that JM could use the PC to update his CV. I was grateful that they had not instead accidentally wandered into our bedroom and spotted the lumps under the carpet. It was already a risk that TPR would see them and try to straighten them out.
Would I then be forced to confess to the murder? My hope was that the body in the shallow grave between the carpet and the floorboards would decompose over the course of the coming years and – provided that we never moved house again – my secret would be safe, at least until after my own death.
‘You’re lucky that I am not going to arrest you’ said the police officer as she slammed the door of her patrol car.
‘Oh, what’s wrong with our pink go-cart?’ I enquired in a fashion as innocent as I could muster. I knew only too well that the makeshift vehicle on which DM and I had just sped downhill at top speed was extremely dangerous.
‘It needs a strap’, the police officer told us.
It was Online week and although I no longer attended the conference (it was not of interest to me any more) I returned to the venue each night so that the long-haired woman could record television interviews with me on her iPad.
I loved my Uncle J’s house in Australia. Despite its tidiness, it still had the antique charm of my parents’ house back in the UK.
I asked JL about his arm muscles. His perfect biceps were the result of 40 minutes of morning exercises every day.
GR persuaded me to speak to his engineering students, but I lost him on the way to the lecture theatre.
LO’N retrieved me and invited me out dancing on Sunday night. This was a much better prospect than anything that GR had planned for me.
Despite her advancing age, JG had popped out two baby daughters in two years. She told me this on the day that I swam across Uig Bay with my camera, accompanied by dolphins.