Writers' & Artists' Short Story Competition 2015: the winners

The first runner up, who will receive a copy of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2015 is.... 'Joy' by Matthew Mundy.

Feedback from Lucy Wood:

Writing a ghost story on the theme of joy is an interesting idea and I really enjoyed this story’s foreboding atmosphere. Right from the beginning, we are aware of something uncanny – why can’t Ben reach his girlfriend’s house? I like the way the snow mirrors this tension: the world seems strange and menacing. The writer uses some nice details, like the paw-prints in the snow, to create a vivid scene. And the odd, shadowy figure of Weep, who lingers at the edge, adds another really interesting layer, showing us what could happen to Ben if he doesn’t let go of the past. The idea of letting go, and accepting the past, gave this ghost story a strong structure and sense of resolution.  

Scroll down the page to read Matthew's story.

The second runner up, also receiving a copy of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2015 is....'Joy' by Simon James Pearson.

Feedback from Lucy Wood:

This story grabbed my attention for the confidence and flair of the writing. It’s full of energy and bite and humour. I enjoyed the playful way that the writer engaged with the theme, by writing about someone who is attempting to write a story on the theme of joy. This works well because the character is so irreverent and struggles to find anything joyful to write about. The characters are vivid and funny, particularly in their dialogue. This story is written in a strong and engaging voice.

Scroll down the page to read Simon's story.

And this year's winner, who will receive a cheque for £500 and a place on an Arvon writing course is... 'Joy' by Dick Johns. 

Feedback from Lucy Wood:

This story conjures up a wonderfully tense and complex family drama, as seen from the perspective of a nine year old. The child’s point of view works really well, highlighting all the gaps in his parents’ communications and all the things that are left unsaid. The writer uses spare, confident dialogue, and the way the children mimic their parents is a lovely touch. I particularly like the way this story explores the theme of joy. It’s set at a christening – an event that is meant to be joyful, and indeed the new baby is referred to as a ‘bundle of joy.’ But as we are shown, family life can also be stifling and confusing, and children can unwittingly bring tensions to relationships. This is a well-structured and affecting story.

Scroll down the page to read Dick's winning entry.

Many congratulations to Dick, Matthew and Simon, and thank you to all those who entered.  And as for the W&A Team? We turn our attention to our next competition. Keep your eyes peeled!

Winner: 'Joy' by Dick Johns

She shut the door.

"What’s he doing now? He’s gone back in. Jesus."

She pushed the button to get the window down.

"What are you doing," she shouted, "for god’s sake?"

"What are you doing?" imitated Jack.

"Getting something, checking something, going back for something," said his brother Evan.

"I can’t do this" she said, looking in the rear view mirror. She took out lipstick. Applied it. Breathed out loudly

"Okay Mum?" asked Evan, a counsellor at 9.

She said nothing.

Evan, his brother and their mother watched their father as he came out of his house, shut the door, walked towards the car. Reaching the car door, his hand nearly on the handle, he stopped and retreated to the front door he had just closed. He looked to see if it was shut. It was. He pushed it for good measure, just to check. It did not give way. He walked back to the car and sat down in the seat

"Are we all ok?" he said.

***

She pulled up the car. She put on sunglasses.

"Are we late?" asked Evan.

"Not really" said his father.

"Yes, we are late. Let’s try and be honest shall we?" said his mother.

"I am not being dishonest," said his father, "just trying not to let your incipient panic transfer itself unnecessarily to our children."

-"Let’s just go in," she said

-"We are late …but I am going to talk to you about this later. I am not doing this any more."

"Not doing what any more?" said his father.

"Do we get out?" said Evan. 

"Yes, get out." said his father. 

"I'll get Jack out of his seat, you get the present."

"I don’t have the present, you had it." said his mother. 

"No, I gave it to you. I had it. I put it on the stairs, I said you bring the present."

"I am not going in there without a present."

Jack was crying.

"Jesus Jack, just wait a minute - I will get you out now," said his father.

"No he’s…" said Evan, but his father talked louder

"Jesus Jack stop that noise, I am coming."

"I am staying in the car. I am not going in without a present." said his mother.

"He’s hurt his hand. He has cut it on the seat," said Evan.

"How can he…" said his father.

His father turned rapidly to see his three year old holding a hand in the air, wailing. There was blood.

"Jesus Jack how did you…?"

"He cut it trying to undo the child lock," said Evan,

"I told you the metal bit was showing."

"I fixed that," said his father. "I put gaffer on it."

His mother and father were out of the car and in the rear door, administering.

"Jesus, that is deep. It’s…we need something to…"

There was a deep cut across the knuckles of his brother’s hand. And a lot of blood.

"Give me something. I need that top there," said his father.

"That’s my hoodie," said Evan

"It’s ok, it will wash," said his father.

"If you had just got out instead of talking, this would not have happened. You are a nightmare at anything to do with your family. I am not doing this any more," said his mother.

"Your son has a serious injury here. I suggest you… not doing what any more for god’s sake?"

"Just get out of the way."

"It’s ok Jack, it’s ok. You will be ok." She was in next to him. Holding him. Soothing.

"We are late," said Evan. "We will miss it."

***

"And there is no more wondrous or joyous occasion in the life of a family than the birth of a child, and we are honoured to have shared in the joy of that moment with Gary and Martha today as they welcome Ruby into the family of the church as well as into the wider family and indeed the large number of friends congregated here today. May they offer you the love and protection you need all your days on this earth. Thank you all and may the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you all."

"Is that it?" whispered Evan

"I believe it is," said his father

***

Upstairs at the pub afterwards, there was a moment of clarity. 

An hour in, Evan and his father sat alone near the chocolate fountain.

"Dad?" said Evan

"Yep?"

"What does mum mean when she says she can’t do this any more?"

"Here she is kid, maybe you should ask her."

His mother had arrived. She was holding a baby. 

"Nice picture," said his father. "Like the old days. Our old days that is."

"I think we have to leave."

"Really?"

"Really. Jack is miserable and his hand.I want to get his hand looked at."

"Where? It’s a Sunday."

"Of course it would be difficult." said his mother

"It’s not that, I just. It’s a Sunday. Don’t panic, I will take him in the morning. This is my family, when do I see my family?"

Evan got up and left them to it. He walked over to the chocolate fountain and took a strawberry and let the chocolate spray off the sides of it for a while. He moved to a window and looked down at the traffic. Swaying right next to the window were the earliest spring leaves of a tree. Evan looked for a long time at the leaves gently ruffled by breeze. They were extremely green. And he felt a sense of something new to him. An awareness perhaps that whatever happened next would happen anyway.  It was just the leaves and him and his thoughts for a bit. Then he walked over to where his Uncle and Auntie were talking to some people he did not know. His Auntie gave him a big hug, then said

"And look at this big boy. This is my nephew. He is the oldest of all the cousins. He was the first. And now he has our new bundle of joy to play with."

Evan let them talk and thought about the car journey home. Once in Spain was the one he remembered. The worst. It started about maps and then just got louder and louder. Both of them said the F word a lot. His father’s sunglasses were smashed on the gearstick. Jack was screaming and so was he. Jack was just screaming because his brother was. But he was screaming because of fear. He did not want his parents to break up. It got better and they went to a café and then it got much worse than it had been before. And when they got back to Britain, they tried to make it all right in the service station by giving him McDonald's and anything he wanted really. But they knew it was bruised. He was bruised and they were bruised. Bruised by words said, not actually bruised. But that in Evan’s mind was very much still real bruising.

All the way home he wanted to ask about being an adult. What is it like to be a grown up? Sometimes it seems quite hard, he thought. The opportunity did not arise. No-one spoke all the way. Jack was asleep. And Evan stared out of the window, hopeful.

1st runner-up: 'Joy' by Matthew Mundy. 

In Britain, there’s a special kind of silence when it snows. It’s a silence that can be felt in your bones, a silence that creates nothing but peace. 

‘It’s a snow day!’ is the phrase screamed in the ears of working parents across the country. The usual response being something along the lines of ‘sodding hell.’

But if you watch closely you’ll catch a smile, or maybe just a nod in for a solid excuse off work.  

But to someone, it meant something entirely different, something dreadful. The woman looked out her window, beads of condensation rounding the corners and framing the white road.

Forty, was she really forty?

The light was young, and the gated path opposite her house was bright, and the forest white. But she knew it would not remain that way.

Today, Ben would walk to her house again. And this time she would tell him the truth.

*

Ben breathed deep, letting the cool air stretch his lungs. He felt alive. He strolled along the pavement - well, what he assumed was the pavement; the only discernible feature on the ground were the trough-like tracks from passing cars. 

The snow tickled at his eyelashes and the air chilled his nose, but it wasn’t as cold as you’d expect. It was like the snow was insulating the ground, covering the trees and grass in a thick winter coat, making certain the world retained that little bit of warmth essential for life.

Ben liked to think he could survive in the wild, liked to think he was a bit SAS.

Would a commando leave his phone at home?

He ‘tutted’ absentmindedly, but it didn’t matter now. He was walking to escape his worries, and to Sophie.

English test next week. 

Eugh, he shouldn’t have opened up that bag of anxiety; a long groan reverberated through his mind. 

Think about now; think about how beautiful it is. Think about her. 

Warm lips, cute freckles, and blonde curls in a beautiful mess that wasn’t really a mess at all. Ben smiled - she’d be on the sofa right now, watching some awful TV show with a hot chocolate, wrapped in about seven blankets. Even though the heating was on… and she was wearing a onesie.

He laughed under his breath and looked up. The vestiges of tension left his body like a sigh. 

You wouldn’t think it, but there are many different kinds of white, and at that moment, the world was a dazzling rainbow of them.

There was the pale, soft dusting of white on all surfaces; the flakes that got the opportunity to cling to surfaces. ‘The pioneers of the snow brethren.

What a good chapter heading for my novel… that I’ll start… soon.

Then there were the darker clumps and gatherings caught by branches and notches. They piled into points casting pale shadows. They were the risk takers: often bits would avalanche from their steep perches to join their brothers and sisters that amassed on the ground.

They was the purest of the whites; flawless, except for the odd dotting of fallen clusters and a patter of paw-prints. It was these imperfections that made it for Ben, because that’s what life was all about. The beauty in anything and anyone was in their imperfections, and so anything beautiful was imperfect, and thus perfect...

And now my head hurts. 

He sniffed, runny nose. A beautiful imperfection of mine, or just… disgusting. He wiped it on his glove. Make sure not to stroke her hair with that one.

The last white, the white he didn’t want to think about, was not quite a colour at all. It was the pure reflection of life, the reflection of all colours, like a mirror that reflects only joy. It sounded wonderful, but Ben knew that to have pure light, there had to be darkness.

And it lurked in the corner of his vision.

The wind was picking up, whipping the snow into his face. He squinted; there was still a long way to go. He pressed on. 

After an hour something felt wrong, like in a dream when the roads defy memory. Not that the roads had changed but, something was wrong in his gut; a hollow feeling, and a sense of urgency.

 He began to jog, and he approached the hill. The hill. It was about forty five degrees and curved endlessly to the right. He found it was easier if he ran on the grass verge; there was just the minor risk of breaking the shit out of his ankle on the invisible curb.

He could hear the creaking of tires on snow ahead, and he grew cautious. An old golf rolled down the hill slowly, the engine revving loud in a low gear. 

Sensible… but blimey, that’s loud!

He shoved his fingers in his ears and picked up his pace to get past the blasted thing. He looked at the driver as it passed, an old man, oblivious to – 

His foot fell through the pavement. 

The curb –too late. His ankle twisted. Pain flared and he hit the snow. 

The revving faded behind him, and he growled at the dull pain. He got up using his good leg. 

Shit. He had a good couple of miles to go.

And no phone. Shit!

He lowered his foot and put gentle pressure on it. Please be fine, please be fine. 

It seemed okay. And then he took a step. Stabbing pain shot up his shin.

‘Shit!’ 

He stood motionless for a minute, thinking. Was this actually bad? It could be, but he was on the road; it would just be a case of waving a car down.

Yeah, very commando.

Anxiety bubbled again, but… it was misplaced. He began to fear for his Mum and Dad, were they okay? Was he in shock? Horrible images spawned in his head; ambulances, his parents crying 

Or was it Sophie crying? For him? for them? Her mother, May, was suffering from a type of cancer. Now he felt awful for not remembering. 

He decided that if any cars drove past, he’d wave them down, embarrassment be damned. He needed to get to Sophie.

Or at least to a phone.

*

Two hours had passed and out of eight cars, not a single one had stopped, and now the road was dead.

Something was definitely wrong; he had been over three hours, and no one had come looking for him. He felt selfish for thinking it, but part of him knew it was just common sense; any parent would worry at the best of times. Not only that, but his feeling of anxiety had mutated into something sinister and dizzying. He felt something in the wind, something dark. And every now and again a silhouette would linger in the corner of his eye.

Time felt strange.

When did he leave? Images of death mingled in his mind again. A soup of horrors, and he moved. He would make it to Sophie’s.

He needed to, but it was getting harder to focus. 

*

He’d been limping for hours, and the dreamscape of roads had consumed him. The sun had set. There was a house up ahead. It looked familiar - opposite was an old wooden gate which led into the forest. The path was dark, and a figure stood within, a black silhouette. Ben knew his name. 

How?

He was called Weep, and Ben needed to get to him. It was a horrible saddening realisation that felt alien, but something told him it was right. 

Weep drifted to the edge of the gate, a roiling mass of storm clouds in the shape of a thin man.

Someone stood outside the house, wearing a big puffer jacket, bathed in the orange light of a lamppost. A cold thump of air hit him, and he jolted out of his trance, awake. 

He could feel the dread pulling at him again. 

Was that… Sophie’s mother? 

‘May… is that you?'

It sort of looked like her. 

‘I need to see Sophie. Is she okay?’ 

‘Ben, whatever happens you have to trust me.’

What?

‘Promise me, Ben.’

He looked around. Weep stood at the gate, shaking his head, and Ben felt the world close in slightly; thick darkness quelled the remaining fire in his stomach. It was time for him to leave, to -

‘Ben.’

He flinched, dizzy, ‘I… promise,’ Ben was confused, this was all wrong. Leave. Everything would return to the way it was if he left. Everything would be fine. 

May held out something, and with an effort he took it. A newspaper cutting. He turned it in his frozen-stiff fingers, and caught the headline:

’Sixteen year old boy killed in car crash.’

He grabbed it with his other hand.

‘… While walking to his girlfriend’s house yesterday, sixteen year old Ben Summers was killed by an out of control car in the snow…’

No. No this is a lie.

‘Listen Ben, I know this is-’

‘No.’ he was so cold, unnaturally cold.

‘Ben, please, I know this is hard to take in, but you have to accept it.’

‘You’re lying.’ Ben felt the last of his will begin to turn black. Weep. He turned from her.

‘Ben, do not walk to the gate.’

He stopped, how did she… despair flooded him again, alive. 

‘You’re lying!’ Ben felt tears on his cheeks. ‘I don’t know you! You’re not Sophie’s mum, are you?’ he pointed.‘Liar!’

‘No…’ she said, ‘I’m not.’

The woman pulled back her hood. She was pretty, in her forties. Snow speckled her blonde hair.

It was Sophie.

Everything crashed down on top of him, the accident, his parents mourning. Years of endless wandering.

‘Every year since I moved back home, Ben… I watched you arrive, and wait and run down that pathway. And this time I couldn’t do it.’

He said nothing. His mind a torrent of bleak, ghost-like memories.

‘COME,’ rasped Weep. He wanted to go, to keep wandering, dreaming,

‘I know this is a lot and…’ the certainty fell from her voice, ‘this was so cruel, so wrong. I’ve missed you every day, I…’ her voice caught… She was suffering. 

Because of him.

Ben felt something shift inside him.

‘NO,’ Weep hissed.

 He felt something alive, burning, a spark of determination and purpose. He took Sophie’s hand, and looked at her. In her eyes shone flecks of sorrow. Sorrow because of him. 

No.

Yellow and orange light exploded in a tempest of warmth. It illuminated the road, the gate, and Weep fled like a frost on a warm morning. 

His joints loosened, the pain faded. He let Sophie go. 

Amid the rush of light and snow, Ben felt something real for the first time in twenty years.

Joy.

2nd runner-up: 'Joy' by Simon James Pearson

 "It's a writing contest. Two thousand words, to be written as a short story on the theme of 'joy'.  Enter your email address in the main body of your email, plus contact details. The closing date is midnight, on the 15th of February 2015. Send it when complete to: competition@bloomsbury.com. So, are you interested Dave?"

"Hold on a minute pal whilst I jot that mouthful down," I groggily replied.

That was how it all began. My imaginary agent, Nobby Pecker, had simply kicked his way into the only entrance to my little flat. I lived, virtually, in the woods. A block of stone built flats: housing eight tenants, if they were single, or more if they had a bird or fellow. Pets were not allowed. I liked animals but could barely afford to feed myself, let alone a scrawny putty cat. I lived alone, surrounded by trees. The sap, and lack of light during summer - because of all the leaves - was both beautiful and problematic. Problematic, because I had to use lights, on account of no natural light filtering into my room and I was skint. I couldn't pay my electric bill. The sap ruined my washing on the clothesline but bugged the life out of my miserable git of a neighbour, which in turn made me laugh when the misery guts would moan like an old fishwife, harping on about him having to frequently wash his car. I'd chuckle every time I saw the fat pudding with the chamois leather in his hand and soap suds on the bonnet. I quite liked the sap; it had an intriguing balance.

     I looked at my plastic door frame. It was fucked. I looked up at Nobby. "What the fuck are you doing, moron?"

Nobby, with his jovial, round, white bearded face and fat red nose, burst out laughing. It was a hearty laugh and popular with the ladies, but overly loud and overly used.

"Don't you know how to knock, dipstick?" I added.

"What's with all the bad language Dave? Who do you think you are, Joe Pesci from Goodfellas?"

"Ha-ha, good one, fat man" I snorted.

"Yeah, just off the top of me head that lad" said Nobby, nodding in appreciation of my appreciation. I was still pissed about the door frame, though. I would have to fix that myself, on account of Nobby being pretty useless; considering him being only a figment of my imagination, but then everything is, isn't it?

     I popped the lid upon my cheap black plastic kettle: to allow the water to cool off a tad before I made a sweet, milk-less coffee. Ordinarily, I would have said, sweet black coffee but, the fact of the matter is - it's not black. Coffee is brown, water is clear and sugar is either white or brown. The coffee is never going to be black. Anyway, I made myself a brew and continued speaking with the old man, my imaginary pal, confidante and Mr Joy himself, Nobby 'Joy' Pecker. I always thought that Joy was a girl's name.  The coffee tasted good. I was pleased I had avoided burning the coffee beans by remembering to 'pop' the lid.

"Oh fuck Nobby," I said, whilst simultaneously rubbing my eyes with the sides of the hooked first fingers on each hand. I enjoyed making that squelchy wet eyeball sound. "I don't have any joy to talk about. What kind of lame theme is that, anyway?" - I contemplated the use of a question mark, punctuation, rhetorical questions and so forth. I then concluded, I was quite shit at deciding where to place those funny marks and didn't really have much of a grasp of the English language anyway. I gobbled down a big slug of the coffee and burnt my stomach lining.

"You're creative, Dave. Surely you can write something, full of the joys of spring, 'scuse the pun" said Nobby, who by now, was lolling on my horrid cream sofa and smoking a vile smelling tobacco. I watched as an ember fell from his pipe and took up a comfortable position before it began smoldering on the wide arm of the sofa. It kind of dawned on me that, my imaginary agent was going to set my home on fire but, for the purpose of this paragraph, I allowed the smoldering to continue.

"Stop calling me Dave, you fool. My name is not Dave. I don't even like the name Dave. In fact, only god knows why I chose Dave as a pseudonym, for my imaginary character with the imaginary name, to address me by. Come to think of it, not even God knows the answer to that. There is no God." I chewed the cud once again. Maybe there is a God, I mused. Maybe he'll pay my electric bill, assuming it's a he.

"Aren't you going to put out this fire on the sofa, Dave?" asked Nobby, who was looking a tad alarmed and slightly toasty around the chops.

The fire officer finished his sermon, shook his head at me and embarked his big, shiny, red truck. I watched as the machine pulled out of the private car park and I observed the gaggle of bystanders observing me. We observed each other for a few minutes. None of us really understood what was happening and it dawned on us all, I suspect, our observations were fruitless.

Back inside my smoke-filled and damaged flat, I found my pork pie hat on the floor. It too was still smoldering, along with the final throes of my sodden possessions. Nobby was scratching his beard and rubbing his chin. I could see loose flakes of his skin, floating in the dappled light that was now beaming in through my glass-less window frame. A large cluster of shrubs and the odd tree had burnt down outside my rented flat and so, I was now experiencing the subtlety of light as it penetrated the remaining scarred possessions, strewn around the bits of smoking carpet, stuck to the concrete floor beneath my feet. 

"Well, there was this one time when my mate nicked a golf club and tried to hide it down his trouser leg" I said, thoughtfully. "I whistled the golfer, whose club it belonged, and told him - "He's nicking your wedge mate!" before pointing at my mate and then falling about laughing as the golfer chased my stiff legged chum, whom was attempting to escape."

"That sounds joyful," said my wistful agent. "You could write about that."

"Nah. I reckon somebody will have done that already, probably won a prize with it," I concluded.

"You can't conclude there, Dave. You only have around 1118 words down and the prerequisite should be much closer to the two thousand mark. It's for entertainment value, see. Folks judging will want to squeeze every last bit out of you, if they are to part with their hard earned five hundred quid, even if your attempt at prose is as shit as it appears to be. Some folk read any old trash"

"Hmm, well I suppose you are correct, Dave. Sorry, I meant Nobby. Apparently I'm Dave." said Dave ( I mean, me).

"Tramadol kicked in then Dave?" said the imaginary Dave, playing the imaginary part of his agent, Nobby.

"Yes, I suppose it must have," I added, hoping that by doing so, I had inadvertently increased the word count for this award-less winning nonsense, to maximize it's potential of winning some coins. I considered the award for best short story. No doubt in my mind, it would be some wishy washy and so called literary brilliance that was worthy of the five hundred quid. Some  intellectual type with connections in the writing world. They probably went to Westminster or some fancy pants school, as such. My own effort, glibly tossed aside by some old fart that has seen it all before or just loathes Northerners.

"I tell you what, Dave. You don't half think up some shit you do." interrupted Nobby.

"Are you reading my thoughts fatty?" said I.

"No. Not telepathically at least. You have one of those cartoon bubbles emanating from the top of your head. I can see the dialogue within it."  Nobby was staring above my head. I could see his eyes darting from left to right as he read.

"Aah, tidy description of me just then, old boy. You could maybe flesh it out more, by describing how pretty my eyes are, their colour and how bushy my eyebrows are, or something similar"

"Well," I replied. "I could do but, you have no eyebrows left after the fire and I can't decide what color eyes you have, on account of my colour blindness."

"Ooh, that would make sense Dave," Mr Pecker agreed.

"Well, how about you throw a bit more joy into your story then. You could have something really beautiful happen for the grand finale."

"Such as?" I asked.

"Oh I don't know. How about we do it?"

"Do what, exactly?" I was beginning to feel a little disturbed at this point and praying that the word count came much quicker than...Ooh...Ooh dear. Can you see visuals in my head bubble too, Nobby?" I asked.

Nobby grinned at me, flashing a watery glint via his orange peepholes. "Fancy a French coffee, drop of the good brandy in it?" he asked, distractedly. I liked this sudden change. Tangents were a welcome relief at this point and my talking about them could only aid the speeding up process of the word count and combined ending. That way, I would be able to return, much quicker, to doing absolutely nothing. Doing nothing being my favourite pastime; if indeed it can labelled as such.

"Ooh yes please, that's a super idea but I'll need to rewind this tale to before the fire, so that we have a functioning kettle and various utensils. There, that should do it.

I watched as Nobby wandered around my all singing, all dancing kitchenette; whistling as he did so. I was going to say, he was singing at the time, but didn't want to repeat myself for fear of losing marks from the judges. Besides, they may prefer whistling, not that I will ever find out. Ever. He knocked us up a couple of tasty omelettes, some eggs Benedict and fried egg sandwiches; topped off with slices of hard boiled egg. We sat down to eat but didn't bother as neither of us like eggs. The French coffee was a delight, though.

"I can't believe you kicked my door in," I said.

"Oh, drop it. That's the least of our worries. Focus. Concentrate on writing big words for the judges; they love 'em." said my wise and cajoling friend.

"I don't know any big words. I could rip off some Kafka or something."

"No mate, that would be suicide, they'd never fall for that old chestnut. Maybe you could squeeze the word elaterins into a sentence. I reckon they'll be mighty impressed with that doozy."

"Elaterins. What the fuck does that mean?" I asked politely.

"Squirting cucumber juice to you mate," said Nobby, looking cocksure.

"And exactly how do you think I can squeeze a word like that into a sentence?" I asked.

"Well, you could say you were having sandwiches with the Queen and a little elaterins squirted over her chest whilst she was taking a nibble."

"Have you been at my Tramadol? You're out of your tiny mind. No, that won't do. We'll just have to leave the big words out and concentrate on joy."

Nobby peered at me with a furrowed brow, but said nothing. Then he spoke.

"How's the word count coming along?" he asked.

"Hold on a minute, I'll need to copy and paste this dialogue and stick it in a word count tool, to check." I didn't need to go anywhere to do this. The anticipation was killing me.

"Oh, oh bugger."