Jane Thomson's Blog: But I'm Beootiful!, page 7

Big Things

You either like them or you don’t.

Madrid is…big-boned. The Plaza de Mayor, an imposing red brick square with a guy on a horse in the middle, where they used to burn heretics at the stake. No burnt patches on the cobbles; guess they must have scrubbed. Ah, God bless the Catholic Church…any other organisation with such a history would have been long since banned.

The Catedral de la Almudena, huge, you have to stretch your neck to take in all the domes and turrets. Inside, it doesn’t feel particularly sacred – lots of gilt and saints. Nevertheless I thought of Felix, my son, and found myself overwhelmed with misery – I had to put my sunglasses on and hurry out. Churches perhaps are not for me right now, not yet. I did like the Homeless Jesus, outside.

Enormous bloody great thing on a roundabout – nothing says Juan Carlos Wuz Here like a triple domed pillared be-statued white marble edifice with horses teetering on top. Duly impressed, yes, but I guess Big Things (at least, of that era) are not my cup of tea. The twisty side streets with their bars offering mysterious delicacies (mysterious to me, as I don’t yet have enough Spanish to tell deep fried pigs’ entrails from cream buns) are more what I like. It’s interesting to watch velvet-eyed young men and girls with cascading curls romance each other in corners, and people trot by in the latest fashions. Apparently leggings with holes in them are hot, which is good, because the moths have been at mine too. Everybody has a puffy coat, except me.

Perhaps I’ll make a start on my magnum opus, ‘Types and Characters of the European Nations, by an Antipodean Lady’ – which is a sort of joke between me and my daughter. ‘The typical Spanish male…’ I might open with (in the manner of a Home Counties matron who takes a dim view of all continentals) ‘when past his first youth, is stout of figure and gruff of mien, with a tendency to burst into spontaneous song…’ I might just add that the horses here are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I took lots of photos of them, but they all turned out to be close-ups of me squinting into my phone, as I must have pushed the selfie button by mistake:) So here’s someone else’s photo. You can pat them (in fact, I think that’s basically their job, although if necessary they could probably trample a pick-pocket).

Oh, and the photo up top is of El Escorial, a vast monastery up in the mountains where the Kings of Spain are buried. Built in the shape of a grill, in memory of St Lawrence, who was toasted on one. Also visited: the Palacio Reale de Madrid, where the Kings of Spain used to put their feet up. Apparently the biggest royal palace in Europe. Figures.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE all this. It’s input. It’s eye food. El Escorial in particular is spectacular (particularly because of its rural setting). Everything is new and interesting…and big! I wish the sun would come out. Just saying.

The rain falls mainly on the plain…

In Madrid, apparently. I’m thinking of sueing. First week in Spain and it’s like bloody London! (That blue sky in the picture? Two minutes worth, I kid you not.)

On the bright side, I’ve discovered that a full-grown woman CAN sleep on two budget airline seats.

I’m staying in a nice little village outside Madrid, with steep tiled roofs, stone houses and lots of wintry looking trees just thinking of putting on the green. On the way out from the airport we passed an abandoned medieval fortress on a hilltop, and just down the road there’s an Islamic stone bridge, tastefully covered over with a concrete footbridge. For a person who normally dines at 6.30 and goes to bed at 8, the Spanish custom of dinner at 9pm and bed at midnight is hard to get used to. I get HUNGRY! And sleepy!!

So back to how to lie down on planes. IF you put all the pillows you can get on the armrest of one seat (bearing in mind that each seat is one average bum-width) and your torso on the remaining area of that seat and the next one (with the armrest between them down), you have only your legs to dispose of. You can curl these up to your chest in the manner of a dog, either lying on your back or on your side, with part of you hanging out over the edge. The viability of this depends on your neighbour (a total stranger, with whom in a 13 hour journey you haven’t exchanged a single word) sleeping upright. Two heads cosying together on the one arm rest would be just weird. Anyway, it’s surprisingly comfortable, and also relieves the pressure of any wind you may be hanging on to (you’re asleep, so YOU don’t have to feel embarrassed). Mind you it leaves you with a nasty back-ache.

On the interminable journey here, I also spent three hours in Zurich. The cobbled streets of which, I read in a guide book, are full of cute little Swiss eateries serving chocolate and pastry. They are not; they are instead full of Korean, Chinese and Italian eateries serving noodles and pizza. Well done, Switzerland, for branching out. Also, there is no free water at the airport. I’m convinced this is a cunning plan to make you buy $10 bottles of water from the various airport bars, which you’ll then have to chuck out in case it’s liquid explosive. Even the bathroom taps go off after a few seconds, before you can get your mouth underneath them. I considered drinking from the toilet (see dog, above) but couldn’t get my head down there.

I’ve made progress on my new novel, which involves a woman trying to contact her dead husband, but it’s hard to write about grief and death while holidaying in Spain (although, to be fair, this is the birthplace of the auto da fe and the bullfight). By the way, if you find travelogues boring, that’s alright – I’m not writing this for you. It’s more in the nature of a diary, left lying carelessly about for any nosy person to leaf through (but when they do, found to contain only disappointing reminiscences along the lines of ‘what I did in the holidays’).

Crushed

This is a piece I wrote for a Positive Words competition, but never submitted because – completely pathetic – I can’t be bothered to go and buy two unused postage stamps and send them off in an actual envelope. Which makes me wonder…now Russians are being forcibly weaned from the internet, will they revert to a Rousseau-like state of ‘the natural man’ (and woman) and show us all what normal human beings could be like without Instagram? (More likely, they’ll just revert to swallowing any crap Putin throws at them.) Anyway, the theme was ‘crush’.

Basil for first love, the first time I saw you, with your brown curls and blue eyes, solid as a lumberjack, juicy as a young tree. You bellowed a greeting and disappeared into your room; my eyes followed you, greedy.

Lilac for youth, that threw us together in this higgledy-piggledy student residence, you clomping all the way from country Tasmania to my city-wearied arms. Ready to snuggle you up, if only you’d notice…

Patience for patience, sidling up beside you as you watched the communal TV, summoning a strained, approving smile as you cheered the sweaty scrums, offering you half my donuts and a ringside view of my tanned, enticing thighs…

Holly for jealousy, that corrosive fire, that if I had had my way would have burned its way right through the vital organs of that tall girl who crept behind your bedroom door and laughed you away from me.

Nightshade for murder, the day I saw you standing outside a jewellery store window with Elizabeth, your honest hobbit head next to hers sleek and ebony, holding hands. You were buying a ring. How could I bear it?

They’re all here in my diary. Crushed between the pages of a year, a herb for each turn of the heart. Better that I remember you this way, my love, than as I saw you last, cold as meat, the thief Elizabeth weeping by your side.

Agrimony for revenge, sweeter in the anticipation than in the outcome.

And a rose to bring you back, but it cannot.

And here’s Boundless, a FREE book promo which just happens to include my collection of horror stories (edited and improved, I think) What Are You Afraid Of? Pick up something and review it, an indie author will love you for it.

Photo by Farhad Ibrahimzade on Unsplash

Borderline personality disorder, or, a problem with borders

In affairs between nations, as between people, it’s the looniest partner who has the winning edge. You never know what he’ll do next. Throw a tantrum about the way the eggs are cooked, or invade. Have a three day sulk because you smiled at the plumber, or drop nerve gas on you. Punch you, or activate his Nuclear Launch Codes.

So you’re careful. You try not to provoke him. You stop smiling at plumbers, or in fact anyone. You don’t send planes. You develop an obsession with eggs. What if letting Ukraine join the EU should happen to break one? Eggs, famously, can’t be unscrambled. Do you want to go down in history as the one who broke this relationship, who started World War III? You tell the doctor you hit your face on a cupboard. A no-fly zone? You’d be asking for it.

You watch his hand hovering over the little red button…

Because the guy who knows no boundaries calls the shots.

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

F.L.Rose is the author of two recently published books, The Point of Us and Pandora’s Jar. Find out more at www.fallaciousrose.com.

There was a time

When you shivered through the cold streets of home and you thought of him, thirteen thousand miles away, you wanted him badly – but now you don’t quite remember. When you stood beside another man, charming and kind, and the music whipped up your spirit like a leaf blower, and you wished that he was beside you instead, to share it with. When you lay next to a substitute, his body slack against yours, and turned your back so you wouldn’t feel sick in your soul at the sight of the unloved one. When you lapped up lies from a man, grey-faced and grey-chested, and you yearned to hear other lies, better ones.

A time when you sat in his car and he pushed the buttons on the dash to make the beat jump out in fits and starts, exploding from the traffic lights. When he strutted through town with his jeans tight about his assets. When the charm of his poetic nonsense had you duct-taped to the bed. When you could no more cast him away than you could cast your left hand.

Now you’ve forgotten all that. Instead you remember the time he ordered you to clean his car and sat there like a sultan watching you toil away at it. When you trailed him like a second rate concubine through the bland bars of that university town. When he used up your credit card…

But it was never about him – it was always about you. He had things you thought you needed. Plugs for leaks where the water ran out. In the end you threw him away, after all – and then rushed round the garden like a dog after a bath, rolling the smell of him off your skin, ready for a new disappointment.

Photo by Olenka Kotyk on Unsplash

Rainbow Prince

He’s a changeling, but doesn’t know it.

This is not my baby, says his mother, closing her arms and turning away. 

“We all feel that way at first,” lies the nurse, hiding her misgivings, “You’ll feel differently once you get used to one another.”

The mother knows she’ll never get used to him.  His eyes are as bright and brown as a bush creature’s, and his ears are much too delicate, flat to his head on its little stalk of a neck.  He has an arcane beauty.  She feeds him reluctantly, wonders if her milk will tame the faerie in him.

He hears his people singing to him as he sleeps at night, faint through the closed window.  Their voices are sharp like pine needles.  He knuckles his almond-shaped eyes, and whimpers in a world that doesn’t belong to him.

The mother becomes attached to her elf baby.  He grows as a human child, but he’s slow to learn to read, his teachers say.  He loves to kick a ball and watch comics on tv, but it’s all a second language to him.  You can see that in the shy way he dips his head when strangers approach, in the distance he keeps from others, in his wonder and confusion at the strangeness that surrounds him.  Through the rice-paper wall that divides the boy and his adopted world, they perceive one another dimly, a shadow play.

The elf prince grows, and becomes a man, tall and beautiful.  He finds a human mate.  Sometimes, she imagines she sees his skin shifting colour like a rainbow reflected in moving water.  He’s as warm as hot springs, cool as cloud shadows.  You think you have him safe in your arms, she thinks, but all you really have is a borrowed coat, left behind and smelling faintly of its last owner.

In time, the old ones draw him back amongst his own kind, having undergone his apprenticeship.  Everything makes sense to him.  He’s a foreigner no longer.  His own mother plaits his long silver hair.  He misses the human world, slow and plain as it is, and sometimes he reaches out across the dimensions with his tendril fingers, and touches the forehead of his wife as she dreams of him, her rainbow prince.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Like this story? Check out www.fallaciousrose.com for more stories plus my latest releases

Do you ever feel TOO lucky?

You adore your husband. Your kids – well, they’re kids, so they’re not angels, but they’re just lovely, each in their own way. Your boss brings you coffee. You enjoy your work. And then…

Meet Emma. Happily married, kind, popular. Until one day her mother dies, leaving a letter revealing that Emma has a half-brother, Trevor. Adopted out at birth, Trevor’s now in a maximum security prison, doing time for multiple murder. And if that wasn’t difficult enough, Emma’s husband gets into trouble at work, and one thing leads to another…

Well, so Emma’s a character in my ultra-new novel, The Point of Us. She’s loosely based on…lots of people. Me, for one. Why do they say life is full of suffering, I used to think, mine’s not! Until. A woman I used to know had seven kids and the perfect family life until one day hubby’s mistress came knocking on the door. And yet many of my friends’ cherry bowls seem filled to overflowing – and probably are. So whence comes this sense that happiness always has a large brick suspended over it, ready to drop when you’re least expecting it?

Do you have that sense? Are gloomy, pessimistic people proof against it? For that matter, are thoroughly cheerful people (people who, unlike me, are sunshine through and through) proof against it?

And here, for anyone who may be interested, is The Point of Us, available until 22 March free at non-Amazon retailers and for 2.99 on Amazon. I think it’s pretty good, and I don’t say that about all my novels!

Old love letters

I'm just a little bit sadYou're just a little bit goneBut then, you weren't here for long.When we first met, you sidled up to me like a beggar - One of those men you meet in public places, seedy-eyed and diffident.You weren't my type. Too thin, too young.But I liked your spirit.The way you went your own way and then came backWith a phone number.I kept that scrap, god knows whyOnce I almost chucked itOften I forgot about it, found it again in a pocket on wash dayUntil, one day, there was no one elseJust an ex or two, for sex, or two.You were in luck. We talked.You asked, did I want babies? Did I like masturbating?Were you planning a wedding or a porno?The idea of you grew, and took shape, and then there you were, your face at the airportJust a boy with malnourished breathThe bed had to be lain inAnd so we laid in it, once or twiceAnd let it go.

I can’t think of a sequitur for this, so I’ll just say it. Here’s a bunch of free books from a multi-author promotion on Book Funnel!

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Gripping new historical thriller

Did you notice the subliminal advertising? No? I’ll just slow it down for you then…

THIS IS A FANTASTIC BOOK!

Catch that? Good. On your way to the shops already? Great (rubs nasty little author paws together, manages quick evil guffaw)

“Supremely entertaining!”

Amazon customer

It’s 531 AD. Justinian and his ex-prostitute Empress, Theodora, rule the Byzantine Empire. But for how long? Fate is fickle and threats to the throne are everywhere – an ambitious general, a violent mob, a rival Empire intent on conquest…

Anastasia, successful ex-courtesan of imperial Constantinople, isn’t interested in politics. She plans to spend her retirement reading, entertaining friends and enjoying the sea air.

But life, as usual, has other plans. When her deceitful ex-boyfriend enlists Anastasia’s help to find his vanished new bride, she’s understandably annoyed. But when her beloved protege Helena is found raped and murdered and the corpses begin to pile up, she’s determined to find out what’s really going on.

Advised that Constantinople has become unhealthy for busybodies, Anastasia sets off into the wilds of Cappadocia to find the elusive teenage bride – and lands in more trouble than she bargained for.

Meet the Silver One, a lusty, sophisticated heroine who likes virile men, poetry and a hot bath, in that order; Chloe, her dagger-wielding, ball-crunching slave, and Euphemia, the kind of girl you’d probably rather kill yourself than spend a weekend with.

Take a look inside the book on Amazon (99 cents to buy until the end of the month) and/or buy FREE at non-demonic online retailers (also until end Feb).

Oh and do, PLEASE, leave a review xx

Photo by Roksolana Zasiadko on Unsplash

The Definitive Guide to How to Live

By me.

There are four stages of life. Not three, not five. Four.

The first is childhood. When you are a child, you should run whenever you can. You’ll tell yourself that you can do plenty of running when you grow up, that you will NEVER get tired of running – but there will come a time when you just don’t feel like it. So run NOW!

The second is youth. When you are young, have lots of sex, parties and late nights. Seek out bizarre and challenging experiences. I tried postponing this to my early 40s; it didn’t fly. Be warned.

The third is middle age. When you are middle-aged, hurry. Dance, sing, learn languages, climb large hills, frolic in the breakers. Soon you won’t be physically capable of any of this so hurry, offer ends SOON!

The final stage is, of course, decrepitude. People moan about old age but there’s a lot to be said for it. Learn to enjoy opera (who knows, you may run into your next hot 92 year old flame there, that’s the average audience age). Watch all the things on Netflix you missed when you were toiling up hills. Read your backlist. Insist on conducting all business from your armchair. Buy one of those toilets that gives your butt the full spa treatment. Sleep a lot, perchance to dream…

Also – and I have only recently discovered this – award yourself ‘no cook’ days. On these days you can eat crackers, figs, cashew nuts, yogurt and vegemite on toast (and anything else you like as long as it’s in the cupboard/fridge). This ‘fasting’ regime (as I like to call it) is obviously wonderful for your health, weight and creative imagination.