Tell Me How This Ends

by Jo Leevers

There is a piratical air to this woman’s dress sense but, thankfully, no eyepatch, just two bright eyes, hollow cheeks and a slash of lipstick in an improbably bright shade.

She’d never meant to wave those scissors around in a threatening manner, it was simply to make her point. Who knew that the correct usage of the Oxford comma could arouse such strong emotions?

‘A pub near Ladbroke Grove. Well known, back in the day. Sometimes they had live music on a Friday. All the greats hung out there – Dr Feelgood, Joe Strummer, Van the Man. Dylan played a set one Sunday lunchtime.’ Henrietta makes a note of Annie’s friends’ names and nods for her to continue.

She's so cute!

For Henrietta, the move heralded a switch from a sun-blasted outdoor childhood to a gloomy Edwardian half-life that still dampens her spirit.

Oh, Henrietta, what is this obsession with dates and facts? This is meant to be my Life Story, not a police report, thinks Annie. This girl is wasted at the Rosendale Centre – the Metropolitan Police should give her a call.

If she could, she would cut out her entire marriage and throw it in the sluice bucket, like something bloated and diseased.

Instead of a morning of attending church and exchanging disappointing presents, she’s been sitting on her sofa with Dave, thinking over all the things that she knows about Terry Vickerson. How he’d spent decades making Annie’s life a misery and then, when he’d somehow discovered that her sister was alive, he’d kept that information from her, too, and stolen away her last chance of happiness.