Fast Fiction: Footprints In The Snow
…Selwyn went down and let her in. He held her to him and she trembled. 'I can't stay long,' she whispered but it was dawn before she left…
But Myra returns, accompanied by her new husband, with an unexpected demand, as Richard Mallinson reveals.
After he'd switched the light off late one night, Selwyn glanced out of his bedroom window and was surprised to see Myra there, under the streetlamp.
She was wearing a coat with a high collar framing her oval face. Falling snow glistened in her black hair.
Selwyn went down and let her in. He held her to him and she trembled. 'I can't stay long,' she whispered but it was dawn before she left.
A few days later Selwyn went looking for her at the cafe where she worked, only to be told, 'She's gorn away to be married.'
That night, after many drinks, he stood under the streetlamp, ignoring the stares of passers-by. He was half-dead when they found him in the morning...
Not long after he'd come out of hospital there was a knock at his door. It was Myra, with a shaven-headed young man.
'Hullo, Selwyn,' she said, 'meet Dile, my hubby... Can we come in?'
They sat in the living room. 'A sherry for me,' Myra said, without being asked. 'Like, you know, the sort you plied me with the night that you - '
Puzzled, Selwyn handed her the drink. 'Thanks,' she said. 'And a whisky for Dile, if you don't mind... He likes it on the rocks, don't you, pet?'
'I likes it anywhere,' said Dile.
'Now,' said Selwyn, timidly, 'is there something that you - ?'
'Well,' said Myra, 'as we're a bit short of dosh at the minute, what with me'n him not working, like, we was wondering if you could let us have, erm, say, five hundred quid... Then, well, it'll be mum's the word about the rape, won't it, eh?'
'The - ?' gasped Selwyn.
