Short Stories

I always asked for him first, before they even took my coat. I would search for his face, his gait, the red lace-ups that caused him so much trouble...

They finish their tea in silence. Lucy shunts crumbs around the tablecloth and glances out of the window at the empty bird feeders. Phil takes out his phone.

'Shall we go and have a look?' She moves to stand, pushing away the carcass of her scone...

Mummy, I’m bored.

Our friends are arriving soon. Ezi’s coming.

I don’t want Ezi.

Now, darling. You love playing with Ezi.

No...

We had sent in our samples and opened an account months before we felt ready. I received the odd email reminder and would log in to browse the familiar options, fiddling with combinations, lining them up, pairing them off and then deleting the selection to start again. The possibilities seemed infinite and I had no idea what I was doing...

I'm sick of waiting. I wish they'd get on with it. I've been waiting here all day. Next thing I know they'll come and tell me they can't do it here and we'll have to go somewhere else, to some special clinic. That'd be typical...

60kg. Stupid machine. Janet steps off the scales and resets them, but it repeats the figure, its digital screen blinking with innocence. She moves the scales to the bathroom mat, but it insists on its unexpected answer. 60kg...

Once upon a time there was an old woman. She was terribly old and terribly poor and lived in a tiny council flat with her cat Mog. Time had bent her back and stamped its passage across her skin with muddy boots, leaving her liver-spotted and crinklier than the wrinkliest prune...

In his newborn portraits baby Alfie looked as wrinkly as his name sounded to Louise, but at one month old he was filling out nicely and had a complexion that would make a peach farmer proud...

Joshua Angelopoulos, who owed his name to generations of undiluted Greek blood on his father’s side and a teenage crush on his mother’s, left Waterstones feeling uplifted…

As the end of the world drew nearer, everyone began to think with pre-emptive nostalgia about all the things that would soon be gone...

While his peers spent their first university summer trotting around South-East Asia trying to find themselves, Daniel Maddocks sat in his parents’ garden, smug in the knowledge that life was without meaning and existence pointless...

After he has left, she sets out for Les Invalides anyway, more to save herself from having to think than because she wants to see Napoleon’s tomb. She’s in no state to read her guidebook and choose another itinerary, to scour the metro map for an alternative route...

All morning we focused on other things. On getting breakfast made and laid out, eaten and cleared away. On tidying up their odds and ends: the strewn jumpers, the stray toys, the last-minute gifts...

On Sunday afternoon there is a pause in the rain and Jack is allowed to play outside again. He skips over the patio and runs into the field at the back. The rain has been falling for days, wrapping the house in grubby curtains, keeping them inside...

She was all smiles for Caroline and the kids when they waved her off at Union Station, but as she dragged her bags into her superliner roomette Rose regretted not taking the plane...