Although “Falling” could be called crime fiction, Gordon has written a wide range of material and the following four short stories, all unpublished, give a flavour of the diversity of Gordon’s writing:

These are:

• I Scream, ‘Ice Cream.’ – the runner up in the recent UNICEF Short Story Competition 2009. The story had to be 1700 words long and contain the line ‘emerges out of the darkness’.
• The Road – an oldie but more of a crime story than it first appears.
• Crime Pays – probably my first attempt at crime.
• The Tall and the Short of It –  a runner up story from Writing Magazine where the title was a given and you had 1700 words odd to bring it to life (not a crime story though).

I Scream, ‘Ice Cream’

I open the package and let out the sort of scream that Boris Karloff might have dreamed of extracting when people watched his movies in the thirties. The lady sitting across from me does the startled deer thing and her eyes max out. The waiter, focused on our bottle of white wine, drops it to the ground and Australia’s finest washes over my shoes.

I vomit over the white linen table cloth. A thin gruel of putrid yellow lacking the substance that my just ordered Chicken Tikka Masala would have given it. I roll back on my chair, throw the white polystyrene box into the air and tumble to the ground. The contents of the box break free in mid flight. My girlfriend, still wide eyed, fixates on me and doesn’t see the object emerge from the flying package. The waiter fails to see it. He is still staring at the bottle of wine rolling to a halt beside the table leg. The woman at the table behind me sees it but doesn’t believe her eyes. The three other diners, in the late night ambience of the curry house’s death throes, see it. Two are a distance away and have enough drink in them to cloud their vision. They don’t recognise it for what it is.

That leaves a small bald man in the cardigan chowing down on his own. He sees the contents all too clearly. He wants to join in my screaming but he has just swallowed a chunk of Lamb Korma and he chokes instead. At least it sounds like choking. I lose sight of him and then I’m flat on my back.

I know the instant my girlfriend catches sight of the contents as she puts my feeble scream to shame. I think it may have landed on her. I roll into the puddle of wine and have no greater desire than to get the hell out of the restaurant. Like a sprinter in his starting blocks I blast upwards and away. I’m for the front door and there is no debate to be had. But my foot slips on the wet carpet and I go down. My girlfriend’s vocal chords break new ground and my chivalry shows its true colours by vanishing. I just want to get the fuck out of here.

Roll back in time.  It’s Thursday and I am bored to the core with my job. I flip a pencil into the air with a well-practiced move and watch it fall into my empty coffee cup. Fifteen in a row. Close to a new record.

My phone doesn’t ring, my PC doesn’t ping and my mobile has no zing. I twist my head to see the office clock and it shows that it has been two minutes since I last looked. I close my eyes and drop my head on the desk. I could go to sleep and no one would care. I could slit my wrists and no one would care. I could probably have sex with the receptionist on the office floor with a full volume dance track blaring from the PA system and no one would care. I don’t exist. I am, as my boss so eloquently puts it, the walking dead. Last man standing in an office devoid of a future. A dispatch clerk – the one person out of ten who didn’t get relocated to a new job. Tomorrow is my last day.

The phone bursts into life – an event so rare in the last two weeks that it takes a full ten seconds to register. I pick it up. I should say ‘Dispatch. How can I help you.’ I don’t. My surprise at the ringing leaves me silent.

‘Joe?’

The voice is hesitant.

‘Joe. Is that you?’

It isn’t, but hell I’m bored.

‘Sure is.’

‘Is everything ready for collection?’

I have no idea what the voice is talking about.

‘Yip.’

‘Remember it’s the parcels for Conninigton International. Don’t screw up.’

The line goes dead. Strange. I know of Connington International. One of our better customers – I had switched their paper work to the new depot over a month ago. I also know Joe. An evil shit who works in the warehouse – like me he is holding the fort on his own.

Joe moves to his new job next week and, but for one pallet in the corner he would have gone long ago. It has been there all week. I’ve seen it every morning as I come into work. I get up from the desk. I’m not supposed to leave my post for anything but a pee – but what are they going to do? Fire me?

The warehouse floor is a desert of concrete. It used to be a sea of boxes and crates. In the far corner the lone pallet sits and the consignment label tells me that all the boxes are for Connington International. Joe is nowhere to be seen.

I smile. Connington are not your average company. I should know I broke open one of their packages six months ago. At first it looked innocent enough. A crate full of industrial parts. Then I dug a little deeper and found some small plastic packets. Small plastic packets that just happened to be filled with raw diamonds. I don’t know a diamond from Adam but my boss John did. The same boss who hasn’t been within a mile of me since I got the bullet. Bastard. He knew what a raw diamond looked like and told me to keep quiet about the find. I objected. Joe appeared the next day at my desk and spent ten minutes playing  ‘punch-bags’ with my stomach. I got the message and backed off.

I open one of the boxes with a Stanley knife. It is filled with smaller boxes. I have an idea and rush back to the office. I hit the keyboard and fire the computer up. I pull up Word and type. The post office box and address of the Mail Box Etc account I hold appears on the screen. I hit print and pull the label from the printer.

With speed I return to the warehouse and pull out one of the smaller boxes, label it up and reseal the big box. The small box is cold to the touch. I close the large box it came from and leave the newly addressed package on top of the pallet. When the courier comes to pick it up they will see the rogue box and pop it in the post for me. At least they will if Joe doesn’t see it first but I suspect Joe is already in the pub.

I have no idea whether there are diamonds in the small box but it is worth the punt. The package I originally opened was not much bigger and John reckoned we were looking at the thick end of a million quid.

I shut up shop and go home.

Friday drags and neither John nor Joe shows up to wish me well. No one does.

The lights are thrown on the building for the final time and as I stand looking at the empty warehouse, now devoid of the pallet, the security guard emerges out of the darkness and tells me to leave.

Happy bloody last day.

The restaurant is spinning around my head. I lie in the pool of wine and remember the glee with which I picked up the re-routed package from the Mail Box Etc. I intended to take it home but the pub had leapt out and begged me to celebrate my little bonus and, package still unopened, I only just made the date at the restaurant with my girlfriend. Somehow the pub felt too public to find out what lay inside the wrapping. God alone knows why I thought the restaurant would be any better.

I sit up and the restaurant is descending into chaos. I hear a thump and another high-pitched scream as my companion goes ballistic. The object from the parcel is next to my left foot. Thrown there by my girlfriend.

It is the ring I recognise. The gaudy, over the top piece of crap that John wore on the ring finger of his left hand. Only the ring is still attached to John’s hand. Only John’s hand is no longer attached to John.

Hell of a way to ship diamonds and a hell of a way to get rid of a body. Hell of a price to pay for sticky fingers but that seemed the logical conclusion. John was now little more than Connington International’s packing material for their last shipment from the warehouse.

To my left, amongst the ice from the insulated box that had been packed around the hand, is ice of a different type. I reach over and pick it up.

This will be hell to explain to the police. Maybe even impossible but the diamonds might just be some cream on a painful cake.

The Road


The road was a mile longer going back than it was going forward. Joseph could testify to this after thirty years of trekking back and forth along the rutted surface. Come wind, come rain, come shine, Joseph had paced the road with the monotony of a metronome. Today it was raining. Yesterday it had been windy and tomorrow held the promise of more rain.

Joseph’s left leg hurt. He stropped and rubbed his knee, feeling the slight swelling that always rose up towards the end of the day. The lump was large. Much larger that it had been some years ago. His doctor told him that he needed to get it seen to, but…

‘And who exactly would earn when I’m in hospital?’ he had asked the doctor.

‘Joseph you will be earning nothing in a few years if you don’t get that treated. You may as well chop it off for all the good it’ll be if you don’t get into hospital soon.’

That had been four years ago, he was still walking and every time he saw the doctor he waved and lifted his leg into the air.

‘I’m still walking, doctor,’ he would call out.

The rain took on a more horizontal track and Joseph pulled his wax hat tight around his ears. He squinted into the driving spit knowing that, at this spot, the glen dropped away sharply towards McLaughlin’s Burn and the weather hid the uplifting sight from view.

Twenty one thousand and thirty six trips. Roughly – give or take a few. Joseph had worked out the mounting number every so often and was always surprised at how small it sounded.

‘It feels like twenty one million,’ he thought.

The sack over his shoulder was soaking up the rain but the road had no sympathy. It still insisted he walked the eight miles to get to his destination. After all these years Joseph felt it owed him a break. Even a few miles knocked off now and again would seem little to ask after a relationship that had lasted longer than most marriages. Off course he had often asked the road to give a little help to an old man but it never listened. Once he had written a note and left it in Fiddler’s Crack, an ever-expanding rupture in the surface of the road that lay almost exactly half way between the start and the end of his journey. Why was it called Fiddler’s Crack? Well old Roy Cairn, a fiddler of note, had tripped and broken his ankle on that very crack. Roy had written a stern letter to the council but Joseph told him that no one would do anything. They never had and in due course they did nothing about Roy’s letter save send him a weak excuse about budget problems and spelling his name Carn (‘Which takes a bit of doing.’ said Joseph).

Joseph shifted the sack to his other shoulder and winced as a few sockets and joints snapped and popped along the way.

His left shoe was letting in. He could feel the leak puddling in the sole. Shoes were so expensive and they lasted such a short time.

‘You won’t be wanting cheap shoes, will you?’ Jack Singer had told him. ‘You’ll always be the better of a sensibly priced pair of hard wearing boots.’

Jack was a cobbler and a mean swine at that. Joseph didn’t have the time to go into the city for his shoes and Jack robbed him blind every time Joseph walked in the store.

‘Can you not fix them?’ he would ask in vein hope.

‘I could Jack. I surely could but it would cost you near as much and they wouldn’t last any time at all.’

‘But you’re a cobbler. Not a shoe salesman. Aren’t you supposed to repair the damn things?’ he had once asked.

‘It’s a good workman that knows when he is beat and your shoes are a pitiful sight. You should have bought a more sensibly priced pair.’

The fact that the pair in question had been bought at a ‘sensible price’ from Jack a little over a year ago was not worth raising. When he got home, Joseph promised himself, he would employ a slice of plastic carrier bag, an old newspaper and some rubber glue to put the inevitable off for a few more weeks.

The road rose a little and Joseph leaned into the slope to pull his body and the sack a few yards further towards his destination.

This was Dumper Hill. Forty-seven steps long going, forty-three coming back. One of the bits of the road that was shorter on the way home. Dumper Hill was little more than a slight hump to any motorist that ventured along this way but to Joseph it was another obstacle of note. Named after his pet rabbit, Dumper Hill was the spot where Dumper had met a sticky end under the tyre of Craig Laing’s tractor.

Beyond Dumper hill was The Edge. Joseph’s least favourite part of the road. Twenty years earlier a storm had blown through the glen and part of the hillside had slipped and as a result The Edge hung over a hundred foot drop to McLaughlin’s Burn. The road tilted towards the drop and last winter the glen had been thick with snow and Joseph’s sensibly priced shoes had lost grip. He had come within inches of falling to his death in the burn. So now he kept well to the inside, no matter the weather.

The bag was cutting a groove into his shoulder and he could feel the hard worn, roughened skin beginning to part. He decided to rest and dropped the bag on the road before slumping to the verge.

Thirty years was a long time to be in the same job; as Joseph had told anyone that would listen:

‘There are others far worse off and others far better off and then there’s me.’

In thirty years he had taken two days off. The first had been twenty-two years ago when the snow had fallen so thick that come Christmas morning the road was chest deep and blocked solid. Even so Joseph had tried for over an hour to dig his way out. When he gave up he had no way of telling anyone he couldn’t work but it didn’t matter. Not really.

The second time had been just over eight years ago when Tom Laidlaw had passed away. Joseph had gone to school with Tom and considered him the closest thing to family. He had got up at five thirty to walk the eighteen miles to the church. He had stood quietly at the back of the church and watched people he did not know say things about a man they did not understand. He refused a lift to the hotel, preferring to walk the two miles. He ate nothing and drank nothing and then left to walk home. The next morning he carried two sacks instead of one and when Martin Cochrane died a year later, Joseph considered it too much effort to attend and, instead, said a prayer at Watling Corner – the last place he had seen Martin alive.

Beyond The Edge was The Wanderings. A mile of twisting road that bit into the hillside as it clung on above the burn. At night The Wanderings were a danger to Joseph. Blind corners and a reduced width gave little protection from cars. During fog this was the most dangerous place of all. The morning mist could form a patchwork quilt of murk and clear along the length of The Wanderings. Only last week a motorbike had come within inches of sending Joseph over the edge. There was no fog today and there had been no cars, but the way was wily and Joseph knew that to let his guard down, even for a moment, was all it took for the road to strike out at him.

The wind took on a new tone. The keening whine, as it passed through the glen, heightened and Joseph knew that a storm was coming in. The sky darkened and a small flicker of light signalled distant lightning. The clap of thunder a moment later confirmed it.  Joseph got up, keen to beat the storm through The Wanderings. He shouldered the wet canvas bag and dropped his head to push into the curtain of water. Rain drops exploded in his face and he buried his head deep in his coat.

A lightning bolt snapped to the ground with a pressure wave crack that ripped at Joseph’s soul. He leapt back as the rain sizzled and the air crackled with raw power. The thunderclap that followed was a living thing that cocooned Joseph. He tumbled to the road and lay there, stunned. Around him the world seemed to haze and pulse and Joseph lay – his head to the wet asphalt. A baby’s head to its pillow.

Joseph didn’t hear the noise of the engine. His ears were deaf from the thunder but he did see the lights sweep round the corner. He tried to react but the ground seemed to grab at him. He looked down and found his coat stuck to the surface. He panicked and tried to pull it free but it was stuck fast. The car was yards from his head. His body unseen in the dark and rain of the storm. He grabbed at the buttons on the coat to free himself but it was far too late.

The inquest was short and Joseph was buried – a quiet, poorly attended funeral. With no relatives it was left to the local council to sort out his estate. They found his house full of empty canvas bags and in the kitchen, a drawer full of papers revealed that Joseph owned another property. Just over eight miles away they another cottage sat. It too was full of empty canvas bags.

‘Why all the canvas bags?’ asked one of the social workers.

‘I don’t know,’ said another. ‘But he was carrying one when he died.’

‘What did it have in it?’ the first asked.

‘Absolutely nothing.’

Outside, the rain fell and a few miles away, a small piece of canvas blew like a flag in the wind, one end stuck firm to the road.

A comfort blanket to a grieving child.

Crime Pays

Crime pays. Don’t tell me otherwise. Crime pays and as far as I’m concerned that’s an end to the conversation. And crime pays well. Very well. I’m living proof that a criminal life is lucrative, rewarding and a walk in the park if you are gifted. And I am so gifted.

At the tender age of twenty-one I want for nothing. Owe to no one. Do what I please and, as I sit here enjoying the last rays of a summer sun, I can afford to relax and reminisce.

Why don’t you pull up a chair and join me.

I don’t bite.

How did my life of crime start? It’s a dynasty thing. I was born to a family that has failed to do an honest day’s work since Victoria took to the throne. My great, great, great, great grandfather was flimp of some note. A flimp was Victorian slang for a pickpocket who specialised in working large crowds. He was called Quick Jack and was a regular on Derby day – top hat, tails and more pockets on the inside of his jacket than a troop of kangaroos.

My great, great, great grandfather was one of the first train robbers. In 1855, along with William Pierce, Edward Agar, George Tester and James Burgess he was a bit player in the attempt to steal £12,000 worth of gold bullion from the South Eastern Railway Company. He’s even portrayed in the movie ‘The First Great Train Robbery.’ with Sean Connery.

Unfortunately he was one of the less successful criminals in our family and was sentenced, along with two of his cohorts, to deportation two years later. His name was Vapours Jack – on account of his tendency to sleep with the pigs for warmth during the cold winter nights.
His dad – my great, great grandfather stole sheep. Well what else would you do in Australia back then? His dad also loved the woolly life and made enough money to return to Britain where he taught his son, my grandfather, to keep up the family sheep tradition by fleecing hard up punters of their war bonds.

Their names were, in order, Wool Jack, Son of Wool Jack and Black Jack.
But is my father, a criminal of extraordinary ability, whom you may have heard of.

Skin Jack? It was the Daily Mail that called him Skin Jack. Before that he was plain Jack Wellington. He got the nickname from the skin coloured body suit he wore when he was out on a job. It was a wonderful idea. Still is. The suit made him look as naked as the day he popped from my gran’s womb.

He specialised in robbing homes. Lots of homes. A hundred and eight houses straight – not out. On the odd occasion – and it was the odd occasion – that he was rumbled, the body suit gave him that few extra seconds to make good his escape Well how would you feel if you came upon a naked man in your house? What would you do?

He even had some hair attached to the groin part of the suit just to add to the effect. Minutes after the crime has been committed, he stripped the suit from his body, rolled it up and stuck it in his back-pack (I called it his Swag Bag) and strolled into the distance.

The maternal side of the family were not to be outdone and my mum was a competent criminal, after a fashion. She was also a thief but she didn’t really steal. Not if you asked her. In her head she borrowed and sometimes forgot to return. Borrowed clothes from shops. Borrowed food from shelves.

Her conscious was kept clear by, occasionally, returning some of the stuff. Mainly the clothes that didn’t fit or the food we never ate. She never asked for a refund. On those occasions I think she saw herself as a bit of a philanthropist. Giving and not receiving.

The net result was a wealthy and healthy family. When the coffers grew low Skin Jack would pick a new town and a few days later the bank manager was a happy bunny. It all seemed so easy. It was so easy.
And so, at the age of fourteen, I joined the family business. I wanted to be a burglar like my dad. Skin Jack Junior – but my dad didn’t see things in quite the same way. He told me that he didn’t want to push his luck by taking me along on a job and, since this was the only form of training available, my life as a would be burglar was still born.
I considered my mother’s line of work, but it didn’t take me long to figure that a life of ‘borrow and sometimes return’ wasn’t for me.
So I looked for a new path.

It didn’t come easy. I crammed in a belly full of alternatives before I hit gold. I tried scamming but I wasn’t a good enough actor. I had a shot at pick-pocketing but I was blessed with two left hands and the touch of a brontosaurus. Once, I thought I’d found a winner in smash and grab.

An old Ford Escort, a pawnbroker’s window and I took up the recognised sport of ram raiding. Unfortunately I underestimated the width of the shop and, jammed solid, half in and half out, wheels spinning madly, the Escort couldn’t go forward and couldn’t go back. I fled the scene after smashing the rear window of the car – breaking my wrist in the process.

I spent some time contemplating my options after the pawn-broker incident and happened upon my current career while reading the local paper. I remember the article well. It was entitled ‘Crime Pays’ and told the story of a man called Peter Montgomery.

Peter was a local man who had just received a five year prison sentence for receiving stolen goods. I wasn’t actually sure what ‘receiving stolen goods’ meant. I had this crazy notion that Peter was some sort of god in the criminal world with those of an illegal bent paying homage to him.

Even now I can see King Peter sitting on his throne receiving his flock, waving his hand dismissively as another DVD player is placed in front of him.

What appealed to me was that Peter had been plying his trade for over forty years before he had been caught. A bloody good innings if you ask me. Oh, and the fact that he was rumoured to rich as a bitch appealed no end.

I asked my dad what receiving stolen goods meant and he told me that Peter was a fence, explained what it meant and so dawned a new era for my family.

Why should I take the risk of stealing anything? Why not set up shop as your friendly neighbourhood fence?

Middleman Jack was born.

My dad proved invaluable in plotting out my new career. After all he had been using fences for the best part of twenty five years. It was his suggestion to open a second hand shop as a front. He coughed up for the first six month’s rental and ‘Want It. You’ve Got It’ or, as it has become know, WIYGI, was born.

I now own sixty ‘WIYGI’ stores up and down the country and I have to admit that my little venture has been more than a passing success. Entrepreneur of the Year award last year I’ll have you know.
I’m ahead of myself here. Let’s take a step back to the opening of the first two ‘WIYGI’ shops. Not one but two – and for good reason.

The premise was simple. To the general public the stores were glorified second hand shops. We bought and sold anything from anyone. And there in lay the beauty of the system. When someone came in with an item we gave them a price – hooky or straight – it made no odds to us. If they liked the price we bought the goods. The legitimate stuff went onto the shelf. The hotter items were sent to the other shop. With over two hundred miles between the two shops we never had stolen material on sale in the same area that it had been nicked from.

Genius.

I was sixteen when the first two stores opened. By the time I turned eighteen my mum and dad had hung up their shoes and joined the business. Money was pouring in and then, in our fourth year, we realised the money from legitimate goods had begun to outstrip the cash from the illegitimate.
I was in danger of soiling the family name.
Why were we becoming so successful? Good question – simple answer.
The secret was in our openness to customers. We paid a fair and full price for all goods. In the beginning mark up was not the name of the game for legitimate goods. We didn’t need any profit from the legit stuff back then. The hot goods paid for everything we did. So word spread. Go to ‘WIYGI’ – you’ll get a good price for what you sell and while you are there pick out a bargain or two.

People flocked in. We hit a turnover of fifty million pounds at the end of the last financial year and just over twelve months ago I made the momentous decision to can the illegal side of the business, breaking with nearly two hundred years of criminal tradition.

I didn’t need the risk anymore. I sent word to the stores that we were no longer in the market for bent gear and the business became respectable. I took home a cool million in dividends last year and bought myself a seven bedroom house in the money pot part of town. My dad gave me a beautiful gold watch to celebrate. It was engraved ‘To JW’.

When the knock on the door came I was more than a little perplexed. Three policemen entered my home and when I asked what was going on I was arrested for receiving stolen goods. I was informed that my shops were being searched but I shrugged it off. They wouldn’t find much – I’d instructed the managers to dump all the dodgy gear long ago.

They took me to an interrogation room where a sharp dressed young detective grilled me. He enquired if I had any stolen property on me. I laughed as I told him to get lost and he asked if I was sure. I told him I was positive. He reached over, gently pushing back the sleeve of my jacket and pointed at my new watch. I laughed again.

‘From my dad.’ I told him. ‘A present.’

He asked if he could look at it and I took it off. Turning it over he examined the engraving.

‘That’s me’ I said. ‘Jack Wellington – JW’.

‘Is it?’ he asked.

A small alarm bell went off in my head.

He reached into his pocket, took out what could only be described as my watch’s baby sister and flipped it over to reveal four engraved letters. He handed me the watch and I read them ‘To SW.’

‘Who the hell is SW?’ I asked.

‘Sandra Wong, wife of Joe Wong’ the detective replied. ‘Their house was robbed a month ago. The thief dropped Sandra’s watch on the way out’.

‘And?’ I said.

‘Mr Wong caught sight of the thief.’ he said. ‘Buck naked was the description’.

My heart stopped.

‘Cute we thought’ said the detective. ‘Skin Jack is back in business and now we find Joe Wong’s watch wrapped around your wrist.

He tilted his head ever so slightly to one side and said ‘So your dad gave you this did he?’

I told you crime pays. OK so my dad has to do a little time behind bars and I’m on a suspended sentence but, hey, that’s the risk you take. The police found nothing in my shops, my dad will be out in a year or so and business is still booming.

Why did my dad get back into the business? I asked him and he shrugged his shoulders before telling me that life had got boring. Legitimate business had no place in his life. He just wanted a bit of excitement. After all it was the family way.

I need to go – I’ve a plane to catch. I’m off to New York. ‘WIYGI’ on Third and Forty Fourth is due to open tomorrow. I’m also opening one in Chicago. Why America? Because I’m also a little bored – you know how it is – let’s just say that oven gloves are back on the menu for my staff and the land of opportunity beckons.

The Tall and the Short Of It

‘Hi. I’m going to bed in ten minutes but I thought I’d drop you a line to say how much I’m looking forward to meeting you at last. I can’t wait for tomorrow. The offer of a bed still stands. By the way you’ll spot me easily I’m the tall handsome one
George’

I hit the send icon and watch as the Outbox acknowledges the e-mail has gone. I sit back in the dining room chair and breathe deeply. I consider making a cup of tea but dismiss it as a bad idea. Caffeine and sleep never make good companions. My mind swings into neutral and I freewheel through the late hour.

Ping.

An e-mail pops in to the top of my Inbox. It is from Fiona. I reach over and double click on the message.

‘Hi. Got your e-mail. I’m looking forward to our meeting. Thanks for offering to put me up for the night but I think it would be better if I stay at a hotel. Anyway I need a bit of space in my bed. I like to stretch out. I’ve phoned the hotel and they are putting in a slightly longer bed for me. See you tomorrow.

Fiona’

Slightly longer bed? An odd request? How much longer do they make beds? As the thought hangs in the air I am conscious of my legs swinging high above the living room carpet. No chance of me requiring a slightly longer bed.

I stare at the message. It has never occurred to me to ask how tall Fiona is, just as I have never felt the need to tell her that I am barely five feet in my stocking soles. I begin to type.

‘It must be a classy hotel if they keep extra long beds in store for their guests. How much longer is an ‘extra long’ bed if you don’t mind me asking?
George’

I send the message. I wait for a few minutes and the machine pings again.

‘An extra foot! It makes all the difference. Now go to bed.

Fiona’

An extra foot! My mouth opens wide. An extra foot! Why an average bed is six feet or is it six feet six? I’m not sure. Either way Fiona is in the seven to seven feet six region for a bed. I look down at my short legs. Seven feet or even worse seven feet six! Heavens she could be over two feet taller than me.

TWO FEET!!!!

The following morning arrives and I haven’t slept. The night has been filled with thoughts of women towering above me. I couldn’t get the figure of seven feet (even worse seven feet six) out of my head. I had tried to rationalise it by assuming she just liked some room in her bed and she might be a little over six feet tall (bad enough) but surely she wasn’t of the eighty four inch variety (or even worse NINETY inches).

Fiona’s train is due in at two o’clock and I have agreed to meet her at the end of the platform. We have arranged to wear easily identifiable clothing. Me a green sweater with USS Enterprise written across the chest and her, a blue leather jacket with Candy Trip written on the lapel (she told me they were one of her favourite groups – I have never heard of them). Why bother with the identifying clothes – I’ll see her from the other end of the platform unless there happens to be a woman’s basketball convention on the same train.

I start rooting through my numerous pairs of heeled shoes. My height has always been a source of concern to me. My friends have, long ago, given up trying to tell me that my height is irrelevant and watched in despair as I embarked on a long career of height enhancement. From high-heeled shoes to special exercises, from private clinics to bad fashion advice from hats to multi vitamins I have tried everything and anything. All to no avail and now I am going to meet the Jolly Green Giant’s big sister.

I feel sick.

I pull out a pair of ageing platform shoes – three and half inch heels and the devil to walk in. Well at least the gap might be less than two feet. The thought doesn’t help as I squeeze them on. I pull a baseball cap from a drawer and sit it high on my head (another half an inch – if I am lucky) and look at the clock. I have three hours to kill and here I am ready and, not in the least, willing to go.

I decide to practise walking in the platform shoes and set off to the newspaper shop for a copy of the morning paper.

‘Morning George,’ says Lewis, the shopkeeper, barely concealing a smile as I stagger over the shop floor.

‘Morning, Lewis. A copy of the Mail please,’ I say.

I pay for the paper and turn to leave. The heel of my shoe snags on the shop-floor carpet and any semblance of balance is lost and I tumble to the floor.

By the time I get home I have decided to discard the shoes. It is either that or a week’s stay in the local infirmary.

My thoughts turn to cancelling the meeting but it is too late. Fiona lives over a hundred miles away and would be on her way by now. She also knows where I live so I have no option but to turn up at the station. I wonder which part of her anatomy my head will be level with when we stand together. I spend a few seconds working it out and go bright red with embarrassment at the result of my calculation.

A couple of hours later and I am standing at the end of the platform waiting for the train to arrive. The arrivals board informs me of a delay of approximately half an hour. Why not half a lifetime? At least I have time to grab a coffee at the station café and consider my plight.

At the very minimum I should have asked Fiona for a photo. Better still a photo with her and some friends. At least that way I would have spotted her height. Then again maybe she hangs out with a group of seven feet tall amazons.

The thought of Fiona having extra tall girlfriends fills me with even more dread. What if she wants me to meet her friends? It will be like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in reverse.

A man flops into one of the seats across from me. Another ‘tally’ (as I disparagingly call anyone over six feet). Only this ‘tally’ is also a ‘fatty’. Twenty-five stones if an ounce. I freeze in mid gulp. Heavens what if Fiona is fat as well?

I feel very, very sick.

She could be on the thick end of thirty stone. I will look like some kids toy next to her. A vision of the 1930’s postcards with the enormous fat woman and the small, ever domineered, husband lights up in front of me. My heart races and I have a deep need for the toilet. I pay the bill and rush into the station lavatory.

It is getting worse. Maybe that’s why she is so keen to meet. When I look back on it, it seemed she has pushed from a very early stage for us to meet. We have so much in common. Star Trek, music (we both adore the Beatles), design (we both collect all things art deco). There has been an endless list of compatibility. Even the points of difference seem to bode well. She likes the rain and I like the sun but we have agreed a summer shower is just perfect.

I look at my watch. The train is due.

As I stand at the end of the platform I feel sweat pouring down the back of my neck. The train grinds to a halt and the doors open. It is busy and the platform quickly fills. I wait on the emergence of the giant Fiona but after a few minutes the stream of passengers dries up. No doubt she is stuck in the seat and at that very moment is being prized loose by the conductor.

The platform empties and stays empty. I wait and wait and my thoughts move on. Obviously she has missed the train or better still she has changed her mind. My heart slows down.

She isn’t coming. Is that good or bad? Does it mean she has changed her mind and doesn’t want to meet me after all? I feel relief wash over me. If I can get back in touch with her by e-mail I can try to ascertain her physical dimensions before inviting her back over and maybe postpone the event all together.

I wait at the platform for a few more moments to be certain and then rush home.

The computer takes an eternity to fire up. Why don’t the stupid things just switch on like the telly?

At last the e-mail box flashes up. There is one new message and it is from Fiona. I click on the message.

‘Hi George. I tried your mobile but it must be switched off.’

Not switched off. Broken – or rather drowned. I dropped in the bath the night before last.

I also left a message on you home phone but in case you don’t get it…

I look at the answering machine and see a red coloured number one flashing off and on.

‘… can I apologise for not making the train. I got a call this morning and had to see someone. Sorry but it couldn’t be helped. I’m catching the later train and I’ll be at the hotel before six o’clock. I’ll give you a bell when I get there and I promise no interruptions for the whole weekend. I’ve phoned the girls to tell them that I’m away for a few days. I’m sure they’ll cope but I have to admit it is a busy life being the captain of Britain’s first woman’s Sumo club.
See you soon.
Love

Fiona’

I read the last line again and again and again.
Well this should be interesting.