It Was a Horrible Thing and Other Stories

By Emma Lee Bole

A father takes his adult children on an unexpected road trip... Two women skirt around a secret from their schooldays... A great-aunt's past comes back to haunt her...
These six stories by the author of "Widowmere" and "Mud Pie" explore the tangled relationships of families and friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma Lee Bole
• Release date: Oct 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005062095

Emma Lee Bole

Emma Lee Bole is a pseudonym.I lived in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham and Australia before settling in north-west England, where I write magazine short stories and children's books under other names.

Book preview

It was a Horrible Thing

and other stories

Emma Lee Bole

Published by Emma Lee Bole at Smashwords

Copyright © 2020 Emma Lee Bole

Table of Contents

It was a Horrible Thing

Ice Cream

The Stunning Prose of Annie Branty

Him in the Corner

Another Church

Dripping

Other books by Emma Lee Bole

It was a Horrible Thing

It was a horrible thing.

It lurched at us across the station car-park, an old yellow people carrier, punch-drunk and beaten round the bumpers. It was decorated with huge pink and lilac flowers like clumsy handprints. We all stared, dismay unfolding, though we shouldn’t have been surprised at anything he did.

Well, that’s new, said Kyle tersely.

None of it was new, apart from the paint. Which wasn’t wearing well: the daisies were already dying. He’d used gloss paint for them, unprimed. As we watched, two brittle lilac petals burst off and shed themselves onto the tarmac.

"Holy cow! What the hell? I’m not going in that," said Luce. She dropped her suitcase.

He’s on the hippy trail, said Dermot flatly. Thinks it’s a VW camper. I came two hours on the train for this. I’m missing my mate’s house-warming and all.

He was never a hippy, Gwinnie said.

Not much of an artist neither, muttered Kyle. Was he, May? Piss artist more like.

That’s not entirely fair, I said. The oldest and most dutiful child, I still wore the ragged shreds of obligation. The others cast it off long ago, except for Dermot. He never drank that much. Anyway, you won’t see it once you’re in it.

You sound just like him. Kyle was bitter.

We all sound like him, murmured Gwinnie.

None of us, I noticed, called him Dad. Didn’t know what to call him. We’d tried to label him the Old Man for a while, a few years back, but it never stuck. He wasn’t old, unfortunately. The Guvnor didn’t fit either: or it fitted too well. He was the Blessed Patriarch for half a week. Kyle called him The Loop.

Loopy, our beloved father, the Old Man, Guvnor, God. He was given to these summonses. Let’s have a get-together. A family bash. Get the auld crowd in, wouldn’t that be grand? Mostly, we ignored them.

But this latest summons caught my fancy, and since it was a full year since the last necrotic get-together, I managed to persuade the others. He was jubilant. A seaside trip, just like the old days (God forbid, said Kyle.) A long weekend all-mucking-in-together. A craic. A laugh. A chin-wag. Catch up with your old man. He still didn’t look old, never would; just wirier, browner, his thin hair more tangled.

He’s going grey, said Gwinnie, between hope and horror, but the grey was hardly there: just a wrong thread, a pale flaw in the dirty weave. Tilly, his new wife, sat next to him with twenty-month-old Hayden on her knee. She wore a fuchsia floral dress that didn’t suit her. A holiday dress. She wasn’t floral, she was house-mouse anxious. Hayden was already bored and knuckling at her collarbones with a persistence which she made weak attempts to evade.

The Old Man wound the window down in jerks. All right and tight? Jump in.

Where are we going?

Mystery tour, he said.

Blackpool, muttered Kyle.

"In that?" said Luce.

By Grand Central Car Parks I sat down and wept, said Dermot, but he opened the door and threw his rucksack in.

It’s a seven-seater, Luce pointed out. There are eight of us.

We’ll put Hayden in the back. You can squeeze between your big brothers, can’t you, Hayden?

Hayden began to cry. He had only met his big brothers once before, at the wedding last year, when they handed him round glumly like an unwanted slab of cake.

No, he can’t, objected Luce. That’s dangerous. Where’s his child seat?

Tilly’s lap.

"He can’t sit on her knee. He shouldn’t share a seat belt. Why haven’t you got a child seat? Didn’t you think? Can’t you count?"

What’s your problem? he said lightly.

I won’t go. I won’t be responsible.

You don’t want to spend time with your family? He was trying not to get angry, the brown worm-ridden hill of his arm casually resting on the open window.

I spend plenty of time with my family.

Not with me, he said.

Luce shook her head once, decisively. There are too many of us.

There were always too many of us. Nonetheless, I had a yearning to see this reunion succeed, after so many failed attempts: the chairs kicked over, the upended bowl of trifle on my carpet, the shouts and squealing tyres outside the Bear, the broken gatepost, broken bottles, broken cheekbone, broken promises. Although he had five of us, (no six, no five, for I never knew whether to count Jamie), I had only one of him.

So I said, Luce, just this once, just let it go, we’ll buy a child seat on the way.

That’s too late. And there’s no room.

Luce picked up her suitcase and stalked off to the station. At least that meant the rest of them couldn’t.

Come on, I said, and we silently wedged ourselves into the gaudy car. It was a tight fit. I wore my rucksack on my feet. The car had to hitch up its belt, reposition its belly, square its shoulders and give an effortful hurrumph or two