May 2019
I read my flash fiction piece, Abide With Me, at Novel Nights, at The Square Club, Clifton, Bristol on 29th May.
ABIDE WITH ME
Thank the Lord he’s dead, thought Penny Gray, sitting at the back of St Saviour’s Church. And then felt slightly ashamed. After all, she hadn’t disliked Lionel Leacock. Not Lionel, the man. A harmless ex-teacher with the smell of dog about him. But Lionel Leacock, the novelist, whose editor she had been for twenty-five years, she loathed intensely. Not that she ever admitted it. How could she? It was Leacock’s lamentable historical romances that had kept the publishers Siskin & Mooney afloat.
Leacock’s mid-sentence heart attack in his writing-shed had hit Penny’s boss, Robin Pettigrew, very hard indeed.
‘A shocking loss,’ he said, as they approached the church porch. ‘Such a prolific storyteller. Seventy-five thousand words each spring and autumn. Two books a year, as regular as clockwork. What shall we do without him?’
Penny smiled wanly ...
To be continued ...