Part Two
Fred woke up and for a second or two couldn't quite place exactly where he was. Then he realised.
It really is quite remarkable that so much dreaming in such detail can be packed into a single night's sleep.
The End – The story of the day following Fred's dream is just too harrowing to recount.
Caroline And John Abroad
John Peters was slumped in front of the television, not really taking any notice of the images on the screen. His wife, whom he always called Carol despite her preference for Caroline and who at thirty five was four years younger than her husband, seemed to be paying more attention to the programme. They sat in silence, as they did through the middle part of the evening more or less every day.
They were childless despite having tried for children. This was a disappointment to Caroline but a relief to John, although neither had particularly strong feelings. It meant that their time was their own, to be filled with hobbies and pastimes, or whatever else might have interested them. Little, in fact, did attract their interest, although John was mildly interested in horse racing and Caroline occasionally enjoyed an hour or two in her garden pulling up what she hoped were weeds.
Weekends were a little different. It would be an exaggeration to say they indulged themselves every weekend, but at least twice a month they treated themselves to trips out on buses and trains. They didn't venture far, perhaps a round trip of fifty or sixty miles, but they found these trips fulfilling.
"Are we going anywhere this weekend?" John mumbled.
"If you'd like to," his wife replied, sounding a little surprised as she hadn't expected to hear her husband's voice just then.
"Who will it be this time?"
"I don't know. Perhaps someone sporty?"
"Good idea, Carol. I'll sleep on it and think of somebody." His wife merely raised one eyebrow slightly at the foreshortening of her name.
John toiled through his Friday at his office, quite enjoying the way he cleared routine tasks from his desk. He even stayed a little later than usual so as to clear his desk completely before walking home. He was particularly looking forward to this weekend and didn't want it to be spoiled by the thought of uncompleted work on his desk.
Caroline was up and about early on Saturday morning, making sure that the house was in a fit state to be left. She also wanted to be certain that she and her husband had a substantial breakfast - their itinerary for the day left little time for eating. John rose before eight and by nine, well fed and smartly dressed, they left on the first stage of their journey.
They were away until just after seven that evening and returned with a variety of takeaway dishes from their local Indian restaurant. They agreed it had been a most satisfying day.
Over the following week they carefully monitored radio and television news programmes. They bought a number of different newspapers every day. They were certain that this time their exploits would have been noticed and they would see themselves, or at the very least the results of their exploits, in the news. They had tried, many, many times, and each time they had failed. This time just had to be different. After a week it seemed that it wasn't going to be different after all and the world was still intent on ignoring them. The next weekend they stayed at home.
At work the following Wednesday John overheard a conversation that he thought was interesting, if only because it concerned a jockey. He bought the newspaper that carried the story his colleagues had been talking about, and thought to himself that this was a story that hadn't reached its end yet. He smiled to himself as he folded the paper away. He wasn't going to tell Carol. Yet.
The story cropped up on the television news a few days later. John and Caroline were watching the programme and both became excited when Rebecca Rice, the six foot tall, half Chinese, multi-millionaire gravel-voiced singer of nineteen with Leopardstripe, the chart topping band, appeared. She denied emphatically that she was pregnant, as a newspaper had claimed, and added that if she were ever to become pregnant it would not be by a sub five foot jockey old enough to be her father. With an air of real menace she said that her solicitors had been instructed to institute a libel action and to seek punitive damages. This juicy little item was followed by the appearance of the jockey concerned.
He was Karl Caldera, an American who had managed to extend his career in top class racing well past his fortieth birthday. He was being interviewed in his home, sitting next to Barbara, his still attractive English wife of twenty years, and their two daughters.
"I am horrified," he said, "I don't understand how any newspaper can print such rubbish. I have never even met Miss Rice, although I do like her music. In fact I play her band's CD in my car regularly. I cannot think how this absurd rumour might have started. There is obviously no truth in it at all and I shall be talking to our solicitor in the morning.”
His face was replaced by the news reporter's, standing outside Caldera's spacious country home. "So," he was saying, "both parties have denied the rumour strongly and, I have to say, it does seem an unlikely pairing.
“But The Daily Mercury is just the first to print this story, which is likely to appear in the other tabloids tomorrow. It seems that several different people have reported hearing the rumour that Miss Rice was pregnant by Mr Caldera and those people independently approached Georgios Hakinides, the publicist, who sold their story to the Mercury. Nobody is saying how much the Mercury paid, or who the informants were, but it has been suggested that each informant is likely to have received at least ?50,000."
John turned to Carol, grinning. "At last!" he said.
"Yes," she replied, "we've done it. But the story's wrong, isn't it? We repeated it several times on five buses and four trains and I'm sure each time we made it clear that Mr Caldera was supposed to be Miss Rice's father, not to have made her pregnant himself. Honestly, you really can't trust anyone to repeat anything accurately any more."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Les Broad is originally from the deep south eastern corner of England but insists that at least a quarter of him - the left arm, perhaps including the shoulder - is by historical accident Welsh. He says that his affection for the written word has its roots in a schooldays French lesson one wet winter Wednesday: that lesson included an introduction to the writing of Albert Camus and it has been but a short step, accomplished in a mere four decades, from that point to becoming a writer himself.
His first love might be science fiction, albeit the sub-class of the genre that he calls 'believable sci-fi', but he has on occasion wandered into other areas: some have been generous enough to say they enjoyed these forays.
The point has been reached in his life where, whenever he is passed by a big, slow-moving, black, estate car, he asserts that he actually feels quite jealous of whoever is lying down in the back. If, therefore, he is to attain his ambition of being an answer to a crossword clue in one of the better Sunday newspapers he really needs you and all your friends to buy copies of his books!
Until the point arrives where he actually gets his ride in that big black car he expects to carry on living in North Wales, where his life is dominated by a wife and lamenting the loss of his border collie bitch.
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