The Quest For A Remedy by Nagma Sinha

The Quest For A Remedy

 

Anand’s sculpted face was partially visible in the dark. His head rested comfortably on thick cushioned pillows piled one over the other. The air-conditioner’s soft sound emitting cool air into the compact room could lull anyone to sleep but me.

My eyelids struggled to block my vision while my ears concentrated on my cyclical breathing. My cotton wool stuffed, medium-sized soft pillow, custom made from Coimbatore was a marriage gift from my aunt. My mother-in-law would say, ‘If I had this pillow and this bed, I would sleep in no time!’

I was married at an early age of twenty-one while my friends enjoyed their college life. Anand learnt about my disability during our first meeting at my parent’s house. Surprisingly, he still had a smile on his face, and he held my hand and said, ‘It will go away, I promise’ as if we were already engaged. His assurance took my breath away and that was one of the reasons for me to tie a knot with him. He was an angel in disguise. He still is but he is slowly giving up now.

My desire to pursue master’s degree in applied statistics moved us to a rented apartment near my college. My post-graduation functioned as a birth control pill until it’s successful completion.

The abdomen urged to be relieved. I silently rose from the bed and reached for my slippers at the bed’s edge. My feet found the slippers in the dark and transported me outside the room. The door was carefully closed to keep Anand’s sleep undisturbed. My left forefinger pressed the light switch of the bathroom in the adjacent room. My eyes fearfully wandered around the four walls to see any occupation by lizards. This time there were none, the area was safe. The sound of the toilet flush echoed but not strong enough to wake Anand.

My sleeplessness carried me to the drawing room’s couch. The wall clock’s hour needle at twelve and the minute one around six glowed. The apartments visible through the glass window bore deserted balconies partially occupied by machine-washed clothes getting naturally dried by the warm air. The security guard’s stick thumping on the ground flowed in rhythm with the whistle shrills flowing through his powerful chest to his lips.

A few mosquitoes hovering around my ears and arms distracted the focus. My path returned to the bathroom wall cabinet for the mosquito repellent. A mosquito bit me on my left arm before I could apply the cream on my skin. The drawing room’s fan revolving at maximum speed failed to beat the hot weather. My face covered with the repellent perspired, but the dominance of the mosquitoes barred me from pouring chilly water over my face. The clock needles denoted three fifteen am!

I walked on the moon-light guided floor with light steps to tire myself. My eyes were partially closing but my brain was completely awake. My feet ached but I remained vigilant as the night owl.

My grandmother was an insomniac at an era when the world was a much better place to live. What was the stress that kept her awake in the nights? I always wondered. Her company at this hour would have been wonderful.

I started reading my course book while the crickets chirped in the dark. Their symphony gradually faded with the onset of the morning dawn. There was sufficient light to walk towards the bathroom. The direct water supply had to be collected to get us through the day. My feeble consciousness placed the thin pipe connecting the water tap, inside a vacant blue plastic drum. It normally took fifteen minutes to fill, and it was tough to be attentive anymore. I switched on the tap and lay on the couch with a phone alarm to ring in fifteen minutes time. The cool morning air and the cawing sound of the crows felt peaceful. The alarm rang and while hurrying back, my right foot slipped on the wet bathroom floor. The air-conditioner’s noise inside the bedroom blocked the falling sound from reaching Anand’s ears.

After laying still for a few seconds, I gradually lifted my body with the support of the door frame. My lower back was in severe pain. With limping steps, I climbed back on the couch and closed my eyes.

When I woke up it was six thirty am! I slowly raised my body although the waist resisted the movements due to the shooting pain. I missed the seven am bus to the college. The next bus at seven thirty am, dropped me just in time before Prof. Brijwasi’s class.

We had a surprise test, and I could not fare well. I could barely recall the answers.

During the break, Sonali and I went towards the corridor for fresh air. Some of our classmates gathered around. They were staring at my red bangles, my wedding ring, and my anklets.

‘You look tired today,’ said Mona looking concerned.

‘Oh, am I? …. I slipped on the bathroom floor today’ I said.

‘Oh! Are you badly hurt?’ asked Sonali.

‘No, just my back hurts, otherwise I’m good.’

She came closer and whispered to me, ‘Are you pregnant?’

I looked at her in the eye and slightly shook my head in the negative.

‘You should have got some rest today.’

Anand and I were incredibly careful about this, and we were taking necessary precautions. While I was waiting for the final colour code on the pregnancy testing equipment, Anand consoled me. ‘Its fine. Even if you are, I will take care of everything. You don’t need to worry about it.’

I imagined attending classes in my baby bump and attracting stares from everyone in the classroom and elsewhere. After a few minutes, the equipment gave negative results. I was relieved.

Lying on the bed with an analgesic ointment rubbed back, my muscles gave out a sigh of relief. My eyes were closing gradually, and Anand moved his hands over my arms and then over my forehead and then my hair to put me to sleep. We remained silent.

When he went into a deep slumber, I admired the moon from the netted window. I twisted and turned to explore a comfortable sleeping position, but it could not be discovered.

 ‘Why don’t you take your pill today? You need to sleep!’ said Anand, awake after a two-hour sleep.

‘I will get dependent on it all over again. Let me tackle it my way.’

The doctor’s prescribed medicine at the bed side table lay unopened in silver foil packed strips. My mind was in search of natural sleep amid thoughts about delaying my pregnancy and failing in my exams. The thoughts about my classmates, my professors sleeping peacefully at this hour made me claustrophobic and restless. My heart was beating faster than usual.

I raised myself slowly and walked into the drawing room balcony for some fresh air. I dialled Sheetal in Canada. It was afternoon there. She did not answer and messaged that she is occupied.

I sat cross legged on the marble floor to meditate. There was no disturbance except for the security guard’s ritual with his stick and the whistle. My eyes remained closed, but the brain remained completely awake. My eyes then concentrated on a rubber ball being thrown towards the ceiling with my right palm and then held back on its return by my left palm. The operation of juggling of the eyes to lose my consciousness failed miserably.

In Prof. Brijwasi’s class, my palms reached for my forehead to pacify the headache and heaviness in the eyes. Seated on the front seat, I attracted her attention.

She stopped her lecture mid-way and stared at me. The students’ eyes were staring at me too.

‘Yes, Ms. Nandini, what’s wrong with you?’

I felt like a criminal being caught red-handed.

With an innocent face, I clarified, ‘Nothing Ma’am. I’m fine, I’m listening to you.’

‘Can you explain the theory I was talking about?’

During her class, my fatigued state had focused on ways to fight insomnia. The brain had been completely inattentive of her lecture.

‘Sorry, Ma’am. I can’t. Could you explain it again?’

Prof. Brijwasi looked sternly into my dark circled eyes.

‘Am I putting you to sleep?’

‘No, Ma’am’ I bowed my head with nervousness and embarrassment.

‘I have been seeing you like this for a week now. I only want attentive students in my class. Understand?’

‘I’m sorry Ma’am.’

‘Next time, if I find you like this, your husband will be summoned by the principal!’

She stormed out of the class shortly after.

The girls sitting behind smiled and giggled. Sonali turned to them with a stern look. The girls’ expressions instantly changed.

‘Are you ok?’ whispered Sonali with her left palm below my shoulder.

I reluctantly smiled and nodded.

‘Let’s study together at my place tonight. It may get past your bedtime, but this is important right?’

‘Absolutely!’ I said excitedly.

about the author

 

Nagma is a senior executive at a multinational corporation and her short stories have been published in Contemporary Literary Review India, Kitaab, Setu Bilingual, Modern Literature, Litbop, The Fairtales, The Omnibus Registry, Chewers by Masticadores, The Metaworker Literary Magazine and Purple Pencil Project. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nagma-sinha/details/publications/.

Beyond fiction, she has written on politics, socio-economic issues, culture, and the arts on her website, nagmasinha.blogspot.com.

She is a senior executive at a multinational corporation and holds an MBA degree. She is currently based in the Delhi NCR region

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The World We Would Live in by : David McVey, milk

The World We Would Live in

The bunker should have represented everything we feared most, all the paranoia of our time. It ought to have been a place we recoiled from, not a haven of hope and optimism.

‘In the future,’ Gavin announced once, when a crowd of us were in the bunker, ‘if there’s been no nuclear war, we’ll all have jetpacks for short journeys and go by monorail for longer trips.’

‘If you say so, Gavin!’ laughed Amanda, ‘Will I have a personal robot to deliver my jetpack to me in the morning as I eat my concentrated food pellets?’

There was more laughter, but Gavin insisted, ‘You can mock, but the boffins are doing amazing things with robots. By 1990, they’ll be doing all the boring work.’

We laughed again, but Gavin got listened to all the same. You did, if your father was a wealthy man who not only lived in a massive house in its own grounds but also had built a fallout shelter deep below the Victorian summerhouse. He was something big in the Scottish Office, Gavin’s dad, and if he thought things were serious enough to build the bunker, a bare room about the size of a small kitchen, then it seemed right to be worried.

‘If a bomb went off over Glasgow, would this thing really keep you alive?’ I asked Gavin once. He shrugged and said, ‘Probably not. I don’t know.’

Deep down we all knew this, and probably that’s what made the bunker something to enjoy rather than a place of dread. If the nuclear nightmare came true, this place would just be radioactive ashes, like everywhere else. Why not make it our refuge when we were at Gavin’s? Its clean, bare modernity (it wasn’t fully equipped yet – when Gavin’s dad started to load it up, it really would be time to think Apocalypse) inspired us to dream of sunnier futures than the one Kruschev and Kennedy and Castro seemed to be planning for us. I remember one Friday when we went straight there after school, about six or seven of us. We had all been in revision classes for O Grades and were wearied by them. ‘Maths is such a pain,’ said John, ‘why can’t they invent a machine that does all the work?’

‘Those big computers can do lots of calculations at once,’ I offered, thinking of the large structures the size of a house I had seen on TV, all blank white sterility and reels of whirring magnetic tape.

Gavin seemed lost in thought for a moment. ‘Ye-e-es,’ he said, doubtfully, ‘but computers will eventually get smaller and smaller. So small that they’ll fit in a room like this – or even on your desk.’

‘Never!  You’re talking rubbish!’ John snorted.

‘No, really,’ said Gavin, with some seriousness, ‘and there will be special small computers, just for doing calculations. Things you can hold in your hand. We’ll all have them.’

We did have other meeting places. There was a milk bar in the local shopping street, the common room in school and the shed in our garden, but it was in Gavin’s bunker that we talked of the future, of our hopes, of the world we would live in once the superpowers had sorted things out and the scientists and engineers were freed to push out the limits of the possible.

Gavin hoped to get enough Highers to do physics at university while Amanda was aiming to study medicine. ‘I don’t want to practice, though,’ she said, ‘I want to go into research. The way things are going, we’re going to eradicate a lot of killer diseases over the next few decades.’ She was already saying ‘we’.

John wanted to be a musician. He played electric guitar but wanted to study classical before exploring the possibilities of the new beat music. ‘Soon rock and roll will be as respected as classical - rhythm and blues too. In the future there’ll just be music.’

I had no ambition to be a ground-breaking scientist or an engineer who would create new wonders of the world. I hoped to scrape into university, get by financially, get a job and enjoy the fabulous shining future that was surely promised for us all. I also hoped I might share it with Amanda.

Another time we were in the bunker, looking at the catalogue for an exhibition at the Kelvin Hall; it was about technology and gadgets that would transform our lives. A lot of it was humdrum – new types of vacuum cleaner, dishwashers - but there were also some of the first robots; crude, clumsy toys, but things of wonder all the same. John was excited about machines for creating simple electronic music. I remember that there was even something about space travel for all, promised within our lifetimes.  One of the exhibitors was taking advance bookings.

Afterwards, as we started to make our separate ways home, I lingered in the garden, in the darkness, with Amanda. We held each other, safe from prying eyes, kissed and celebrated a timeless moment, one where there was no past or future. Then we looked into the evening sky, far beyond the faint skeleton-shapes of the trees, to where the stars flickered and gleamed.

‘Apparently you can sometimes see the Sputniks flying past, I said, ‘They say they look like shooting stars.’

‘You can,’ she said, with her usual certainty.  ‘Will we ever fly up there, into space, do you think?  You and me?’

‘I don’t see why not.  If all the money and brains they spend on trying to blow everyone up were turned to that, it’d be possible – and soon.’

We walked off together, beneath stars and satellites, into the future.

I think about Amanda still.  She did go off to study medicine, at Edinburgh, and though we tried to stay together, to triumph over distance (what was distance when space flight would soon be for everyone?), the link inevitably weakened and broke.  I’d had to stay at home.  University wasn’t for me, my parents said, and soon after my fifth year I started as a trainee in the council drawing office.  I haven’t seen Amanda since her third year at Edinburgh, over sixty years ago, now, a chilly day when I visited her and we climbed Arthur’s Seat and agreed it was no longer worth pretending any more. I met John once in the early 70s, when he played keyboards in a progressive band that had a gig at the Apollo.  Long-haired and spaced-out, he seemed happy when we snatched a drink in a nearby pub, but the fame didn’t last long. During the punk revolution, his band’s fortunes nose-dived and he left music.  For what, I don’t know.

With Gavin I quickly lost touch. Shortly after we left school, his father was transferred to a job in London. Their old house isn’t there any more. It was one of those West End properties that succumbed to subsidence from old mineworkings. The bunker is, of course, gone too – undermined rather than obliterated – and the whole site is landscaped.

My wife died a few years ago. She was not Amanda, but I loved her, after a fashion. Our children are abroad, Sam in Australia and Amanda (yes, you can disapprove if you like) is in Canada.  I retired many years ago.

I live in a modest house in Strathblane. There is a garden with trees and I often stand there on clear nights marvelling at the profusion of satellites blinking across the sky. I never got to travel in space, not with Amanda, nor with anyone else. I’ve never had a jetpack or a personal robot either. I remember Gavin, though, when I am sitting at my PC or using my pocket calculator or smartphone. Not all youthful optimism is misplaced, then.  And, of course, we haven’t had a nuclear conflict, yet.

I have few visitors and am often alone. Occasionally a neighbour drops by, the local kirk elder calls for a chat or on very rare occasions I entertain relatives. But there is a room in my house that none of these people are admitted to, that they will never see.

While my wife was alive, it variously served as a large cupboard, as a boxroom and, in extreme circumstances, as a spare bedroom. There are no windows. I have redecorated it and placed a lock on the door. There is a comfortable armchair and the walls are full of photographs of my wife, of my children – as babies, as graduates, and Amanda as bride and Sam as groom – and of friends. There is even a dog-eared picture of me with that other, earlier Amanda, taken in an instant photo-booth in Waverley Station.

There, I listen to music that I have loved, read books that mean a lot to me and try to recall periods of fulfilment and contentment. I dwell on the people and places and experiences that shine in the memory.

This room is now, of course, my bunker. I go there to shelter from despair, to re-acquaint myself with the past, the past that mattered, that worked, that made me happy. But this is no mere exercise in nostalgia. No; I intend my time in the shelter to help me re-learn the art of hope; I try once again to anticipate, to be optimistic. Life (and death) has robbed me of these capacities more surely than did the fear of nuclear annihilation.

I feel the need to go there now. I hope you will excuse me.

About the author

 David McVey lectures at New College Lanarkshire. He has published over 150 short stories and a great deal of non-fiction that focuses on history and the outdoors. He enjoys hillwalking, visiting historic sites, reading, watching telly, and supporting his home-town football team, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC. Did you enjoy the story? 

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Home Tastes like Gravy by Steve Gerson, sweet tea

Paste story here  

 

 

Home Tastes like Gravy

"I ain't got no light in my life, like it's goin' on dusk all day and the blinds won't let the sinkin' sun in for even a peek," she said to her mom on the phone. A shadow crept up the wall like lichen on an elm. Pipes in her motel room moaned, pinging to some Hank Williams' tune about loss and drink.

"Well, honey girl, whatca' gonna do 'bout that? Sit and take his shit, or get off the pot and hop a bus back home?"

"I know mom. He's miserable some of the time, spittin' out hurtful words like broken teeth, but then he'll sweeten up, tell me my nose is pert or he likes the breakfast I made him. And then, well, I guess I forget the bad words and tell myself how, sure, even in good weeks it rains a day or two," as she twirled the tips of her henna-dyed hair into rainbows.

"Huh, all I got to say. He ever get a job yet?" asking with about as much hope as a bird searching worms in a hailstorm.

"Now give him some time, Mom. I hear that doubtin' tone in your voice. He's tryin'. And it’s only been a couple or three weeks, so far.  He was out last week, checkin' the lube shops, bait and tackle stores, even the ice houses. He says times are tough. He's up against guys with high school degrees."

"You say last week he looked. And today?"

"He needed a break, so he's playin' some pool, maybe even bring in a buck or two, if he's lucky."

"When was he last lucky, girl? Same day catfish flew into boats?" And she paused to find the right words. "Listen here, Suze. I been waitin' on you to make a right decision. Even three cherries comes up ever so often on slots. I seen it. Now's as good a time as any for you. Tell you what. Hop on that bus and get yourself back here. Tell me when and where and I'll meet you. I'll fix you up your favorite—biscuits, meat-drip gravy, and sweet tea. Plus some of momma's hugs."

Suze chewed her fingernails a bit till a spot of blood bubbled up. Wiped it on the bed till it looked like a road. She thought of him, that time he balled his fists at her.  That time he slammed the door and said, “be back, or not, maybe.”  That time he laughed when she told him of her good memories about birthday parties back home, mom fixin’ a cake special, mom saying, “make a wish, hon.”  She looked past the motel room AC wheezing in the corner, past the flyspeck window, and saw a thin shaft of light easing through the blinds.

"Mom, meet you at the bus station on Wednesday. I'm comin' home."

about the author 

 Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in many journals plus his 11 chapbooks: Once Planed Straight; Viral; And the Land Dreams Darkly; The 13th Floor; What Is Isn’t; There Is a Season; Have Not; Who Am I Today; Dystopia; Grim; and Through Shadows 

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PERCY ON PENGUIN BEACH by Guy Pratt,Cold Brew Coffee

 

Percy Richardson had just retired from a senior post with a firm in the city. He had received a substantial retirement lump sum and was planning to take a once in a lifetime holiday. Percy was a bachelor and a little reclusive. He usually spent his holidays in the countryside where he could indulge his passion for bird watching and photographing our feathered friends. He had sometimes joined groups on walking holidays on the continent, but this time he wanted to do something really different.

In a travel magazine he chanced on an article by someone who had traveled as a tourist to Antarctica. They had seen seven different species of penguin on the Southern polar continent and this sparked Percy’s interest and he began to look into the costs and possibilities of going there.

There were larger cruise ships that went down to Antarctic Peninsula which provided lots of on- board social activity, but if one wanted to get ashore more often a smaller boat seemed the better idea. Groups of no larger than a hundred were permitted ashore in one place at any one time, due to internationally agreed controls. Eventually he found a package that he felt suited him best – a group of about seventy people could travel on a smaller boat with an equal number of crew to look after their needs and take them on shore trips. Percy paid up and signed up for the trip.

After flying from Heath Row to Buenos Aires, where a couple of days were spent sight-seeing, the party were flown down to Ushuaia, at the tip of South America, to board their boat that was to take them down the Antarctic Peninsula and back via South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. In addition to the normal complement one might expect in a ship’s crew were a select group of experts on the natural history, geology and history of Antarctica. Percy was pleased to note one of these was a very knowledgeable ornithologist. Whilst at sea these experts would be giving educational talks about the many interesting things the passengers would be seeing when they went ashore and also guiding them on their shore trips.

Shore trips would be made in small rubber boats with outboard engines, called Zephyrs, similar to those used in commando landings. Each one could carry about eight to ten people and getting all the passengers ashore at one time would be no problem.

Although the boat had looked quite big, towering above them at the dockside before they boarded, once out to sea off Cape Horn, it pitched and tossed considerably. Percy miserably and queasily began to wonder  if it was all going to be worth it. However, within twenty-four hours he had found his sea-legs, his appetite had returned and everyone was enjoying thoughts of the prospects ahead whetted by the talks of their minders.

Nobody had seen any significance in the fact that the passenger list included a Mr and Mrs Richards accompanied by their son Gregory. They came just before Percy Richardson on the passenger list. The Richards had brought their son Gregory with them as a 21^st birthday gift, he was keen on travel and exploration.

Once down at the Peninsula regular shore trips were being made and things were going well. Percy was more than delighted when the opportunity came to visit the place where the Albatross nested and he managed to get some photographs. He had purchased an expensive telephoto lens for his camera especially for this trip. Each time they went ashore and he got some good photographs, he would hurry down to his cabin when he got back on board. There he would download them onto his laptop and edit them, saving the best.

When they went ashore at different places in the Zephyrs they would travel backwards and forwards in the same craft with the same guide usually to ensure everyone was accounted for. Often there would be a shore trip in the morning before returning for lunch on board and another trip ashore in the afternoon at a new location.

Percy Richardson’s portfolio of pictures on his laptop was growing to include elephant seals and Antarctic fur seals, some with their fluffy pups, and a prized shot of a solitary leopard seal floating on a small ice floe. Most of all he was delighting in photographing all the different species of penguin. He had already captured lots of shots of Adelie, Gentoo, Southern Rock Hoppers, Macaroni, with their distinctive yellow crests, King Penguins and Chinstraps. He could hardly wait for the next morning when they were going ashore onto a beach where they were promised they would see thousands of Emperor Penguins. Emperor Penguins are the largest of all the penguins, standing up to about four feet tall and they were told they would be able to walk about amongst crowds of them.

Nine zephyrs took the whole party ashore that morning, about eight of the tour party plus a guide in each one. Once ashore everyone was told that they could wander about freely as they wished, but be back at the Zephyrs in about three hours to return for lunch. Some of the guides set off to walk too, while some stayed with the zephyrs.

After about an hour Gregory Richards, limping very badly, hobbled back to the Zephyrs with his parents. He had climbed up onto some rocks, slipped, twisted his ankle badly and grazed his leg. Olivia, one of the guides, a Scandinavian girl with lots of polar experience and a first aider too, took a look at Gregory’s leg and as a precaution said she would take him back to the ship where he could get the ankle bound up and the graze treated.

This was quickly done and after leaving Gregory in the safe hands of the ship’s medical team she was soon back on the beach with the Zephyr.

Much further down the beach Percy Richardson was in the midst of the Emperor Penguins. It was just as they had been told, these large birds had no fear of humans. He could wander about amongst them easily and they took no notice. He might just as well have been another penguin himself. In fact, he was so close to them he didn’t need the telephoto lens on his camera. He sat on a small rock removed the large lens, putting it down beside him, and replaced it with the standard lens. Unfortunately, in his eagerness he forgot to pick up the telephoto lens.

He wandered on further amongst the throng, then noticing in the distance some members of the party were turning to head back to the Zephyrs, he looked at his watch and realised it would soon be time to return. It was then that he suddenly realised with horror that he was lacking his prized telephoto lens. He frantically started searching for it, trying to retrace his steps looking everywhere. Time was ticking away, but he was sure they would wait a little longer for him. It was a very expensive piece of equipment and as well as the financial loss he would incur if it was lost, he didn’t want to be without it for the rest of the trip.

At the departure point most of the Zephyrs had already set off back to the ship. Olivia was about to set off with her compliment in her Zephyr when she turned Harry Green, the guide team’s geologist and said “That’s all mine aboard. Who are you waiting for?”

“Only Mr Richardson” replied Harry “I don’t know where he’s got too?”

“Mr Richards’ son” responded Olivia “He sprained his ankle. I took him back to the boat a couple of hours ago.”

“Nobody told me” Harry muttered and then “Well, let’s all go then. I’m ready for lunch.”

A relieved Percy eventually found his treasured telephoto lens, hurriedly stuffed into his large camera bag and set off again. Looking at his watch he realised he was a few minutes late, but was sure one of the Zephyrs would be waiting for him.

Breathless, he arrived at what he was sure was the place, only to find no sign of anyone or any Zephyrs. Looking out across the sea towards the boat, he thought he could just make out the last two Zephyrs arriving back at the ship. In panic he started leaping up and down, waving his arms and shouting at the top of his voice. All to no avail, the ship was soon under way and disappearing from view round a headland.

A distraught Percy Richardson sat on the beach, all sorts of thoughts racing through his mind. Would he be missed soon? Would they turn back to search for him? Then again, they might think he’d fallen overboard and he’d been told one would be unlikely to survive more than twenty minutes in those icy waters. How soon before another cruise ship might come along? It could be days and he had no food and although the Antarctic nights were short, temperatures dropped to well below zero.

Back on the ship passengers and crew were sitting down to lunch. One person did ask “Where’s Percy?” which provoked the response “You know Percy. He’s probably still down in his cabin downloading penguin photos onto his laptop.”

That afternoon the weather closed in with a strong wind, cold rain and rough sea. On board further shore trips were cancelled for the day. A cold, wet, miserable Percy sat huddled on a beach devoid of shelter. He was not a religious person in any way, but if there was a God he felt now was the time to pray. He’d never murdered anyone or robbed a bank, but if he got out of this alive, he promised he would repay everything he’d fiddled on the company expense account over the years.

On the ship, at four ‘o’ clock in the afternoon, the bar opened for Happy Hour, and for those who preferred, tea or coffee and cakes were served. It was a time when passengers and guides all enjoyed socialising together. As Harry Green turned from the bar he saw young Gregory Richards limping towards him with a stick.

“What’s happened to you?” Harry asked Gregory.

As Gregory explained his accident and how Olivia had brought him back to the ship Harry’s face paled with the awful realisation – this was Mr Richards’ son, so Mr Percy Richardson must have been left behind on the beach.

Gregory rushed to find the captain, and the ship was soon turned about. Tannoy messages and a thorough search confirmed Percy Richardson was not on board as they sailed back towards the penguin beach.

Fortunately, the daylight hours were long and at nine ‘o’ clock that evening five members of the crew including the ship’s doctor descended down the side of the ship into a Zephyr bobbing violently in a rough sea. A relieved, but shivering, almost gibbering Percy Richardson was wrapped in an emergency foil sheet and transported back to the ship.

Percy was fully recovered from his ordeal by the next morning and so thankful to be safe again, he decided he didn’t want to pursue any action against the crew.

The Norwegian skipper, named Frederickson, told of the time as a young man he served under a Captain Fredericks and he would sometimes be asked if the captain was his father, which of course he wasn’t. With all the Richards and Richardsons, Williams and Williamsons, Robins and Robinsons and so on, something like this was bound to have happened one day, but greater attention would be paid to passenger lists in future.

Back in England, Percy often tells his tale, perhaps a little embroidered, of being marooned on the Antarctic Peninsula like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe.

The accounts department of the company where he had worked for many years were one day surprised to receive a large bankers draft. An anonymous accompanying note simply said an ex-employee had just realised that whilst working for the company, he’d made a few “minor” errors in his expense claims.

   About the author

Guy Pratt is a retired octogenarian second hand bookseller who enjoys gardening, long walks with his dog and travel. He gravitated into the book trade after earlier years in farming, the army Intelligence Corps and the civil service.