Great Short Stories

by Stan Mason

  After passing through Four Lanes, they found themselves driving through a desert of fields with the exception of a few clusters of houses here and there for the ten miles to Helston. Before they arrived there however, they passed one particular well-known spot.

  ‘Hey, look!’ shouted Laura, causing all of them to jump. ‘There’s Poldark Mine. Someone wrote a book about it and there was a television programme which lasted for weeks and weeks.’

  ‘I know,’ commented Matt in amusement. ‘There was a man queuing up to get in who kept shouting “it’s mine all mine!”.’

  The other three groaned at the pun but said nothing until he stopped the vehicle a little further on in a lay-by.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ asked Donna with concern showing on her face. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘There’s a sign over there which reads ‘Mineshaft’,’ muttered the driver. ‘I’d like to have a look at it.’

  He climbed out of the car, releasing Mitzi to the open field, and moved towards an engine house which stood proudly with its tall chimney reaching towards the sky. Laura followed him, stretching her tired legs over the uneven ground while Donna and Cyril waited for them patiently in the car.

  ‘He’s let the damned dog out, the fool!’ chided Donna angrily, watching her pet run all over the field like a maniac.

  However, there was more to concern her five minutes later when Laura returned with a glum expression on her face to tell them that Matt had fallen down the shaft.

  ‘The mine. How deep?’ asked Cyril. ‘I say, how deep is it?’

  ‘Two thousand six hundred feet,’ replied Laura sadly.

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ uttered Donna in despair only to have her fears turned into anger when she saw Matt loping towards the car. ‘Really!’ she scolded. ‘You’re no fun on a trip!’

  Her nephew reached the car, gasping at the effort of running, with a broad grin spreading all over his face. ‘That fooled you, didn’t it? We had you really worried.’

  ‘Never mind you,’ spat Donna harshly, ‘what about my dog?’

  They looked round the field but there was no sign of her. Then Laura spotted a Dalmatian in the distance and together with Matt she made off in that direction. It was nearly fifteen minutes before they returned with Mitzi much to the chagrin of his aunt who had fumed at every moment they were gone. Matt’s fiancee clambered into the back seat of the car, the dog panting and whining as it tried to look out of the window but Laura managed to push her down to the floor again.

  Shortly, they arrived at the outskirts of Helston. They followed a long line of traffic turning left and shortly found themselves queuing up to park in a Tesco’s supermarket which was open for twenty-four hours each day. They soon got back on to the main road and drove past the Royal Naval Establishment at Culdrose.

  ‘Turn left here,’ advised Uncle Cyril sharply.

  Matt obeyed and immediately became quite discomforted. The road ahead proved to be a country lane which was only one car-width wide. Occasionally, they came across a farm gate which could have been used if they met a vehicle coming from the other direction but such places were few and far between. And, as expected, the inevitable happened. They turned a sharp corner to come face to face with a tractor coming the other way. There was absolutely no room for them to pass and one of the two vehicles would have to reverse for about four or five hundred yards. Matt was never terribly adept at reversing under normal conditions. He was extremely nervous at the idea of navigating backwards in such a narrow lane.

  ‘You’ll have to go back,’ he shouted to the farmer.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ returned the other driver. ‘Tractors don’t have a reverse gear. I can’t go backwards.’

  ‘Fancy taking the wheel, Donna?’ he asked with a pleading expression on his face.

  She exchanged places with him and began to reverse although she was forced to stop on many occasions to correct the backward direction of the vehicle. ‘Please God don’t let anything come behind us to stop us from reversing,’ she prayed silently. ‘Please God don’t let it be!’

  They reached a farm gate in due course and Donna sat back puffing out her cheeks. Unfortunately it was the gate the farmer wished to enter so she had to reverse once again. About a mile further on, when they reached the end of the road, she gave a loud sigh of relief and stopped the car at a T-junction. ‘Where to now?’ she asked impatiently.

  ‘There’s a sign which says Gweek two miles,’ muttered Cyril staring at a battered road sign. ‘I say, it’s two miles to Gweek. Turn left here.’

  Donna obeyed him and drove down another country lane where there was no room for two cars to pass except when they passed farm gates.

  ‘Are you certain this is the right way?’ rattled Laura testily, becoming completely fed up with the whole affair.

  ‘Of course it is,’ stated Uncle Cyril adamantly. ‘I looked it up on the map last night. I say, I looked it up.’

  They pressed on for a couple of miles but Gweek seemed to have disappeared from sight. After a while, they saw a country yokel hoeing in his front garden and stopped to ask him the way.

  ‘We’re looking for Frenchman’s Creek,’ began Cyril bluntly. ‘Do you know how we can find it? I say, do you know how we can find it?’

  The man stared at them and leaned on his hoe for a few moments. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t start from here,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘Emmets always come this way and get it wrong.’

  ‘Emmets?’ riposted Cyril. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Emmets... the tourists who come here from other parts. You’d best go back the way you came until you come to a crossroad. Make a right turn, only it’s left turn to you as you’re going the other way. Keep on that road until you come to a bridge. Cross over the bridge and turn right until you come to a pub. Carry on to the end and then turn left. That’ll bring you out to St. Martin. You’d better ask the way from there.’

  Cyril repeated the instructions twice within earshot of Donna hoping that she could remember all the details because they didn’t stick in his feeble mind.

  They drove on following all the details given to them and in due course Donna admitted that she was lost. They stopped to ask another local yokel walking down the road only to be disappointed when the man replied in a loud Brummy accent that he couldn’t tell them because he didn’t know. They managed to find better luck when Matt knocked on the door of a lonely cottage.

  ‘Yes,’ she told them firmly. ‘You go down this road right to the end. You’ll find a narrow bridge. Cross over it and keep going up the hill right to the top until you come to a T-Junction. Take the second on the left and you’ll come to a quayside. It’s the one built by Nick Chapman. You can’t miss it because there’s also a barbecue made out of stones also built by him. In fact, if you come back some way in the woods, you’ll find some fish-traps made by him too.’

  ‘Fish-traps,’ repeated Matt in a dull tone. ‘Hm, this Nick Chapman seems quite a man.’

  ‘Oh he is,’ said the woman. ‘He cleared all the lanes, cut all the trees, built all the Cornish walls, and kept the area neat and trim.’

  ‘What a superman! I presume they built a statue in honour of his work in the area. I mean, he seems to have built the whole of Cornwall.’

  The woman refrained from further comment. She glared fiercely at him and went inside slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Okay,’ repeated Matt when he returned to the car. ‘Straight to the top of this road and across a narrow bridge. Keep going up the hill until you come to a T-Junction. Take the second on the left.’

  ‘Great!’ muttered Donna gratefully. ‘We’re on our way!’ She drove off excitedly and eventually came to the lovely village of Gweek with its boats and repair shops.

  ‘Gweek,’ said Matt staring at the name of the village. ‘Well all I can sa
y is it’s all Gweek to me. Get it. All Greek to me!’ He laughed loudly on his own as no one else found the comment amusing. ‘Remember what the woman said. Take a left turn here.’

  The driver obeyed the instruction and they found themselves travelling down another extremely narrow road where it was impossible for two cars to pass. After a mile and a half, they emerged on to a small road.

  ‘Take a left here,’ suggested Cyril. ‘I say, left here.’

  Donna turned the wheel and they found themselves driving down a narrow road until the came to a T-Junction.

  ‘I suppose it’s a right here,’ said Matt although he had no idea where he was anymore.

  The car moved to the right into a major road and Donna followed the traffic for two miles until they came to the Royal Naval Establishment at Culdrose again.

  ‘This is all wrong!’ shouted Cyril vehemently. ‘I say, it’s all wrong! We’re back to where we started!’

  They turned around to follow the previous path to Frenchman’s Creek driving through a multitude of winding muddy lanes but after an hour ended up back at the Royal Naval Establishment at Culdrose. They tried once again but this time the effort seemed even more feeble because they became totally lost until returning to Culdrose once more.

  ‘I’m wondering whether Helford river actually exists or whether it was the figment of Daphne du Maurier’s imagination,’ said Matt tiredly.

  ‘Well I’ll tell you something for certain,’ returned Donna firmly. ‘I’m not driving any further today. We’ll have to look for somewhere to stay the night.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky,’ declared Cyril dully. ‘Helston doesn’t have any places of accommodation. I say, Helston...’

  ‘I heard what you said,’ interrupted his niece harshly, ‘but we’re going to have to look anyway.’

  They searched the whole town without success. None of the public houses had any spare rooms, if indeed they were willing to take in lodgers, and there were no visible signs of any bed and breakfast places. Consequently, at nightfall, the four people found themselves incarcerated in their car with insufficient space to stretch out to sleep. And the dog was no help either, shifting around throughout the night in their uncomfortable surroundings.

  On the following morning, four weary travellers crawled out of the vehicle to stretch their legs. They were very tired and completely dispirited.

  ‘Are we really that keen to find Frenchman’s Creek?’ demanded Laura who felt like a rag.

  They mulled over the question although it was obvious that they all felt the same. The place seemed impossible to find.

  ‘I suggest we give it up,’ said Cyril, with large bags featuring under his eyes through lack of sleep.

  ‘Me too,’ went on Matt. ‘It was a fun journey but I think we’ve had enough. I mean we’ll never find the damned place. It’s a myth hidden in antiquity in the book of a well-known authoress who’s long gone.’

  ‘No, it definitely exists,’ cut in Cyril. ‘It’s just that we can’t find it. I say, we can’t find it.’

  ‘It’s a pity because we’re already here. Just a few miles from the place,’ said Donna bitterly. ‘It’s such a shame.’

  Mitzi whined in agreement with her mistress and ran to fetch a piece of wood thrown by Matt.

  ‘I know you’ll think us a miserable lot but we really want to go home,’ uttered Matt miserably.

  ‘And I would die for a shower and a change of clothes,’ added Laura tiredly.

  Donna shook her head and drove to the nearest petrol-filling station. It had started out terribly exciting and ended in total disappointment. Frenchman’s Creek! How could it be so elusive. No one seemed to know where it was and they never even reached Helford river. It was as though the incomprehensible Cornish countryside refused to give up its secrets.

  The following evening, Donna sat alone at home with Mitzi at her feet. She mused about the weekend, the long journey, and the sad conclusion. It was something she couldn’t really tell her friends. After all, what could she say to them? That she couldn’t find Frenchman’s Creek? They would all laugh at her. Of course it existed. Of course it could be found. But not with Uncle Cyril or her nephew, Matt, and his new fiancee who always seemed to want the comforts of home... to shower and change her clothes. She picked up Daphne du Maurier’s book again and opened the cover. Well, she couldn’t find Frenchman’s Creek but there’s one thing she had learned in life. Wherever one went in the world, it was always preferable to leave something to seek in the future. Perhaps one day she would have another go at searching for the place and then she would feel all the better for finding it.

  Baby

  In defence of the two men, despite the harsh, vicious, malicious criticism against them, they had done nothing to upset, harm or affect anyone else. Quite the contrary, they deliberately kept themselves to themselves trying to spend their lives well away from the rest of the world. It is true that the two men were different in size, stature, hair-colour, and physical condition but both had the same feelings, the same thoughts about life and sexuality. Yet they were different, quite different, because nature had a way of expressing itself in a variety of alternative forms and this was simply one of them. As a result, most people, when confronting them in the street, tended to try to avoid them. In their opinion they were considered to be dirty, filthy, a menace to society. Quite certainly, they were unable to understand them. In truth, practically everyone in the area who knew them, and their particular or peculiar way of life, kept their distance. They were regarded as outcasts, pariahs, which is exactly what homosexual people were regarded to be by many people in most quarters. In essence, they could see no problems themselves. They were simply two men who preferred to have sexual relations with members of the same sex. However, when all was said, done, assumed and criticised, it was their prerogative to do whatever they wanted to do in the confines of their own home if they so wished. In the past, it had been a criminal offence for homosexuals to enjoy sexual relations together except under cover of secrecy when no one knew what was happening between them. However, in recent times the laws had changed quite considerably as the plight of such individuals was recognised, forcing the issue to become legislated in the British Parliament. Consequently, it had now become permissible for homosexuals to live what they considered to be a normal life.

  Butch Harris and Bitch Carter lived together in a small flat at Rimston Village in Hertfordshire. They had both been members of the local youth club where Butch played football, pool, and undertook physical training while Bitch joined the music appreciation class, played table-tennis, and participated in poetry evenings. They formed a relationship in due course and boldly declared their undying love for each other despite the fact that they were both males. At the time, they were twenty years of age and worked locally so they purchased a cottage at the edge of the village, as far away from prying eyes and the critical public as possible. Few people ever caught sight of them except at work or when they went to the local shop to purchase groceries.

  Bitch was extremely particular about his appearance. He had changed somewhat over the past year becoming much more effeminate, much more like a woman, but he assumed that the reason was the change from puberty to an adult. Although he never left the property wearing make-up, ear-rings or female clothing, he tended to use them indoors, well out of sight of any prying eyes. In fact, he delighted in putting on blusher and lipstick, washing and colouring his hair blonde or red, and donning dresses and gowns when he was on his own. He would prance in front of the long mirror in the bedroom practising feminine attitudes, stances and movements, making sure that he was able to emulate all the physical actions of the opposite sex perfectly. It was always in his mind to please his lover but he was careful not to allow the change in his hormones to overcome his reason even though at times he found it difficult to hold himself in check. After all, Butch was in love with a
man, not with a woman. However, one thing was certain... Bitch was becoming more like a member of the opposite sex each month and he was experiencing the change in his physique and his attitude at a rate of geometric progression.

  One morning, the two men were sitting at breakfast before going to their respective jobs in the nearby town. Butch commented that a new franchise was starting at the garage at which he worked which meant that his target of car sales would be raised to try to please management and ultimately the car supplier. He was about to elaborate on the problem at hand when Bitch suddenly thrust his hand to his mouth and left the table in a hurry to rush to the bathroom.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Butch when the other man returned eventually.

  His partner stared at him with a white face. ‘I don’t know. I was sick. Perhaps it was the curry we ate last night.’

  ‘Strange,’ returned Butch. ‘I had the same curry but it hasn’t affected me.’

  ‘Well maybe it’s something else,’ rattled Bitch mournfully. ‘I’ve never been sick like this before. Never.’

  Butch picked up his jacket and put it on. ‘You told me that your father had an ulcer when he was thirty-five. Perhaps it’s something hereditary. If it persists, go and see a doctor,’ he suggested, picking up his briefcase and moving towards the door. ‘I’ve gotta go.’ He waved an arm in the air and left.

  Bitch sat down at the table again and stared at the food. The sight of it brought on horrendous feelings of nausea. Normally he was a very healthy person who hadn’t seen a doctor from the day that he was born. Suddenly, a sickness had come upon him and he became extremely worried. He was quite aware that he had eaten nothing to upset his stomach. Nothing at all. In fact he ate very little which accounted for his very slender figure. He stood up again as he began to vomit, just making it in time to the bathroom again. This wasn’t on! There had to be something wrong! Something seriously wrong! In panic, he telephoned the local surgery and made an appointment to see the doctor the same morning.