Roadside Tales

I moved to France in the winter of 2002. To start with I didn’t have much money and was living in a small caravan.

That winter was cold.

I wrote this story  in my head one morning whilst walking into the village to buy a stick of bread.

I started with the phrase… “Death sat on his bike and waited for me at the crossroads.”

By the time I had walked to the village and back I had the start of the story.  A few days later it was finished.

It was the first story that I wrote in France and I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for it.

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Death sat on his bike and waited for me at the crossroads.

I pulled up next to him, close but not too close, and killed the engine. I would miss the bike; she and I had done lots of good miles together; but then, there were lots of things that I would miss.

I looked over at him. In the cold evening light he was a shadow in the moonlight that glinted gently off the chrome of the six exhaust pipes that led back from the monstrous engine that he sat astride.

I took off my helmet and put it on the road. I would not be needing it any more, not where I was going.

Death lit a cigarette and nodded towards me.

“Ready then” he asked, “All done?”

I nodded back. I was all done and as ready as I would ever be.

From the pale glow of his cigarette I could see his features. His skeletal face and his dark, unbelievably deep eyes came as no suprise to me. You see, this wasn’t our first meeting; Death and I had met before.

(more…)

In October 2005 I heard that my mother was ill. I was (and still am), living in France and, to be honest, didn’t have the money for a trip home.

I suppose that this must have been playing on my mind.

I spent a lot of time that Autumn and Winter writing. This is one of the stories I wrote.

The story came easily enough and I think that it was because I emphasised with the main character. When I was finished I realised that it was really just the first chapter of a three or four chapter novella.

Although complete in itself, the story seemed to deserve more.  My mother got better, I went back to England for a visit the following year.

I live in Brittany and not the Vendee.  I have never ridden a BMW motorbike.

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I parked the bike in the drive and walked slowly up the path to the front door. I knocked and waited. Eventually the door opened and I was silently ushered through the hall and into the kitchen.

My parents’ house hadn’t changed in all the time I’d been away. This is where I’d grown up. This is where, as a child, I’d played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ in the garden and where, alone in my room, I’d dreamed of bikes I’d one day own and the places I would one day go.

I’d come home. As usual, I was late. But this time, instead of my parents waiting up for me to return from some all-night party, there had been no party and my father was all alone.

He looked tired, tired and old. And, although I hadn’t seen him for almost two years, he seemed to have aged at least ten years in that time. And most of it, I knew, had happened in the last few months.

“Father,” I began. I had started calling him ‘Father’ during my late teens. At the time it had been some kind of reproach but, over the years, it had come to symbolise the growing distance between us.

“How are you?” I continued.

He looked at me with his tired old eyes and sighed.

“Bearing up, old chap. Bearing up” he said. “Things have quietened down a bit now that the funeral is over. Your sisters all came, you know; you’ve only just missed Sally, she went home yesterday. And your brother flew in from the States”.

The implication was there, but unsaid. Of all her five children, I was the only one not to have attended my mother’s funeral.

(more…)

In late 2006 I took a couple of days off work to catch up on a few odd jobs around the house.  The chores didn’t take long and I spent the rest of the time writing.

This is the result. I’m not really sure where it came from.

I do know that I shall write more about this small community in the aftermath of the war.

If for no other reason than to find out myself how things work out.

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We saw the bike long before we heard it.  The snow that lay thick on the frozen ground muffled most far off sounds and so we had scouts posted; two hours on and then two hours off.  That was all that they could take in the cold.

It was Peter who spotted the bike.  Only ten years old, he was becoming the very image of his father.  He raised the alarm and Marion woke me up.

Through my binoculars I could see little at this distance, except that the bike was alone – that was good.

We lost sight of the bike as the road ran behind Jerome’s Spinney and then, as the bike re-appeared down by Simon’s Dell, we could hear it as well.  A soft chuff-chuff that indicated a single cylinder engine, lowly tuned.

All the better;  raiders tended to prefer higher powered multi-cylinder machines, their weight and impracticallity offset by the social cachet they inferred.

(more…)

This story could have been oh so true.

It was inspired by a silly Saturday morning, a new motorbike and a girl in a red sports car.

There was a lorry, I was overtaking the sports car and yes, there was a lane.

If there hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be writing this now.

And, as for the barman – well, there is this strange pub that I know…..

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Joe sat alone in the bar and waited.

Far off, in the distance, he could hear a car approaching; its un-muffled pipes singing a song of hell. There was still time left though, time left but nothing left to do.

He had been riding since dawn. With neither destination nor schedule he was happy to be alone on the road, free at last.

The last few months had been hell, a drunken hell, filled with misery and pain. But it was over. He had survived and he was grateful that those days were behind him and all in the past.

His fall had come when Susan had left him. He had always been a heavy drinker but, with his enforced solitude, he had seemed to lose control. Going over and over in his mind, all the things that he had said or hadn’t said, he drank more and more until the days seemed to pass in a drunken blur.

Finally, he lost his job, which was maybe what he had wanted all along. Now he was free to drink even more. He awoke in the mornings with a craving that was only satisfied by the evening’s oblivion. Days turned into weeks, weeks passed into months and he drank the time away.

He stopped just before the money ran out. Waking, one morning, to find blood stained vomit on the carpet and a cigarette burn in the sofa, he had resolved to get his life in order.

For the next few weeks he had acted like a man possessed. He sold the car, the stereo, all his possessions. He bought a bike and gave notice on the flat. He stopped drinking and, finally, he was free.

In control at last, he rode down to Cornwall where once, many years ago, he had been happy.

(more…)

With this story I started with the ending and tried to work out how it all happened.  Not a recommended way to write a short story but I like to think that it worked for me here.

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This is my special place. This seat, by the window, in the prison cell that I now call home, is where I come to think. And it’s where I come to be alone. And, sometimes, if I try very hard, as I look out of the window, I can see a different view – something that isn’t really there.

They’re going to kill me in the morning. They’re going to take me out into the yard and make me kneel down in the sand. Then they’ll tie a blindfold over my eyes. And finally, there will be a loud noise – something like gunfire. And then, I’ll be dead.

I’m not scared though. Oh sure, I’ll probably be scared in the morning. I’ll probably be blubbering and crying and begging and pleading for my life. Like all the others. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it many times. But, for now at least, I’m not scared. I’m using what little time I have left. I’m using it the best I can. And that’s why I’m sitting here, on this seat, by the window in the cell of the prison that I have learned to call home.

And, as I look out of the window, if I try really hard, instead of the dying city lying before me, I see green hills sweeping down to a swelling creek.

And, in the distance, a cottage with smoke coming out of the chimney. And a woman and a girl, working in the garden. A place that I once used to call home.

I miss my wife and I miss my daughter. I think of them all the time and it hurts me that I’ll never see them again. it hurts me that I’ll never again be able to hold them close and tell them how much I love them. I can’t tell you just how much that hurts me.

But there are those times, the bad times, when I sit on this seat by the window and, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t make the city go away.

And it’s during these dark, dark times that I can’t help but think about how it all went so wrong.

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The Window Seat is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Over the next few days, he filled the sky with stars, raised mountains so that there would be high places and filled the low places with oceans and lakes.

He created all manner of beasts and plants and, on the sixth day, he created man in his own image. And he called him Adam.

And then, well and truly knackered, he went to bed.

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Hell Hath No Fury is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

The Wrong Right Turn is the second instalment of the Mike Kaminsky story that started with The Prodigal Son. I wanted to find out more about Mike and, having left him and Bessie heading south, I wanted to make sure he got home OK.

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I woke up aching and tired with the sort of tiredness that comes from too much thinking and too many miles.

I’d had a difficult few weeks. My mother had died and I’d missed her funeral. I’d returned to England and my father and I had spoken. Good words but words we’d almost left too late. We’d parted friends though, for the first time in our lives.

It had been raining when I left my father and the rain followed me all the way to the ferry. Normandy was drier and warmer but, by the time I got to Brittany, the rain threatened again and so I stopped and found a campsite where I set up my tent for the night.

I slept restlessly, with too many thoughts crowding my mind. I welcomed the dawn – time to do rather than think. I got dressed and walked into the village. At a cafe I had breakfast and read the paper. Bad news as usual, but other people’s bad news.

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The Wrong Right Turn is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

The meteorite had come from far away. During the thousands of years that it had spent ricocheting across the endless void of space, it has seen much and knew almost all the history of the universe.

Over the years, countless collisions had whittled it down in size until it was now not much larger than a small family house, although houses had yet to be dreamed of on the blue and green planet that it was hurtling towards.

As it passed through the planet’s atmosphere, the heat caused the stone to shrink even further and gave its surface a reddish glaze.

If anyone on the planet had been watching the southern sky that night, they would have seen a faint streak of grey, almost hidden amongst the distant stars. But, the Earth was still young then and man had not yet been born. And so, the stone went unobserved.

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The Bloodstone is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

It was raining when they let him out, and cold as well. Somehow he had been expecting this. He pulled his jacket closer around him and paused as he heard them slam the doors.

Five years. Five long years wasted. But now it was over, he’d done his time.

The was no one waiting for him. He hadn’t told anyone about his release date. he’d wanted to do this his own way – on his own.

He turned left and headed into town. There was a station there. He’d get a train and go somewhere, anywhere. And, when he got there, he’d decide what it was he was going to do.

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Homecoming is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

He had been working on the night shift for three weeks. It hadn’t been as difficult as he had expected and he soon got used to grabbing a few hours sleep every morning and spending his afternoons working on the bike.

Even living at his brother’s had turned out OK. Alright, Donna didn’t really like him but she had been making an effort to be civil.

When Sarah had chucked him out he thought that his life was over.

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The Night Shift is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

When my marriage broke up I hit the road. I thought I was crazy – maybe I was but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Maybe I’m still crazy, who knows?

I don’t know if I found any answers on the road but there weren’t too many questions either.

Sally and I had done well with the house.

We’d bought it cheap and, by the time it was all over between us, the market had risen so much that we could sell it, pay off the mortgage and still have enough left over so that we could both make a new start with our lives.

Sally sold her car and bought a flat just round the corner from her work. I jacked in my job and bought myself a bike.

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Best Served Cold is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

This is a continuation of the Mike Kaminsky story.

In the first two tales, The Prodigal Son and The Wrong Right Turn, death seems to be taking too much interest in Mike’s life. I was hoping that, with this story, Mike’s luck might change for the better.

I think it did – he met Mel. I hope that she helps to take his mind off some of his recent pain. You know, I’ve got a really good feeling that she will.

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I met her on the road back from Les Sables. She’d been there for the fireworks party and mega celebrations that always followed the end of the Round the World yacht race.

She later told me that she wasn’t so interested in yachting, although she admitted that she found most yachtsmen, particularly the round the world ones, sexy as hell.

“The great thing about long distance racing,” she told me. “Is that the boats come in over a period of two or three days. Thus, the parties go on for at least two or three days. Cool parties, fit sailors, what more could a girl want?”

That’s not exactly the first thing she said to me. Not quite.

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A Summer’s Tale is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

When, at the age of fifty eight, Henry Kirby died of eminently natural causes, he was mourned for a seemingly interminable length of time.

For his funeral his friends, relatives and acquaintances came from far and wide to pay their respects. Henry Kirby had been a very respected man.

Death, however, didn’t agree with Henry. Oh, for sure, at first it had been different enough to be interesting and there were lots of new things to do and plenty of new rules to learn and observe. He wasn’t even lonely in the early day. People kept popping round for tea and biscuits and news from the living world.

After a while though, these visits petered out. New arrivals commanded more and more of his erstwhile visitors time and, besides, Henry had never been much of a conversationalist. His brusque and forthright manner was capable of scaring the life out of even the most established of corpses.

Before he knew where he was, Henry found himself all alone, left to quietly rot in peace.

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The Uninvited Corpse is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

Writing Eating Babies was a real shock for me – I just didn’t know where that story came from.

Here I’ve tried to work backwards – to find out a bit more about the war.

The trouble is that anyone who was capable of explaining it is probably dead by now.

And those still alive have only got their own personal experiences to call upon.   Still, here goes…

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I was in the basement with Carla when the bombs exploded. Or, should I say, one of the bombs.

I don’t think anyone knows how many bombs were detonated that day.

I don’t think that anyone expected that the five hour war would totally change the way the world worked.

I don’t think that anyone realised that when the radios and telephones stop working, when the hospitals fill up and the drugs run out, when the food runs out…. well then, anyone with a gun becomes a warlord.

Yes, we all saw pictures of the run up to it on the TV. I guess none of us thought that it would go so far. But that was Mogadishu and Somalia, and Iraq and Iran.

It’s different when it’s Basingstoke and Brighton. It really is.

And five hours is all it took. From the chemical bombs in London to the suicide nukes in the States – the world didn’t die from nuclear fallout, just the total breakdown of communication and supply chains.

And, of course, the greed of the survivors and the weakness of those who couldn’t adapt in time.

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Winter Kills is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

This is very nearly a true story. Nearly but not quite. The evening at the Tinner’s Arms, the loose chain and the sticking clutch – all that is true.

The cottage, as well, that’s also true, I think. I’ve only made the last bit of the story up – and there I think I had to. You see, some obsessions are just too dangerous to pursue.

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The West Cornwall moors are a dangerous place to be when the mists come down and the storm clouds gather.

The narrow lanes disappear into the murky darkness, leaving the lone traveller lost and alone.

There are no people here when the mists come down, there is no life when the storm clouds brew. Just the mist and the hint of rain on the slowly gusting wind.

I had been riding here for years but had always taken care and this was the first time that I had been caught out in a storm.

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The Storm is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

Some people complain about encroaching legislation. I admit that some legislation is a good thing.

But the trouble with legislation is that it’s in its nature to beget more legislation.

I recently read that England is the country with the most surveillance cameras per head of population. That worries me, that makes me glad that I no longer live there.

One night I was wondering what would happen if things went too far.

If, for example, it became illegal to ride motorbikes in groups of more than three or four. Well, this is the result.

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The early morning mist rose slowly off the winter ground as the sun tried to warm the frozen road.
There were twelve of us here – all that remained of the original club.

This was going to be our last ride – there would be no more.

And so we sat silently astride our bikes, all waiting for a signal. A signal that would begin the end.

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The Last Run is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

This is the first short story that I ever wrote.

It took a long time – and I’m talking years.

But I never gave up on it.

Looking at it now, I can see that it didn’t come as easily as the stories do these days (and they still come hard), but it came in the end.

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There was an evil chill in the air and the old man felt it deep in his bones as he stood and watched the big, black bike charge down the hill.

In the damp evening air he could hear the muted rumble of the bike’s exhaust echoing mournfully across the empty farmland. “An alien sound,” he though. “Strange in this lonely, desolate place.”

A fine drizzle began to fall and, in the granite strewn field, the old man turned and started to walk back to his cottage. He would have to make a phone call and suddenly he had great need of the warmth of his fire and the comfort of his pipe.

As the bike continued on its way, the old man called out softly, too quiet to be heard by anyone save himself. “Go gentle, me handsome, there be devil’s work about tonight.”

Unaware that it was being watched, the bike sped on.

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The Collector is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

Another early story; this one was loosely based on someone I used to know.

It also leans heavily on my experiences as a barman in a seafront pub in Hastings.

There never was a group of bikes calling themselves the Old Faithfuls but, if there were, they would have been some of my customers during the cold and wet winter of 1983/84.

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I stood high on the hill overlooking the cemetery and watched as the mourners made their way back to the waiting cars.

Martin’s parents led the procession, walking side by side but apart – as if each blamed the other for their son’s death.

Later, I knew, that Martin’s abrasive father would complain that… “Martin had cost them plenty in life, and then plenty more in death”.

But today, and perhaps for the first time ever, Martin could do no wrong.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like to think that I’m a tough guy. I’ve certainly been to more than my fair share of funerals.

But. as I watched all those poor people walking slowly in the rain, missing for the first time someone that they had lost years ago, I felt a tear form in my eye and, strong as I am, could find no strength to brush it away.

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End of Story is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads

For much of much adult life (although there’s not much of my life that could be considered adult!), I was vaguely troubled. I worked (and I believe that I worked hard and was successful), and prospered – it’s just that not of it really seemed to matter.

I used to buy sailing magazines and dream of sailing a small boat around Europe; I was too stupid to seize my dream and do anything about it. At least that was the case until 2001 when I jacked in my job (as a reasonably successful IT manager in the city), to start a new life as an abattoir worker in France.

I was in Redon today and saw a small motor sailor tied up on the quay – a young couple were hanging out some clothes on the stern rail.

It all came back to me. What a way to live; moving from town to town under my own steam, working when I needed to, living quietly, living decently – living life the way it is meant to be lived. I was jealous of that couple on that small motor sailor.

Looking back through this little collection, I find that this is an underlying theme (I’m thinking here about Mike Kaminsky in The Prodigal Son; I’m thinking about the poor guy in The Waiting Room – I think some of the other stories lean on the same theme, as well.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little collection of stories. If you have, please drop me a line to let me know (if your ever dans le region, pop in and say hello) – I can be contacted at Keith@RodasideTales.com

I’m currently working on another collection of stories, this time most of them will be set in France – there still about motorbikes though, motorbikes and the people that ride them – it’ll be called The Mapmakers Tale.

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The twisty lane threaded its way through the woods and then straightened up as it ran alongside the river. The marshy fields that bordered the river seemed to glow slightly in the shadow of the dying sun.

Every now and again I’d pass something that I recognised; a cottage, a farm gate, a road sign that I’d seen before. I was back in Cornwall; there were memories here.

The last time that I’d been down this road was many years before. Then, it had been summer and Christine had been on the back. The bike had been my old Honda.

Now, I was travelling all alone and the bike was a Suzuki. It was the time of the year when Autumn turns to Winter and it was raining. I hadn’t stopped since St. Austell and the pain in my backside indicated that it was about time for a rest.

I had just about had enough when I saw the pub. I hadn’t known that it would be there. I hadn’t even remembered that it was on this road but, as I pulled into the car park, it was as if I had never left.

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Different Roads is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads