Have a Go

By David Hadley

All John Russell wanted was a nice cup of tea.
But when he accidentally foils an armed bank robbery as he tries to protect his young daughter from the gunmen he becomes an unwilling have-a-go hero and has his life is changed forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Hadley
• Release date: Mar 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310052323

David Hadley

A bloke who writes stuff. Fiction across and between genres. David Hadley was born in 1959. He is married with three children and lives in the Black Country, UK. His writing has been published in several magazines in the UK and US. Many of his pieces have been Cherry-picked by the editors at abctales.com, including some selected as Story of the Week. (http://www.abctales.com/user/38640).

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It was a crisp autumn day. The sun was shinning, even though there was not much warmth to it. The small park at the edge of Netherbridge town was bright with colour, the green grass spread and splattered with the brown, red, yellow and gold of fallen leaves.

Two adults, both in more-or-less their mid-thirties, were sitting side by side on a park bench at the edge of the playground watching their children playing on the playground in front of them - neither turning to face the other as they spoke.

'John?' Debbie said.

'Debbie.'

'Stan! Stop that!' She smiled at John. 'Fancy a cup of tea then, Mr Russell?'

'I'd love one, Miss Johnson, but I can't afford it. My cruel heartless wife doesn't let me have any money.'

Debbie turned to face him. 'You what?'

John continued to stare ahead, a slight smile on his face. 'Gemma doesn't let me have any money. She says I can't be trusted with it. She thinks I'll just fritter it away.' He turned to look at Debbie and smiled broadly.

'You're making it up, aren't you?' she said.

'Yes.'

'You sod. I almost believed you for a minute then. Why? Why do you do that?'

'I dunno. I get bored with the ordinary world sometimes. Everyday life is so dull. I want a bit of excitement. A bit of.... I dunno, anything really.'

'The programming course not going well then?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Because it is so dull. I've already got a dull life. How could anyone with such a dull life as mine have believed that learning computer programming would make it more interesting? It's like... like... trying to come up with a witty comparison when you are freezing your balls off in the park.'

'I know it is none of my business and all that, but is everything all right with you and Gemma?'

'Yes, I suppose so, as far as I know. She hardly seems to be there though these days, always working late and so on.'

'But, are you happy?'

'Happy? I have no idea. How do you tell?'

'I dunno.... Isn't it obvious?'

John glanced down and shivered. He had an urge to run his fingers across the skin of Debbie's arm, noticing how pale and insipid his skin looked in the cold next to Debbie's rich dark chocolate brown. He reached out to touch her, then drew his hand back before she noticed.

'Can we bugger off now, Daddy? I'm getting cold.' Beth, John's six-year-old daughter, said as she ran up to them from the playground slide.

'Beth, darling,' John said to her, stroking her hair from her face. 'Well-bred young ladies do not use language like that.'

'But Mummy says it all the time.'

John smiled. 'My point exactly.'

'Come on, John,' Debbie said as she stood up. She began collecting her shopping bags together. 'We'll go to the café. A hot pot of tea for us, and cakes for the kids. My treat.' She looked up and shouted towards the playground. 'Stan! Stan! Come on, love, we're going.'

As they waited for Stan to have just one more go on the slide, John leant over towards Debbie. 'Debbie, if you don't mind me asking, why Stan?'

Debbie smiled at him. 'Don't ask.' She turned back towards Stan, who was about to sneak around for yet another go on the slide. 'Stan! Come on! No, now! We're going!'

John took Beth by the hand as Debbie opened the playground gate. As they left the playground, Stan ran up from behind them and took his mother's hand.

As they all walked down the High street, Beth held John's hand and walked quietly beside him. Debbie held onto Stan's arm as tight as she could as he leapt, skipped, climbed and jumped along, all around her.

'No, I can't let you pay.' John shook his head.

Debbie stopped walking, tightening her grip on Stan as he tried to climb the steps into a shop. 'Why not?'

'It doesn't seem right, that's all.' John smiled awkwardly. 'My wife is a well-paid solicitor; you're an unemployed single mother. You are a woman and I'm a man. I'm middle-class; you're working class. We have to observe the proprieties, don't you think?'

'Observe the what? Christ John, you are weird. It's only a cup of bloody tea and maybe some sticky cakes, and some pop for the kids.'

'I know, but it just doesn't seem right, that's all. Anyway, here's the bank.' They stopped walking outside the bank, next to the cash machine.

Debbie sighed. 'Why don't you ever have any money on you?'

John studied each card in his wallet far more intently than he needed to. 'Because it feels like it belongs to Gemma, I suppose. I feel like I haven't earned it, so I shouldn't use it, that I have no right to it.'

Debbie folded her arms under her breasts. 'That's daft.'

John looked up at her sheepishly. 'I know. I know. I'll just get some cash from the machine, and....' He saw the cash machine wasn't working. 'Oh bugger.'

'Dad, you said bugger!' Beth said gleefully.

'I know. I know. Sorry.' John smiled at his daughter.

'Bugger! Bugger!' Stan shouted, jumping up