No Time for Pity and Other Tales

By Barbara Yates Rothwell

From more than 150 short stories produced during four decades of professional writing, Barbara has picked twenty that show a variety of themes, from humour to tragedy, love to hate, revealing a wide range of human emotions and yearnings, and the highs and lows that make humanity such a fascinating study.

The opening story, No Time for Pity, is a new look at an old crime: the murders of two young princes in the Tower of London, 1483. Australians are all too aware of the theme of Beached Spirit - the unwelcome arrival of beached whales. For light relief, The Cornish Pot introduces a real fairy, and in Whatever Happened to Love? the eccentricities of the aristocracy meet head-on with the end result of an ungentlemanly act.

Malcolm, 15, goes to The Island to escape the irritations of family life, but the island's peace is transitory. The Old Bloke introduces us to a tramp, whose unchanging routine is shattered when he finds a dollar coin outside a fairground.

How wrong can you be? The author in Breakfast in Paradise fancies himself as a student of human nature. But his confidence is deflated when breakfast at the Hotel Paradiso turns briefly into chaos. Are people ever what they seem?

The final story, The Wallflower, has been included because of its special status in Barbara's career - it was the first she ever sold, and it was broadcast by the BBC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 9, 2008
• ISBN: 9781426992353

Barbara Yates Rothwell

I have been writing professionally for more than half a century. That seems a long time! But it’s a very satisfying activity, one that offers the chance of research and the delight of immersing oneself in someone else’s problems for a while, even though they are creatures of one’s own imagination. Now that I am inevitably coming to the end of that creative period because, as we know, time waits for no man (or woman), I can look back with much pleasure on a full life in which I have achieved many of the things I hoped for at the start. What is left? Well, I do have a vague idea for another book, but not just yet!

Book preview

BARBARA YATES 

ROTHWELL

_______________________

NO TIME FOR PITY

AND OTHER TALES

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© Copyright 2007 Barbara Yates Rothwell.

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isbn: 978-1-4251-5602-2

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Contents

No Time for Pity

Beached Spirit

Reprise

Breakfast in Paradise

Time to Remember

Next time it’s for real

Sharkbait

To be a pilgrim

The Expert

The hands of a friend

The Island

The Maker of Wondrous Sound

Implosion

Flesh and Blood

The Prizewinner

The Cornish Pot

The Old Bloke

Whatever Happened To Love? 

 A spoof!

The Shakespeare Letter

The Wallflower

About the Author

BARBARA YATES ROTHWELL lived, married and brought up six children in Surrey, England, before emigrating to Western Australia in 1974 with her musician husband and their two youngest daughters. Her other children arrived in Australia in due course.

Also a musician and a trained singer, she was for ten years in the 1980s a music reviewer for The West Australian newspaper.

After founding and running the Yanchep Community School for eight years, and having successfully written and sold innumerable short stories and articles to major magazines in several countries, Barbara decided it was time to branch out into novel writing. Longman Cheshire published her teenage historical novel, THE BOY FROM THE HULKS, in 1994, and in 1998 her historical novel DUTCH POINT was published privately in England.

In 2004 she joined forces with Trafford Publishing (Canada) to produce COULTER VALLEY, an Australian story tracing the effects on a family of artists of a despotic father; and in 2005 the same cooperation produced KLARA, fiction based on fact, the story of a German Jewess who, forced to leave Nazi Germany, was sponsored by an English family. RIPPLE IN THE REEDS (2006) tells the story of a French girl, who marries against her parents’ wishes and finds herself in wartime Germany. A new life awaits her in Australia – until the past catches up.

Barbara was a journalist in the UK for several years, as Women’s Page Editor for a large group of weekly papers in the south of England, and as a free-lance. She has also written two full-length and several one-act plays, which have been performed in community theatres in Western Australia and New South Wales.

Some comments…

…on books by Barbara Yates Rothwell

Dutch Point (1998: The Lagoon Press)

‘…Dutch Point runs to 471 pages and every word is worth reading. A thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking tale.’ M.B.

‘…successfully transports the reader back in time to the dubious beginnings of the Australian colonies…’ The Wanneroo Times.

‘…what a wonderful book it is. I couldn’t put it down – so if they complain I am sleepy at work it is your fault.’ C.F.

Coulter Valley (2004: Trafford Publishing in cooperation with The Lagoon Press)

‘What a fine book! …a great achievement…the novel amounts to a huge paradox…the necessity of devoting oneself to art’s disciplines, and…a red light against obsession and oppression.’ D.C.

‘…a viable alternative for readers weary of the latest inane blockbuster…Barbara Yates Rothwell has something interesting to say.’ The West Australian.

Klara (2005: Trafford Publishing in cooperation with The Lagoon Press)

‘A truly magnificent read and not one to be missed. Klara is fiction, but based on fact.’ Sun City News.

Ripple in the Reeds (2006: Trafford Publishing in cooperation with The Lagoon Press)

‘Readers will find the softcover book…a well written, tightly woven tale with lots of twists and turns, which is hard to put down.’ North Coast News.

The Boy from the Hulks (1994: now out of print. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne)

‘…a quality yarn ideally suited for the English and history curricula of junior secondary schools…potentially a very big market.’ The West Australian.

‘Author spins a bonzer yarn.’ The Wanneroo Times.

Dutch Point is still available from The Lagoon Press: hardback: $35.00

Coulter Valley, Klara, Ripple in the Reeds and No Time for Pity and other tales can be ordered from The Lagoon Press, Trafford Publishing, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other Internet bookstores. Price around $30.00.

The Lagoon Press, 6 Nautical Court, Yanchep, W. Australia, 6035. Phone: [phone]

Cover artwork by Angie Beck: ‘Time and Tide’

This image in the form of Limited Edition Giclee Prints

has been acquired by the City of Belmont, Western Australia

& the City of Wanneroo, Western Australia.

It received a High Commendation from the

Continence Advisory Service, Western Australia,

& was a section winner in the 2007 Wanneroo Art Award.

[e-mail]

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…’

Shakespeare.

‘There is a tide in the affairs of women,

Which, taken at the flood, leads – God knows where.’

Byron.

‘Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.’

T.S.Eliot.

NO TIME FOR PITY

AND OTHER TALES

No Time for Pity

I was at a literary function where the forthcoming publication of an anthology was being announced. The theme was ‘siblings’, and I decided to submit a story. Siblings? I pondered as we left the hall, and all at once the story popped into my head. (I wonder about creativity. Where does it come from, often all unbidden?) ‘Siblings’ immediately said to me ‘the little princes in the Tower’. And I have no idea why. But the story simply flowed out of me. I hope it will flow into you.

‘No Time for Pity’ appeared in the anthology ‘Sibling stories’, published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1997.

NO TIME FOR PITY

The sky is blue—a pretty London summer’s day—but inside the gloom is eternal. Mrs Schiller-Hunt notices it at once, gives a shudder of delicious horror. Mrs Schiller-Hunt is from Chicago, and everyone knows it, although the trip is only two hours old. ‘We have nothing, absolutely nothing, like this in Chicago—isn’t that right, Des?’ Des nods his head. For him, one senses, the vacation has gone on too long.

‘William the Conqueror,’ reads Miss Dapple from her guide-book. ‘Fancy!’

Mr Hashimoto takes a photograph of the great, grey gateway. ‘What do they do with all their pictures?’ Annie asks Paul, hand-in-hand as they have been since they climbed aboard the historic tours coach this morning. ‘Paper the loo?’ Paul suggests.

Their guide has gone ahead. No amount of electricity (thinks Miss Dapple) could lighten this daunting, overwhelming pile of stone. Behind them, beyond the gate, there is colour—Mr Hashimoto is taking his seventh picture of a Beefeater, this time holding one of the mystic ravens. He scampers to catch up with his coach-mates.

Upstairs, a dark, narrow room awaits them. No lively vibrations of the past are stirring the air—though Mrs Schiller-Hunt will pull her jacket around her and claim that she feels something—anything. She ‘jerst lerves’ these old places. Des nods. Mr Hashimoto checks his camera flash.

‘I’m hungry,’ says the smaller of the two boys. ‘When will they bring the food, Edward?’

Edward shrugs. He watches the candle, guttering in a stray breeze—air which must have originated outside, where people live and move and have their being. Not in here, where everything is static except the rats that run along the overhead beams, and the bedbugs that make sleep horrendous.

‘Why are we in this horrid place?’ the child asks for the twentieth time, trying not to whine. He must be as brave as Edward. Princes are always brave—Edward has told him so.

‘We are here,’ Edward replies (but there is a note of uncertainty in his young voice) ‘for our own protection.’

The child rubs his nose on his grubby sleeve. ‘Who is our protector?’

Edward is silent. It is all so difficult to understand.

Paul gives a hand to Annie up the stone steps. She has no real need, yet, of a helping hand, but she likes the sensation of being cherished. They haven’t told anyone that she is pregnant; that is news to be delivered, importantly, not let slip in an unguarded moment.

Mr Hashimoto is having trouble with his camera. He and his companion, whose name no one has heard, have fallen back and are in animated Japanese conversation among these stout Norman remains.

Mrs Schiller-Hunt is breathing heavily. The steps are too steep for her short legs and unsuitably high-heeled shoes. Des knows better than to help her. ‘One thing’s for sure,’ she pants to the world at large, ‘no one would ever have gotten me to live in one of these places!’ The guide shoos them gently on, recounting his potted history in words clearly memorised over many a tourist month.

‘It is believed that the young princes were imprisoned in 1483. The room they are generally believed to have inhabited during their incarceration…’

‘In-carceration?’ says Mrs Schiller-Hunt in two breaths. ‘Big word for little kids!’

‘It’s spooky,’ says Miss Dapple suddenly. She glances around her, expecting what? Clanking armour, misty shapes hovering above the ancient floor, a headless spectre fading through a wall? Annie shivers and draws closer to Paul. She hopes there are no bad vibes that might harm their unborn child.

‘Where is our mother?’ asks the smaller boy. Edward knows everything; surely he will know that?

‘She is somewhere safe,’ says Edward firmly. He will not let himself think that perhaps she, too, is somewhere within these hated walls.

‘Why are we here? Why, Edward?’

‘Dickon, you ask too many questions!’ Edward tries to be gentle, but to be strong and gentle at the same time is hard, when he has no answers to give; only questions of his own, more demanding than any young Richard can ask. Why, indeed, are they here? Does their mother know where they are? If she does, why does no one come to bring them out into the sunlight? What is Uncle Richard doing? Does he know where they are? And if so…?

The questions choke him. He would like to feel his mother’s arms around him, holding him close; but he senses that he has felt that benison for the last time. Whatever comes next, freedom or perpetual imprisonment, he has entered the adult world, and there can be no looking back. Men cannot lie in their mothers’ arms. Men must be strong, ready to fight, to lie and cheat if necessary, to kill if that is what the moment demands. He will be a man.

‘If only these stones could speak!’ Mrs Schiller-Hunt says, laying her hand on an ancient wall. ‘What things they must have seen!’

‘If only Mrs Schiller-Hunt of Shee-cago could stop speaking,’ Paul murmurs, making Annie giggle. Des is right behind them, but doesn’t hear. If he had, it wouldn’t have been the first time. He wishes he was on the lake back home, catching fish to cook over a fire on the sandy shore. They can keep their ancient monuments for all he cares. Sure, the Crown jewels were pretty, but he’d as soon see the sun strike a spray of lake-water any day. And those guys in their funny uniforms—Beefeaters—what kind of a pansy get-up is that? Those ravens, now—he couldn’t give a damn whether they stayed or went—darned Limeys, they’ve got more ridiculous fairy-tales than you could shake a fist at. He remembered in ’52, was it, or ’53…?

Weary feet shuffle after the guide. ‘And now we are coming to…’ he says, and they pause for breath and move along.

‘But where is our mother?’ Richard says. ‘Why does she not come and take us out of this nasty place?’

‘Uncle Richard…’ begins Edward.

‘I do not like Uncle Richard,’ quavers the child. Edward grips the thin arm and glances around him anxiously. ‘Never say that!’ he hisses. ‘Someone will hear.’

‘We must be brave,’ Edward whispers in his brother’s ear; ‘brave and patient. And all will be well.’ He stops, draws himself up. ‘I am the king,’ he says proudly. ‘All will be well.’

Richard gazes at him. ‘Are you truly the king, Edward? Will you wear Father’s crown?’ Edward, full of fear and pride, nods. ‘If you are truly the king, Edward, then you should tell the men who bring our food that they must let us go. Kings are powerful. People must do as the king says, or they will be in trouble. Tell them you will punish them, brother. Then they will let us go.’

Edward’s lip droops. He knows that he is powerless. ‘The time is not right,’ he says, and stretches himself angrily on the bed they share.

The boys’ widowed mother lies on her own bed in her darkened room, hands by her sides. The weeping is over, but the fear will never leave her. Her arms ache to hold her boys, but she lets them lie there, limply, forbidding them to move, to mock her with the pretence of enclosing two loved bodies.

She wonders where they are—Edward, the proud youngster aware of his destiny; Richard, the little one, still barely out of the cocoon of babyhood. Who cares for them, who feeds them, who treats them with the gentleness due to children, the courtesy due to royalty? She dare not ask, even to herself, if she will ever see them again.

‘I just cannot imagine,’ says Mrs Schiller-Hunt, ‘how they keep this place clean.’

Miss Dapple wishes she hadn’t come. Not because of Mrs Schiller-Hunt—she is used to dealing with impossible people (she runs a little tea-shop in Eastbourne, but Cousin Edna’s Kirstie has taken over to give her a break for a few days); but she is finding the atmosphere seriously oppressive. It is almost as if she can hear voices echoing around these dark corridors, feel passions and stirred emotions, sense the agonies whose vibrations, perhaps, still hang in the corners and have seeped into the mortared cracks; waiting, she thinks, for a sensitive soul to pass by so that they can unload that burden of grief, and be free. But not me, she silently begs, not me! She remembers that odd woman who turned out to be a medium telling her she had great sensitivity. Was this what she meant? Miss Dapple hesitates, thinking she might escape back into the sunlight; but Paul and Annie are there, still hand-in-hand, and behind them Des from Chicago, and she hasn’t the nerve to push through them.

‘I am Edward the fifth. Remember that, Dickon. Never forget it. If they tell you I am not, they lie! Our mother is the queen.’

‘Then who am I?’ The child stares up at his brother, looking perhaps to see the marks of kingship. ‘Who am I, Edward?’

‘You are Richard, Duke of York.’

The boy looks around him at the cold walls and the tumbled bed. The man who brings food has lit another candle, and the flame burns, first brightly, still and upright; then it bends and flutters as a draught catches it.

‘Are we prisoners, Edward?’

At last he has said it. Edward turns his handsome young head and regards his brother, and his eyes are troubled. ‘Yes, Richard, we are prisoners.’

‘Why?’

How should he answer him, when he barely understands for himself what has happened?

‘When our father the king died, Uncle Richard of Gloucester…’ How can he say it? Stole the crown? Seized power? ‘Uncle Richard believed he should be king. He is our father’s brother, after all.’

‘But you can’t both be king.’ The child is puzzled.

‘Uncle Richard believes that I am not fit to be king.’ That is as far as Edward will go. How can he explain to the boy that it is their parents’ marriage that is in question? If he, Edward, is a bastard (and Richard, too, of course), how can he claim the throne? His impotence rises in his throat; he clenches his young fists. Richard, Duke of York, yawns suddenly. The machinations of high politics are beyond him. He just wants his mother.

‘Go to bed!’ Edward says sharply. At least here, in this dank, dark place, he has that much authority.

Paul has his arm around Annie. ‘It’s cold here,’ she says. ‘I want to go outside.’ They push forward, past Miss Dapple, past Mrs Schiller-Hunt and Des, who has at last caught up with her, past the guide with a brief word of explanation. Miss Dapple thinks for a moment that she will follow them, but the thought fades on her.

The guide stops and says something, but Mr Hashimoto and his companion are too far back to hear. ‘Yes?’ says Mr Hashimoto to Miss Dapple hopefully. ‘Wha’ he say?’

‘The room where the two little princes were murdered,’ Miss Dapple says in a hushed voice.

‘Ah, so! When is this?’

‘1483. So long ago,’ Miss Dapple says, ‘and yet somehow…’ She sighs.

They stand by the door and stare vaguely at an empty space where once, so tradition maintains, a wicked deed was done. No sign of it now. No evidence that once two young boys spent their weary days and nights here, until…

No evidence—but Miss Dapple claps her hands to her ears, her heart pounds, she lets out a tiny gasp of distress. Even with her ears covered she can hear the sound—a gentle moaning, hopeless, yearning, no louder than a softly sighing breeze—the sound of a small boy crying for his mother.

‘Oh, please!’ she mutters to the guide as she pushes past.

‘Well!’ says Mrs Schiller-Hunt. ‘Some people!’

Miss Dapple knows she will hear that sobbing cry for the rest of her days. ‘…Edward, Prince of Wales,’ the guide is saying, ‘who briefly became King Edward V, but was supplanted—and it’s believed, murdered—by his uncle, Richard III. Didn’t do him much good,’ says the guide with a flash of dark humour. ‘Henry VII, known as Henry Tudor, defeated and killed him at the Battle of Bosworth two years later.’

They move on and are gone.

In a room hung with tapestries, where a fire burns to offset the clammy cold of stonework, the king is sitting, alone. He is waiting for news. Orders given will be carried out. He knows that there is danger for him in the stark room where his nephews lie. Bastards or not, the children have the power to destroy him.

‘When we get out of here, Edward,’ says Richard sleepily, ‘shall we live with our mother again?’

‘Of course,’ replies King Edward V. The candle has burned low, and in spite of himself he is nearly asleep.

‘And shall you be king?’ The child yawns.

‘Of course…’ Edward turns on his bed, feeling his brother’s body warm against him.

‘Will you give me a horse when you are king, Edward?’

Edward grunts. His eyes are heavy. ‘Go to sleep, Dickon.’

Richard yawns again. ‘A great—black—horse—with—crimson—saddle—and…’ His eyes close. The horse prances towards him through the darkness. His breathing becomes soft and regular; he sleeps.

Feet climb silently up the stairs, come to a halt outside the room. Two pairs of eyes meet; there is shame there, and a flash of dread. But it will be quick. They are skilled.

The children lie nested together. The candle flickers as the door opens. Two shadow shapes slide up the wall, cross the ceiling as the assassins bend over their victims. Edward’s eyes are almost closed; he sees the men, comprehends too late. ‘Dickon!’ he cries, but the sound is muffled in the pillow held over his face. He feels his brother’s legs flailing in the sheets; then stillness, as his chest heaves and great lights swim behind his eyelids.

‘Is it done?’ The king’s face is dark in the fire glow.

‘Aye, my lord—it is done.’

The men exchange swift glances. It is done—and so are we! Dare he let us live to carry this tale?

‘It is well done,’ says the king;