Something Unusual: Michael’S Collection of Short Stories

By Michael Montero

This is it, years had passed when I started writing these stories. Never had I imagined these could still be produced into a book. It has been forgotten for years and was kept inside a folder in my office. With your support, I am now able to fulfill everything which I thought I could no longer do, Thank you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546294238

Michael Montero

Michael Montero was born in Madrid, Spain on the 4th of June. A true Gemini thrives in the inspiration given as a precious gift by the Gemini Sign. Writing comes effortlessly. By nature Michael lives in a planet without boundaries. His first book MANOLO A CHILD IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR is now republished with the title WAR NIGHTMARES which can be bought all over the world. There are some two hundred short stories and performance pieces yet to be published. Michael studied at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid before entering University. Came to live in England on an autumnal October day and made London his home. Authors other books: Maddison War Nightmares Pesadillas De La Guerra

Book preview

ADELPHY GARDENS

The street where I live was described by the estate agent as pretty. He was right. Adelphy Gardens is a pretty street lined with red brick semis on either side. The windows are Georgian; rectangular glass panels on white wooden frames most of them, and few simulate the original in PVC, only detected by the expert eye.

Outside our house, number ninety-seven, there is a pillar-box, whose bright red coat has darkened with time. Cars stop to post letters and so do people on foot. I see them through my dinning room window while having lunch. Some of the letter- posters puzzle me looking at the pillar box as if they had not seen it before, consulting their watches, reading the collection- time table and finally surrendering their mail to its ever open metal mouth.

My opposite neighbour is a hardened culprit in this respect. Everyday she comes across with just one letter, scrutinises the pillar-box in its minute detail and after much shrugging of shoulders lets it go.

In a way she amuses my wife as much as she amuses me, for we have lunch together, not always at the same time, but always at the time when the blue envelope appears. She is obese rather than fat. Large and corpulent, rather than big, with steely grey eyes like her hair. A pale complexion. Skin that the sun has never tanned. Now in her late fifties, she has developed a limp that causes her to lean sideways towards the left like a listing ship. Habitually she speaks to nobody. I have never seen her smile. Perhaps the secret for this can be found in a permanent smirk that occupies the corners of her mouth. I guess the letter is not genuine, since the envelope is neither addressed or stamped, but a subterfuge to surreptitiously spy on us while we eat. Her comical appearance is far from inoffensive; when at close range her eyes, with the cold of ice, look through me, not at me.

My wife and I came to Adelphy Gardens when our son was nine. We bought the house from the Appleby’s, then in their nineties, who fell under the spell of our son’s charm. This made it possible for us to buy at a time when several bidders were prepared to pay in excess of the asking price.

The house is situated almost at the end of the street and has the largest garden, mature trees and bushes surround it providing a multishade curtain of greens most of the year.

Number ninety-seven, where we live, is an Artegan elevation like all the others in the street superbly strong and well built. Now that we have lived here for quite a time I often reminisce the early days when we moved in. A mid November day with the Autumn already pushing down hard the thermometer scale. It was cold. Specially indoors with no central heating and only a weak one-bar electric fire unable to raise the low temperature. Those were the nights of going to bed in winceyette pyjamas and huddle together under the blankets covering our heads with the sheets to keep our ears warm.

Installing central heating had to wait as we had little money. Instead we had a faithful friend also without money but with something more precious than that to mitigate our shivers. He possessed two pear trees, which he logged and brought for us to burn in the living room fireplace with the excuse of wanting to get rid of them. Some months later, when the central heating had been installed and the house was cosy, he revealed that the pear trees were precious to him, but he gladly parted with them for the sake of keeping us warm.

The original fireplace has been replaced by a log-simulated gas fire that we light in the evenings as a reminder of our fiend’s gesture. The flames still dance and even crackle but the unmistakable smell of burning wood is no longer present.

CAGED

‘Joe?’

‘Yes Mr. Martinez.’

‘I need a favour.’

‘Anything, sir.’

‘Who’s the new chick on the block? The one who drives the Porsche?’

‘Yes, sir, that’ll be Miss Liripool.’

‘Liripool, such a musical name. Is there a first name?’

‘Margaret, sir.’

‘Besides her name, what else do you know about her.’?

‘That she’s just joined her grandmother. That she’s very nice and that she works very hard.’

‘Works very hard?, How do you know that?’

‘She leaves early in the morning for the clinic and comes back late in the evening looking tired.’

‘A Doctor?’

‘No sir, Miss Liripool is a vet.’

‘A vet? How can a vet afford to live here?’

‘She was her own clinic Mr. Martinez. Besides she’s wealthy from birth.’

‘About the favour I need…when my parcel arrives, don’t let them deliver it. Keep it with you and give it to Miss Liripool when she comes back. Ask her to bring it to my apartment. Make some excuse.’

‘As good as done sir.’

‘You’ll be rewarded.’

‘Hope not in heaven.’

‘In heaven and on earth.’ And Joe, not a word to anybody.’

‘I’m a grave sir.’

Joe, the concierge at the Riverside Apartments, replaced the receiver. He was the type of man who had seen and heard everything. That was part of the job that on occasions could turn into an occupational hazard. To him Mr. Martinez was a mystery, a voice on the intercom. Always polite and generous. Never seen outside his apartment.

Ricardo Martinez spent a few moments gazing at the sub dipping its golden darts in the silvery ripples of the Thames bathing the banks of Canary Wharf. Through the panoramic window that gave his apartment the appearance of a look out post he could see the world go by. A world he could only watch like a spectator of life but could not join.

Margaret Liripool! The name rang in his ears like a promise of happiness. He longed for her company the moment he first spotted her and wished his ploy would succeed. Under normal circumstances he would have gone about things in a very different way. But that was not possible.

Ricardo Martinez was a successful financial broker, astute enough to set up an exclusive emporium in his own living quarters from where he had established global interaction with the help of powerful computers and the latest electronic gadgetry. Money rolled into his bank account without much effort.

He shared the apartment with Shiva, a charcoal grey longhaired cat that had adopted him by simply entering the apartment when his daily parcel was being delivered. It had been companionship at first sight and as time passed the indulgence on one another’s company became stronger developing a very special sixth sense between the two of them.

‘You’ll like Margaret’, he told Shiva, and to dispel any signs of jealousy added ‘having a vet for a friend is not to be sneezed at. Could come in very handy if you ever get a painful tummy for eating too much.’

Shiva seemed to understand every word and to demonstrate her understanding emitted a soft meow.

As the hours passed and the evening approached, his excitement mounted. And unable to concentrate on anything other than the expected arrival of Margaret he posted himself with Shiva on his lap by the window. A vantage point from which to spot the Porsche when it arrived. After a short wait, the familiar purring of the engine echoed around the forecourt as the car slowly negotiated the barred gates on its way to the underground parking. The dimmed beams of the headlights illuminated the entrance gate and moments later the slim silhouette of Margaret Liripool made her way to the entrance hall.

‘Any minute now a new friend is going to ring our bell and want you to be in your best behaviour’, he said to Shiva as if he were speaking to a human.

When Ricardo opened the door the pretty bearer of an aromatic smelling parcel was standing on the threshold. At close range she looked even more attractive than from the distance. Dark hair combed back, bright eyes behind designer glasses, stylish dress. In his mind a dream.

‘I thought you’d never come. I’m absolutely starving. What’s happened to the regular guy?’ he said when he opened the door.

Ricardo had rehearsed this approach several times in the hope of establishing a lasting conversation. Margaret looked at him with some amusement.

‘I don’t follow. Are you Ricardo Martinez’?

‘The very same.’

‘Then this parcel is for you. Joe, the concierge asked me to bring it up. I live upstairs with my grandmother.’

‘Oh, how wonderful!’ he said after apologizing for his deliberate mistake. ‘I regularly have food parcels delivered. Well not really food but rather the ingredients to make it. This one contains organically grown vegetable and herbs. Can you smell the fennel?’

She assented a slight smile of approval adorned the corners of her mouth. Still holding the parcel, as if she did not want to part company with it, studied Ricardo’s face with the feminine interest of a woman trying to fathom out the male qualities of the man she had just met. She liked him.

‘Perhaps you ought to come in…and… and have a coffee or something.’

He suddenly felt clumsy. Was that all he could say? But to his surprise she accepted. Shiva, right on cue, appeared to greet the guest and began to rub her luscious fur round Margaret’s legs.

‘You have a very unusual cat’, said Margaret picking her up and examining her with a professional manner. This is a very rare specimen all the way from Tibet.’

Ricardo was not concerned with Shiva’s pedigree. As far as he was concerned she was a charming companion and that was all that mattered.

‘That parcel of vegetables you have brought me contains some of the ingredients I need to create my menus. I’m a designer. A menu designer. That’s how I earn my money.’ he lied.

A menu designer was something she had not come across before. Margaret found that a little unusual. It showed on her face.

‘I not only create the dishes I also cook the, and of course eat them and if they are successful I market them.’

‘Cuisine by design, how interesting! Me, I can’t cook to save my soul.’

‘You’ll be very welcome to join me next time I produce something. Or better still I could prepare a meal especially for you. Just tell me what you like and I’ll cook it, how does that sound’?

It sounded simply wonderful but with a note of feminine caution Margaret chose to appear not too enthusiastic.

While they were conversing they sipped the coffees that Ricardo had prepared. Margaret felt relaxed in his company and he was happy to see that his ploy was working.

After leaving him Margaret returned to her apartment.

‘I’ve been socializing with the downstairs neighbor, Grin.’

‘Um…you have?’ she sounded surprised.

‘I have. He makes wonderful coffee and is so handsome! Her enthusiasm started to mount.

A look of cautious disapproval appeared on her grandmother’s face.

‘His name is Ricardo. Ricardo Martinez. You’d like him if you’d met him. He is going to invite me to try one of his menus. He is a food designer. You should see his apartment incredibly futuristic.