Stolen Time

This is another excerpt from my unpublished novel The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund and follows the chapter Fish and Chips in the Park

The week after the meeting with A.J.F. and Peter Grisham, John requested two day's leave. It was only about five weeks until Christmas, but John still had several days leave due to him for the year, and he explained to A.J.F. that he needed to start decorating the house, in preparation for the sale, and that he needed to spend some time with his family.

It still seemed uncertain whether his relocation would take place in the following summer, or several months later. Of course, John could travel to Peterborough on day trips for the initial period, A.J.F. explained. Maybe on one-week trips. Complete relocation, however, would be required by the summer of 1973 at the latest. That was a whole eighteen months away. But eighteen months could pass by very quickly. It had been nine years, this month, since they had moved to England from Calcutta, and they had really only just started to feel that this was their home here. Although deep inside, John knew that he and Aileen would never really be at home here.

Falling In Love At Fatty George’s Saloon

Just before my 21^st birthday in 1980, I went to spend six months in Vienna as part of my university degree course. I had a place at the Wirtschaftsuniversität to study banking for one term, followed by a three-month internship at a small paper-manufacturing company. Two friends from my university course in England were also on placements in Vienna at the time, and we all stayed in rented student accommodation in the southern part of the city. I was particularly lucky as I got to share a large room with an English student from another university called Hannah, who played the guitar and sang, and who was full of exciting, spontaneous ideas.

All the others were already on their internships so I spent the first few days journeying by myself to and from the university, which was at the other side of Vienna from where we lived. I did that until one of the most prominent and popular professors, who also taught one of my classes, made a pass at me. He had invited me and a few other students in my class to dinner at his apartment, and while the others were carrying the dishes into the kitchen afterwards, he grabbed hold of me, put his hand up my sweater and in one swift movement removed my bra and grabbed a breast. I stopped going to the university after that.

We celebrated my 21^st birthday in the Heurigen, the local wine restaurants which are plentiful in Vienna, and particularly in the southern district where we lived. It was there and then on that night that Hannah decided I needed a boyfriend, and she knew just the chap – her boss. Hannah worked at the most prestigious bank in Vienna, the Zentralsparkasse, which in 1980 was The Bank To Bank With. The Viennese have a strict social and professional hierarchy, in which those with both social and professional titles are attributed due respect. Where you work and live play an important part in this system, as does being seen at the right places with the right people. And Hannah’s boss was placed quite highly in a lot of these categories.

There Will Be Sad Memories

There will be sad memories
To replace these sad memories
They will be new and fresh
They will burn brighter and
Singe those others like charred paper or
Turn them into shadows flickering behind a candle
And the old sad memories
Will be almost forgotten till
A word or smell or color or place reminds me
And the pain will be sudden and very sharp
And I will cry instantly and
Spontaneously but very briefly.


There will be sad days
To replace these sad days
I will be older and less adaptable
I will remember times
When I was younger and
Life was easier and all before me
And the old sad days
Will be almost forgotten till
A voice or touch or sound or view reminds me
And the pain will be fast and deep
And I will cry instantly for what was lost
Spontaneously but very briefly.