Rewind, page 1
R E W I N D
By
Antony J Woodward
Copyright Notice:
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
There is use of Pop Culture references, with no intention of copyright infringement and are merely used as references and do not claim any ownership of copyrighted material.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Contains excerpts of lyrics from “The Crux Of The Demise” by DirtyPrettyThin.
Notice:
Whilst every care has been taken and every effort applied, there may still be the odd
grammatical or spelling error in this book.
Other Works by Antony J Woodward:
The Black Winter
P A R A D I S E
The Mendacity Games
I Am Pug
P R O G E N Y
Puss In Boots and the Werewolf Cult
Puss In Boots and Frankenstein’s Monster
Rewind
P R O G E N I T O R
Available on Amazon’s Kindle Store:
About the Author:
Antony J Woodward lives in his hometown of Scunthorpe, with his Pug. A lifelong enthusiast
for cathartic entertainment, he studied multimedia at college level before finding himself
in the ever fascinating world of healthcare.
He’s always excited to hear from you, so drop a message on twitter (@DirtyPrettyThin) or find him on Facebook.
And please be sure to leave a review on Amazon!
Dedicated to
Margeret “Babs” Harvey & Douglas “Dougie” Clarke.
ADVISORY:
This book contains themes and moments that some readers may find disturbing.
CHAPTER ONE:
13:49pm 23rd July 2002
“Cheese!”
The flash of the camera blinded them both; both children caught off guard. Bridget squinted and blinked several times, scrunching her small face up into itself. Christine began crying, bawling loudly.
“Hey!” Their mother soothed dropping the camera from her face. She closed in on her bawling two year old. Christine wailed louder and shirked out of her incoming mother’s grasp. The embrace was met with thin air. The look of defeat returned to her face yet again, her eyes drooped to the dirt embankment. Then, reapplying her bright smile, she lifted her face back up. Bridget was studying her intently, her little four year old features stiff with concern for a moment. The kid always looked so serious, so knowing and wise. Some would say she’d been here before. Diana’s mother had often remarked how she felt Bridget was an old soul. Her smile teetered on her lips, she had to reinforce it quickly. Thoughts of her mother always threatened to thrust her into the abyss. It was difficult, she saw a lot of her mother in her daughter. Those liquid blue eyes with long black lashes, the way her nose protruded largely but not quite enough to be classed as too big. The silky blonde hair that hung glamorously no matter how it was fixed. Diana had made the hairdresser give Bridget a straight fringe, a sharp line across her brow. She hadn’t realised until it was too late that it was the exact hairstyle her mother had worn. The reflection of her dead mother was even clearer than ever.
Their eyes locked for a moment, a wordless moment.
Then Bridget smiled, a warm grin that broke the momentary spell.
It was so typical of Bridget; that way she never felt down for long.
She was tall for her age, lanky and leggy. Diana wasn’t sure if it was the genetics of her father, or just a growing phase. She’d been a fat toddler, carrying ample amounts of puppy weight and it felt like she’d suddenly sprung up over night. Her first born baby was becoming a person, she was escaping the toddler phase and morphing into a miniature person. She knew one day she would blink and then she’d be looking at an adult. She dreaded it. Why couldn’t they stay this way forever?
She was an astonishingly bright child, very hungry for knowledge and attentive. Her grasp of English was fantastic, she was well above her recommended level. She knew all her numbers up to fifty and she had already begun reading age 6-7 books. Her father had slowly been teaching her simple maths, she struggled a little with it but it was sinking in nonetheless. It had disappointed them both a little that the mathematics wasn’t quite so easily absorbed, but Diana had realised just how unfair that really was. She had a 4 year old child who was functioning at the level of someone three years older, how could she be disappointed when she had more than most… Bridget’s strengths were obviously not tied into mathematics, how could they judge her on that when she had so many other strengths…?
Diana was heart-achingly proud of her, she was a little miracle. Every report card from the nursery came with a glowing review and admiration of her educational prowess. All the teachers were smitten with her and gushed continuously over her.
She was a wonderful child. An absolute wonder.
So attentive, so well-mannered. So well behaved, so friendly. So mature, so intelligent.
Diana soaked in every ray of this glorious praise, it made her feel warm and fuzzy.
She was highly protective of Bridget, perhaps a little more so than she should be.
It was like Diana suspected something dastardly was just around the corner, ready to snatch this beautiful child away. The maternal need to protect was nearly overpowering sometimes. Sometimes she had to take a moment and defuse her overworking brain. Step away and stop herself from being irrational. She and Darren had often rowed over her over-protectiveness. He’d lob cruel words like “suffocating” and “dictating”, she’d retaliate with anger. He was right, sometimes she was too much. She knew that, she just knew he’d never understand how she felt. How soul-crushingly delicate her relationship felt, how she couldn’t relax because she feared the second she did someone, or something, would take her glorious child away. This child wasn’t just a child, she was her best friend. She was the reason she got up in the morning, the reason she kept plugging on. She hated to admit it but she loved Bridget far more than anybody else in the world. More than Darren, more than Christine.
It didn’t mean she didn’t love the others, she just could never love them as much. This child was her number one, she was her everything. She was the first person since her father that loved her unconditionally. Diana’s father had died when she was 5; a road accident. The last thing he ever told her was “bye-bye darling, have a good day at school,” as he left for work. He never came home again.
Some drunk driver on the M4 took him off the road.
Any thoughts of her father made her remember how he died. How he had been lying in the ditch, with his body broken and destroyed. He’d not died instantly, instead the poor man had drowned in lungs full of his own blood. What a cruel way to go. It was an unjust affliction upon a five year old, to have someone so brutally wrenched from her life.
It was this fear that one day everything would be taken away that stoked her fire of near-enough mania. She knew it was foolish, yet she couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t relinquish the vice grip she had on the best thing in her life.
Her father had been stolen from her in a split-second, how could she trust life to not do it again?
Bridget brushed past her, her hand grazing Diana’s back for a second.
Diana’s gaze followed her, watching her close in on her still bawling sister.
Christine was everything Bridget wasn’t.
They were their polar opposites.
Christine was a thin and weedy toddler. No matter what she ate, she just didn’t seem to fill out. It would probably be the perfect combination of genetics when she was older, but it frustrated Diana. Her dark brunette hair was misshapen; it was only this morning she’d somehow found a pair of scissors and cut a huge chunk of hair away. The ponytail clearly highlighted this inequality of hair length. Where Bridget’s face was smooth, slim with great cheekbones and slender jaw line, Christine’s face was squarer, almost boyish with a extended brow. Darren had once joked that he foresaw Christine becoming a butch lesbian in the future, now Diana couldn’t shake the thought.
Bridget had never thrown tantrums quite like Christine, Christine took it a whole new level. Diana had finally experienced the embarrassment of a child throwing a fit in a supermarket. Shopping had been slung, floods of tears had been spilt and she’d spent a whole five minutes screaming at the top of her voice while punching the ground. Diana had wanted the ground to swallow her up. She could feel everybody’s eyes burning hotly upon her, judging her. She’d wanted to scream herself, scream and tell people she wasn’t a shit mother. Look at my prodigal daughter! Look at my clever child! Look how well I did with her! Ignore the problem child!
Diana flinched. Problem child. She hated that term.
It made Christine seem like a spawn of the devil.
She wasn’t that. She was just a different girl. One unfairly compared to her sister too much.
The odds had been set against Christine long ago, how ever was she going to compare to the perfection that was Bridget? Diana flinched again. God, she was a terrible person.
She’d tried, countless times, to build
It was always her fault. She knew it was. She also knew she had the most remarkable of men. A man who stood by her despite all her numerous flaws and insecurities.
A man who had held her up when she’d miscarried, when the bottom of her world had fallen away and she sank into the darkness. He was the prince charming who charged into her dark depression and rescued her. The man who had given her two beautiful children and afforded her a lifestyle that she could focus on them.
Diana’s gaze drifted from the children to her husband. Five years they’d been together, married for three. He was as handsome as he ever was. The kind of man she’d always thought was out of her league. He was athletic, muscular and tall. He had slender shoulders, long arms and a neck from the Gods. His chiselled face; smooth and freshly shaven. His deep dark chocolate eyes, the golden brown of his hair. The way it was all swept back made her think of vintage silent movies. His smell; the mix of woody, heady and musky. He was smart, brain meltingly smart at times. He was a teacher with ambitions of becoming a professor. You knew it was quite easily within reach, yet he never rested on his laurels. He never grew complacent with his gifts. He endeavoured to forever be considerate, wise and sympathetic. He subscribed to the notions that life was a continuous stream of lessons and he should be humble and accepting. She loved everything about him. He was the literal man of her dreams. Her father would’ve loved him.
He wasn’t aware she was watching him. He was busying talking to their friends. They were hoisting camping gear out of the back of the camper van. He strongly lifted crate after crate in a relay with George. Amanda, George’s wife, was juggling pitching the tent and placating her one year old child. George was attractive, in the loosest sense. He wasn’t to her taste, he was too bookish. Slightly overweight, large glasses and a terrible taste for blazers. His hair was receding, which he had begun tackling with cutting the rest of his hair short. He and Darren had been friends since junior school, there was an awful lot of history there.
Darren taught maths, George taught history.
Darren didn’t look like a maths teacher, but George definitely looked like a history teacher.
His wife Amanda was blonde and a little overweight too. She’d struggled to shed the baby pounds following Lily’s birth. It wasn’t without trying, Diana knew Amanda was trying hard. Perhaps a little too hard. She looked rough, the sleepless nights were hitting her hard. The moon face that Diana had always found friendly was now cratered with dark circles. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight clip upon her head, it simply pulled there for ease. She was dressed in a yellow flowery dress but it did nothing for her. It clung in the wrong places; her ass, her tits and the side rolls under her arms.
She was growingly increasingly frustrated with the tent, her face was beginning to redden. Her plump cheeks began leaking beetroot into her forehead and neck. The summer heat was turning her shiny. Lily was crying, as Lily liked to do. She was an unhappy baby, so much it made Christine look like a saint. Lily had a habit of crying, often for nothing. It was like she just enjoyed the attention and the manipulation. Diana had often looked at Lily, absorbed the dumpy features and saw a little bitch in the making. One of those god-awful children with a smart mouth and parents stupidly at their beck and call. She wasn’t a particularly attractive baby, but Diana rarely thought that of any child. Except her own.
She was always able to look at her own babies and picture a life for them. She would see hints of who they were to become and see traits of the people they were made of. It completed the picture of what was admittedly just a baby. A baby without this context was just a baby. A yawping, crying and needy blob swaddled in a pushchair.
She never admitted that she found other’s babies grossly dull. She would always coo and aah in the right places, but it was insincere. She looked at Lily, bawling near Amanda’s feet, and thought she looked like that tire company’s mascot. The kid had more spare tires than a garage.
She couldn’t see neither George or Amanda in her. Quite where the ginger gene had come from stumped even the parents.
Darren had once drunkenly joked to Diana that perhaps the baby had been swapped at birth. Like a lot of things that Darren said, it stuck. Now she often studied the child and the parents, unsure if Darren had unknowingly poked at a hidden truth.
Amanda threw the tent poles to the ground in defeat. She took a moment to compose herself, pressing her palms to her eyes for a minute. Then she calmly collected her screaming daughter and then suddenly there was silence.
Diana really ought to give Amanda a hand. The chaps had the unloading sorted after all.
Diana flicked her own blonde hair from her eyes. A loose strand had worked free from the bun lazily constructed upon her head. She blew it forcefully when it instantly drooped back down. She was wearing a green summery dress and sandals. She wasn’t wearing a bra, but her breasts were nothing to write home about. She was barely two notches above an ironing board. She wasn’t wearing knickers either, she was quite fond of going commando and Darren always enjoyed it too. She wasn‘t a slender woman, but she was leggy and pale. She had a broad physique, teetering close to being masculine. She had originally resented her physique but she’d concluded that not everybody got to be supermodels. She’d plastered herself in sunscreen because she knew how quickly she burned.
She stood up, her knees creaking as she did so. God if this was twenty six, she didn’t want to think what fifty was going to feel like. She swung the camera strap over her neck and turned her attention back to the lake. It made her smile.
It was the width of all she could see and more, and it was beautiful. After spending months cooped up in the house it felt nice to be free. It had been a great idea of Amanda’s. A week away in the lake district. A chance to leave behind the house freshly renovated, leave the stacks of paperwork Darren had still to accomplish and leave behind the all the hustle and bustle of their everyday life. Leave it all behind.
It was like pressing reset on her batteries this sublime forest surrounding them. They were ensconced safely away from the main camping parks too, they weren’t going to have endure the countless other families camping. It had cost a small fortune but the two couples had split it down the middle. Summer holidays always drove the price up but it was the only real chance Darren got to holiday.
She turned to the girls, they were clambering along a little wooden fishing pier. Bridget out front guiding Christine by the hand.
“Be careful!” she called to them both. She smiled when her warning fell on deaf ears. Bridget was dedicating her sole attention to her younger sister, her little face furrowed in concentration as she navigated her clumsier sibling down the small step onto the pier. They were both wearing little green swimming costumes. Christine had stopped crying. Bridget was very good with her, very motherly and supportive. The perfect big sister.
“…Come on,” she heard Bridget say as she tugged Christine forward.
With a smile Diana turned her attention away and began walking towards Amanda. She was now bouncing Lily on one hip and trying to erect the tent with her remaining free hand.
“Come on, let me help!” Diana smiled as she approached. A swathe of relief washed over Amanda’s face.
“She’s a grouchy bugger today!” Diana commented lightly. She gave an exaggeratedly exasperated puff of air into Lily’s face. The baby didn’t giggle, she just stared darkly.
“Tell me about it…” Amanda sighed, “you mind if I sit a minute?”
