A Blue Sky Existence

Chapter One

Some Background Information

 There is a county named Ashford with four villages, two hamlets, and one town.

     Our story begins in August 1990, in one of the four villages. Specifically, it begins on an ordinary country road in Southside. There was a back garden that opened up onto a vast plot of land, maintained by a farmer who lived in the cottage directly opposite the one which features in this story.

     I say directly, but it’s actually about four hundred metres away, to make room for the carrot, potato and bean fields. The carrot is the most popular vegetable in the county. Any pub, grocery store or tea house is likely to stock litres of carrot juice, wheels of carrot cake, alongside fruit cakes, apples, loaves of granary bread and copious amounts of tea.

    I will say this while it remains relevant: Southside is, and always has been, one of the most unexciting places to live. Beautiful and charming, undoubtedly, but there has never been anything exciting about it at all, at least not for young people. There is a library, a music shop and a modest high street. Some benches also feature.

    One of two things happen to the teenagers who grow up in Southside: they either smoke, ride motorcycles outside the village, and do some petty shoplifting, or they develop very active imaginations.

     But back to the story at hand: in the aforementioned Southside cottage, there were four bedrooms. One of them belonged to Charles and Susan-Jane Pounce. Their twin daughters, Gwen and Mary, shared another. The third was a spare room. At the top of the cottage, in the loft, was Charlie Pounce, our seemingly unextraordinary protagonist.

     Charlie lay on his bed, staring through the framed skylight at the gradually changing picture of lazy cotton bud clouds that drifted by.

     He was bored, and had been since the day he stopped being in Lower Six. Most of his friends had gone away to the seaside, Europe, or a family resort in another part of the country. Only one had stuck around: his closest friend, luckily enough. Etienne Mercier, a smiley girl with hair the colour of young apricots, had known Charlie for a solid twelve years, ever since he’d offered to push her on the swings in Southside’s miniature primary school playground.

     On sticky, summery days like this one, the duo would normally ride their bikes around the off-track paths that cut through woods and meadows, eventually looping back to the gate that led to the cemetery behind St. John-at-Ashford, a few paces away from a tea house. They would take a break, line their bikes up outside the door, and have some scones. The owner, Mrs Murdoch, had learnt by now not to give them any jam, which Charlie loathed (‘It’s lumpy fruit mixed with chunks of sugar. Bleurgh.’)

   But that wouldn’t happen today. Etienne, or Etty, had been roped in by her mother to have lunch, followed by tea, with her grandparents. She wanted to say no, but Charlie, being an understanding sort of person, understood.

     In previous days, out of desperation, Charlie had started on his holiday work, of which there had been an unjustly large pile. Now even that was finished. He tried to read, but Charlie was fussy when it came to books. While he was willing to spend hours writing three Economics essays in succession, he refused to waste time learning about a doomed love affair or murder mystery that had never actually happened.

     The only thing that Charlie could vaguely look forward to today was getting out of the house to work the night shift at the minimart down the road (the only one for miles). After some minutes of unhurried deliberation, however, he resolved to fetch his camera and do more rolls of film for his Photography class’s ongoing A-level portfolios. He noticed a subtle change in the daylight, the perfect sort of light for creating shadows. He heaved himself off the bed, getting a head rush in the process.