final divorce papers. Decree absolute. For me, I was just pleased that someone seemed to fancy me, and he’s very good-looking so...perhaps I should have waited...
It was about a month ago when I noticed that Tony’s eye had started to roam. Although, it’s not just his eye, now, I think. It seems that he has grown close to the French teacher at the school where he works. Too close. Miss Haze, her name is, I don’t know her first name yet. I am sure he doesn’t have any papers to mark tonight.
Our cottage – or rather, my cottage for I bought it and it’s in my name – has a lot of charm, it’s very rustic. It has a lovely large fireplace and exposed wooden beams in the living-room. A cottage of real character and history, the estate agent told me. He told me that it was owned many, many years ago by a wealthy merchant, who had made his fortune from shipping wine through Southampton’s docks. ‘The current owners have spent a small fortune lovingly restoring it to its glory of earlier years’, the estate agent had added. He was a typical salesman, all grease and bullshit, but I bought the cottage anyway. I had liked it from the moment I had laid eyes on it.
Tony has a ritual before bedtime; every night, before he goes to bed, he turns the television off – assuming it’s on, because sometimes he just sits and reads a book in there – and then he flicks on the tall lamp in the corner of the living-room. The body of the lamp is a silver mermaid, her curling tail forming the base of the lamp. Her upstretched hands with their slender fingers clasp the frosted glass shade. I’m sure that some would say it’s a bit tacky, a bit kitsch, but I like it. With the dull glow from the lamp casting a cosy illumination, like the moon in thin fog. Tony then turns off the main lights and reaches into the small drawer beneath the oak coffee table that sits in the middle of the living-room, and takes out a packet of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. Finally, he sinks down into the large, overstuffed armchair in front of the fireplace. He lights a cigarette, takes a deep breath and then smokes the cigarette in the semi-darkness. Just one cigarette, that’s all he ever has. Every day, just one. He says that he used to smoke a lot, it scared him that he’d never be able to give up, and his Mum died of lung cancer. He says that he found it really hard to quit, but he had hit upon this ritual of allowing himself just this one each day, this small, guilty pleasure. He says by doing this, he is convinced that he won’t start smoking properly again.
I don’t much like the smell of smoke, and, at first, I thought about stopping him smoking in my house. But I realised that, once we were married, this was supposed to be our house, so I decided that I wouldn’t begrudge him this little nightly routine. I mean, it’s not really doing me any harm.
But the thing is, I have warned him that he needs to be careful. There has been the odd occasion where he has fallen asleep during the cigarette. I’ve come into the living-room and found him in the chair with the cigarette butt smouldering in the ashtray. That overstuffed armchair is old and highly flammable, they didn’t worry so much about health and safety when they made that chair. And, of course, the floors are all made of wood, and with those wooden beams as well...
He should be very careful. I wouldn’t want him falling asleep in that chair with a burning cigarette in his lap, now, would I?
THE END
If you liked this book, why not try the following by the same author, available to download at www.amazon.co.uk:
“HOW TO GET BEHIND IN BANKING” by Will Thurmann – ‘A riotous comic romp set in the world of the modern workplace environment ... brilliantly captures the farce within the office politics of today ... a real treat’
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at the following address:- willthurmann@gmail.com
Author Information
Will Thurmann was born sometime in the 1960s in Jersey, Channel Islands. He has worked (sometimes quite hard) in the finance industry in Jersey for over twenty years, and has travelled extensively in Asia and Central America.
Will Thurmann is a pseudonym, used mainly because that's what authors do, and partly so that Will can protect his anonymity - as he still works in the finance industry (in which his 1 novel “How to Get Behind in Banking” is based) he thought it best.
“Ghosts in the Morning” is Will Thurmann’s 2 novel.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Other book
Author Information
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Other book
Author Information