Kate Axeford

Alone in his booth, Bill threads and feeds and splices reels, but first he must clean. Meticulously. Just one speck of dirt will scratch and spoil a director’s dream. Today, Bill cleans so guns can blaze. With the soft hands his father hated—he carefully scrubs the sprocket guides. He’s soothed by the ballet of whirrs and

The table’s laid. Three squat tumblers filled with water. The stern tock of his grandfather clock provides the countdown. Seven strikes will equal ‘late.’   ******A quease of grease follows him in from the kitchen where my mother cooks. He sees me. Scowls. Hefts himself into a protesting chair. Coarse. Ginger. His sausage fingers unfold

Halloween is THE fiesta for Ghosts and every 31st October we join the crocodile of family grief. The remaining living members of the Bennett family trudging a solemn two miles alongside that fright of a road, the A22. Eight silhouetted figures shielding their faces from the be-dazzle of un-dipped monster eyes, ‘whoooooar-ing’ as speeding tyres

        Rita Bound orchestrates disdain. With her eyes rolled skywards, and a well-timed shake of her curls, she contempts,         ‘Your divvy sisters just bust my eardrums with her screeching.’         Rita’s henchwomen parody impressions, in stereo, to the raucous appreciation of the ‘William Green Comprehensive’

My daughter’s poodle-faced probation officer declares my daughter ‘thinks herself above the law.’ With a flourish of white acrylics, the poodle produces a file. I hear the click-clack: talons typing old damnations, adding weight, new accusations. A book waiting to be thrown. My daughter, apparently, ‘a lost cause.’   ‘She’s not lost!’ I stand up