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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Judith Thomas

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86 pages

English

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This compelling collection of 18 short stories gives an insight into the psychological response to human emotion. Judith Thomas introduces characters from around the world that have come together in one volume to share personal tales. The varied themes and settings provide something unique for every reader. The unexpected, surprising and relentlessly entertaining short stories comprise of imaginative plots that are set in various countries. The settings reflect the author's personal knowledge of global culture whilst capturing the buzz and atmosphere of both the mundane and the exotic. From observing French traditions to learning about the South American lifestyle, this collection exposes the lives of different individuals as they discuss the triumphs and downfalls of life in their native countries. Amongst the narrators there are women executives with hidden obsessions, elderly soldiers with a deep and terrifying past as well as assertive teenagers that confide in the reader. The twists in the stories are fresh and unexpected. All In The Head is thought-provoking, funny and profound. This book will resonate with everyone in some way. Readers are invited to reflect on their own issues in a wonderfully charming and light-hearted way and are introduced to larger-than-life characters from around the world. The book gives an intimate insight into the cultures of Europe and the Far East. The author's zest for life in all its fullness is infectious. Change is inevitable, life changes happen and this book explores those changes. All In The Head will appeal mainly to readers of short stories.

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Short story

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 août 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781784627454
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

All In The Head
& other Tales with a Twist
Judith Thomas

Copyright © 2014 Judith Thomas
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Matador ®
9 Priory Business Park,
Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299
Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277
Email: books@troubador.co.uk
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
ISBN 978 1784627 454
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador ® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

To my wonderful husband Ron,
For all the hours spent reading this -
Helping, Advising, Editing and Inspiring.
Contents

Cover

About The Author

By the same author

Foreword

All in the Head

Dressed for Effect

Set in Stone

The Adventurers

The Paper

The Grandfather Clock

Cupboard Love

Sam in the Kitchen

Patagonia Pilgrims

Shared Tables

The Wedding Ring

Leaving the Bush

Stateside

Coffee with the Girls

The Trophies

Tango Times

The Invitation

Feeding the Ducks

Acknowledgements
About The Author
Judith was born in Wales but has lived in seven other countries including the Middle and Far East. She is the mother of three grown-up children who live in the USA.
She has been involved in all aspects of counselling for over forty years and has a special interest in different cultures. She has written, lectured and presented seminars on a variety of topics.
She is married and lives with her husband, Ron, in Windsor, Berkshire.
By the same author
Collar to Cleavage (Autobiography)
Foreword
In the years that I have travelled, I have met people who have intersected with my life in a way that has left an everlasting impact. Sometimes, these characters are not of my time and space, yet they have a reality – we may share similar interests or they may have given me an inspirational word, spurring me on by their achievements. There are also those characters who would not have made it on to my ‘friends for coffee’ list!
You will meet people from different parts of the world in our stories. Some may evoke sympathy, others will definitely not. It is my hope that in meeting them and the events of which they were a part, that you will want to know even more about them – as I did – and a book resulted!
At the end of each story are pages which fill in the blanks for the curious, they give a little more background information about the characters and situations. These are tales, after all, with unexpected twists.
All in the Head

Kate travelled extensively with her work, the drawer of her desk at home already held three old passports, each with their covers neatly clipped at the front. Now she was on the latest micro-chipped ‘Euro’ version. She picked it up and put it with the rest of her documents. Sod’s Law said that the person in front of her at Heathrow would be someone using it for the first time, that they would put it in the machine upside down and make everyone wait while someone explained the procedure yet again. Patience was not something Kate possessed in great quantities and passport control brought out the worse in her. Why did the most obscure countries on the planet need a full passport page for their immigration stamps? What was the point of having to take out her computer each time as she went through security fast lane? They saw her frequently enough – did she look like an Al Qaeda recruit? Her emotional travel control fuse was definitely short.
When Kate left university, nearly twenty years ago now, it was with a first class honours degree in Social Studies, but she had long ago shelved the idea of helping what was euphemistically termed, ‘the less fortunate.’ Kate was what is termed a ‘a high flier.’ Her doggedness, her ambition, her obstinate perseverance to seeing a job done had served her well over the years. It had felt good in the early days being the only female management trainee, proving her worth over and over. Now that struggle was long in the past. Now it was Katherine Wilson-Coverley, Vice President of Marketing at Contarini. Now she supervised staff, now she decided when and where to hold meetings, now she called the tune. She was a ‘big beast’ in the corporate jungle.
Her smartly logo’d travel bag was on the bed. She pondered her success as she completed her precise packing. Items were wrapped in tissue paper, spill-able items placed meticulously in plastic bags, clothes layered for easy access, colour matched for maximum suitability. Her handbag would never be the target of any pitiful jokes by third rate comedians at Working Men’s clubs; it was meticulously organized for action at board meetings and for leisure. The bag was emptied with precision every night and the non-essentials carefully dumped. Never would there be found in this hallowed space a crumpled tissue or the smallest crumb of a half-eaten biscuit. Never would there be scraps of paper with illegible scribbling. She checked her smart-phone – yes, the hair appointment was carefully marked and highlighted in red.
There was, however, something hidden away, a secret that would never be disclosed to the world. Something that was far more embarrassing than an opened handbag. What was not known, what was hidden from all, was that Kate judged the success of each her international assignments, not by the contracts she inevitably signed, not by the invaluable networks she was able to put in place – Kate judged the success of her trips by the competence of the hairdressers she visited!
Her world, her entire life, her waking hours was governed by the state and condition of her hair! This far outweighed the indexed-linked allowances she was given to maintain a standard of living in some ‘back of beyond’ location. This far outweighed the size of any foreign apartment or the nearness of her office to the airport. If she felt her hair looked good, then her life was more than good – it was bloody marvellous! This was her deep, dark secret. How could she admit to such shallowness, such a pathetic yardstick of inner satisfaction, such a contemptible symbol of personal status on a world stage of division, turmoil and conflict? She could be lifted up, or cast down by whether her fringe stayed in place or if the hair went under at the back? The deep, dark secret that she knew to be painfully true – her hair ruled her life!
She had not yet fully made this deduction, this connection between her locks and the power they exerted upon her, when, years earlier, she had metamorphosed to young adulthood – from the eight year old who spent hours pouring over graphs and coloured charts with enthusiasm and unbounded interest. Then, her hair was tied back with an inelegant, red, stretched elastic band which split and cut her sand-coloured tresses. Then, her hair got washed only when she remembered. Now even the slightest sticking together of a few strands disturbed the equilibrium of her day.
When did it all change? It was so imperceptible that it went unnoticed, but change it did. Perhaps it was the era of the first boyfriend. Awkward, gangly, Mark Dangerfield more interested in his collection of old gramophone records than in a furtive fumbling. Yes, it was the beginning. The Friday visits to the cinema had prompted the odd glance at her hair in the mirror. In the Ladies’ toilet, with its chipped sinks and empty tampon packets, she had managed an occasional comb-through before going into the lobby to meet her ‘acne’ covered Romeo.
Now her world was peppered with the language of ‘glass ceilings’ through which she had shot at a meteoric rate. It had been promotion after promotion after promotion, they had come fast and furious. She was focused. She could take on any project and come out a winner. She loved the challenge of working abroad, sent off to a subsidiary office that was inevitably not achieving the vital production figures. In under a year it would be turned around. She was the stockholders’ darling. She was on the front page of business magazines, she gave television interviews, and she was a tough negotiator. No one, but no one, suspected this one, huge, Achilles heel – the hidden weakness that was locked in the thickest steel filing cabinet of her inner self. Her secret was hidden by shame, concealed by guilt, by every emotion associated with low self-esteem. In a nutshell – if her hair looked rubbish – she felt worse than rubbish! It was infantile, it was beyond contempt, it was pathetic, appalling – every adjective you could allocate, but deep down, that was how it was!
What made it all the more loathsome to her inner person was that two of her very good friends, Amélie in France, and Jan in London had both been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Their endless rounds of chemo had resulted in their waking up in the morning to clumps of hair on the pillow. Even Bob at the office had perfected the comb-over to disguise his receding locks. She felt twinges that the state of dead, dark brown cells, prone to greasy, was the major mood determinant of her life, affecting her very identity!
She went downstairs, put on the TV – a quick news update before the car came to take her to the office. Being dismissive of breakfast TV and what she felt was trash for the masses; she had compromised by half-lis