Amy decided to give up smoking – again. She needed to take some control in her life. Because this was her seventh or eighth attempt, when she announced her intention to her husband, he merely grunted. He didn’t even look up from his newspaper. He could have been more supportive, but Gilby wasn’t the supportive type, not where she was concerned.
Amy’s life was littered with failures and accidents. When she reviewed them in her head, which she did almost every night in bed, they made a formidable list. Failure at school, at work, her choice of a partner, she had made one mistake after another.
Maybe it was cruel to describe Gilby as a mistake. But he was always angry, bitterly, resentfully and sullenly angry.
It was time for a change. No more seeking Gilby’s approval, she was going to do something for herself this time. Amy would show him what she knew, deep down, she was capable of achieving.
She checked her phone. The bus was due in ten minutes, and although it was usually late, she didn’t want to risk missing it. She could, in theory, have caught the nine-fourteen, but she hated being late for anything. Gilby had taught her the folly in that. Meals were served as the clock struck the hour.
Her old music case had finally been repurposed after laying in the bottom of a wardrobe for many years. She had loved playing the piano but two fingers on her left hand had never set properly after they broke. The surgeon said that she should have come to the hospital straight after the accident. Amy had made up an excuse which she couldn’t now remember.
The music case was soft leather with a looped handle and a metal bar it slid through. It now contained several sheets of plain white paper, a wooden ruler which had survived from her schooldays, and three freshly sharpened pencils. Amy wasn’t quite sure what would be required.
All would have gone to plan if a woman hadn’t lost her footing as she was descending the stairs on the double-decker bus. There was a thirty-two-minute delay while they waited for help to arrive and before the paramedics could transfer her to an ambulance.
Passengers on the lower deck had been decanted to another bus, which had, annoyingly, been on time. But Amy always travelled on the top deck, the view was so much better. So, she had been trapped and was now late for her meeting.
She was further delayed when she arrived at the library. A woman with twins had managed to get one of her double buggy’s wheels caught in the door. Bending down to help free it, Amy’s senses were flooded with the warm skin and the fresh-hair scent of the two small children. When the buggy was free, and the woman went on her way, Amy remained squatting, not wanting to breath, hoping to hold that scent for as long as she could. She and Gilby had not agreed about children, but there was still time, if she could summon up the courage to free herself from him.
Someone grasped her elbow to help her up. She flinched at his touch and the dream was broken. She thanked the man, and felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. He must have been twice her age.
A group of young mothers and their children, in a space just to the left of the entrance, were singing rhymes and laughing. Amy turned to the right, where stairs and a lift led to the upper floors. She could still hear those voices when she arrived at the landing of the first floor.
She checked a crumpled leaflet in her pocket and headed up another floor. The voices faded as she pushed through a double set of doors, and a library quiet settled around her. She looked around and saw a door with a sign which read, ‘Meeting Room 4a’.
Amy took a deep breath and checked her phone. She was only five minutes late. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have missed anything important. She pushed on the door handle. It wouldn’t move. Pulling it, without any expectation of success, the door swung open, and she almost stumbled backwards. In front of her were several women sat around four large tables which had been pushed together. They were all looking at her. Thankfully there were no men who might commandeer the meeting.
“I’m sorry I’m late, is it still okay to join you?”
Amy received a warm welcome and settled into a spare seat, quietly listening to the chatter amongst the group. Apart from mentions of holidays and family commitments, the conversation appeared to be more about writing than anything else. There were a few pieces of paper in front of one or two members, but it wasn’t obvious who was leading the group. Amy took another deep breath, waited for a lull in the conversation, and summoned her courage. to speak.
“Excuse me, but this is the origami group, isn’t it?”
There was warm laughter, and everyone was smiling. One woman responded.
“We’re a writing group actually, but you’re welcome to join us.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.”
Amy started to put her pieces of paper back in her music case, feeling her neck grow warm as she did so.
“I think the origami group meet on the third Saturday of the month. And this is the second Saturday.”
Amy felt herself grow heavy in the chair. Gilby mustn’t find out, but what if he asks to see her efforts.
“Why don’t you stay now you’re here. We’re all amateurs, and it’s just for fun, nothing too serious.”
Amy thought she could use some fun in her life.
“But I’ve never written anything in my life. At least, not since school.”
She was about to tell them how bad her grades had been but managed to shut her mouth. The woman who suggested she stay, who introduced herself as Angela, explained that they selected a random suggestion, and spent about thirty minutes writing, using the prompt as inspiration. After a break for tea and biscuits, they shared their work, but only if people wanted to.
Amy took her paper and pencils out again. Angela named everyone there and looked inquisitively at her. For some reason unknown to herself, Amy introduced herself as Amelia. She hadn’t used her full name for years, Gilby said it sounded too pretty for her.
The group all seemed very friendly, and she was sure she could tell Gilby that she had failed to make anything in the Origami group. He would believe that. It might even make him happy, or smug, or both.
Angela dipped her hand into a large brown envelope and took out a small piece of folded paper. She explained that they had each written a simple prompt, only a few words, and they picked one each week. She unfolded the slip and read out loud.
“The perfect murder.”
Several comments were made about how useful the exercise might be, and a few guesses went round about who had suggested the idea. Nobody claimed authorship.
“Shall we start?” Angela said.
Amy’s pencil hovered above a blank sheet of paper. She tried to imagine hating someone so much that she would be willing to murder them, no matter what the consequences. It worked. She started scribbling.
Where the idea came from, she didn’t know. There was a lot of crossing out and some extra notes written in tiny script in the margin, but by the time they broke for tea, she had worked out what might possibly be the perfect murder.
Before getting up to fetch a cup of tea for herself, Amy slid a blank sheet of paper over what she had written. Her story might not be grammatically correct, it might not have the command of language that some of the women might possess, but it was undeniably creative. Of that, Amy was certain.
After tea, and some very nice ginger biscuits, everyone returned to their places around the cluster of tables. Catherine and Penny had quizzed her during the break as to where she lived, what she did and whether she had a partner, husband or children. Amy entered the spirit of the writing group and invented a completely new life for herself. She wished she had been more circumspect when she initially gave her name, but there must be a lot of Amelia’s in a city as large as theirs and most people only knew her as Amy.
Four of the group offered their piece of writing for criticism. Amy didn’t, but she listened carefully in case there were any possible nuanced changes she could make to her own piece.
The morning was very pleasant, but Amy didn’t plan to return to the writing group. It wasn’t her sort of thing, but it had been interesting.
It was six months later, on the third Saturday of September, that Amy finally made it to the origami group. It was in the same room at the library, and there were about the same number of people in attendance. Some men were numbered amongst the group, but Amy didn’t mind, she had grown more confident during that summer.
She still had her music case with her, now with several different types and colours of paper. She was no longer a complete novice to origami, having watched and practiced while several online tutorials guided her through the basics.
There was a leader to the group, Gordon, a quiet man in, Amy guessed, his late thirties. He demonstrated a particular piece, a folded woman. Amy hadn’t seen it done before and followed his instructions with fierce concentration. She was very happy with result, although Gordon’s had a crispness to it which she hadn’t achieved on her first attempt. She folded three more in different colour combinations. By the time they broke for tea, Amy had a small army of sisters on her table.
Over a biscuit, chocolate digestives for the origami group, Amy was asked a similar barrage of questions to those she had faced with the writing group. This time she was honest, to a point.
“I’m a widow, I guess. Fortunately, no children. My late husband was a policeman. He died in a tragic accident.”
“Oh dear,” said Gordon. “Was that at work?”
“No, he was at home, replacing a light fitting. A fatal electric shock.”
Amy managed to force a single tear from her right eye and wiped it away with the back of her hand. She had become quite practiced at that, as well as origami. And Amy did manage to give up smoking, at her ninth attempt. There was far less stress in her life nowadays.
Bruce Aiken 