A snippet of my first attempt at writing a book titled The Turning Point of Maggie and Gordon Thornden.

As yet unpublished.

Following my substack last week about writing my debut novel in my sixties, I thought that you might like to have a taster of my book and hopefully enjoy it. It has been edited but probably needs a little more polishing. This book writing business is still a steep learning curve for me.

I really hope that you enjoy it.

Photo by hannah grace on Unsplash

Chapter 1

July 2017

Maggie Thornden, aged sixty, sat at the window in her old fleecy robe and pink sheepskin lined suede slippers, watching as a tiny droplet of rain water meander down the windowpane. She was fascinated by how it avoided the other droplets by changing its course. Whilst all of the other droplets seemed to be in a rush to join the others on the window frame and then make their way to the nearest drain , this particular little droplet seemed to be an outsider and was struggling to reach its destination and join the others. Maggie leant forward and traced its route with her finger down the glass until it disappeared.

See, you made it in the end

Maggie smiled briefly and decided to make herself a cup of coffee. Gordon, her husband, couldn't understand her fondness for instant coffee. He called it gnats piss. Maggie thought him a coffee snob. Gordon knew the difference between a coffee bean from Costa Rica and Kenya and would never, ever buy packets of ground coffee. In fact, he would never buy coffee beans from a supermarket. He ordered them from an artisanal roaster that had apparently won lots of awards and were very expensive. Only her husband would insist on taking his electric bean grinding machine on holiday with him. She snuck in a small jar of Nescafe into the suitcase, nestled safely between the rolled up knickers and Y-fronts.

Whilst Maggie nursed her mug of coffee and enjoyed the silence of the morning, Gordon Thornden was still fast asleep wearing his beige poly-cotton pyjamas and an anti-snoring nasal strip. Maggie appreciated the fact that he wasn't an early riser. It gave her a few hours to enjoy some time to herself. Spending twenty four hours a day with him on their annual holiday was, to put it mildly, trying. His neighbours and work colleagues would say that Maggie was a saint for putting up with him. Five minutes in Gordon Thornden's company was probably too long for most people.

As well as drinking instant coffee, Gordon also didn't approve of Maggie's obsession with scrolling through social media channels. He considered them a waste of time and full of pointless drivel. He hated time wasting. This was a man who needed to account for every minute spent and planned out his day and it wouldn't surprise Maggie if he didn't earmark a regular spot in his mental diary to have a poo.

Gordon was a man who liked order, efficiency and to think that he was in charge.

Maggie Thornden had been married to Gordon for thirty five years. She'd once joked with her daughter Susan that you got less time for murder, but Susan was her father's favourite child and the two of them always sided with each other so the joke fell flat. The few people who knew Maggie felt sorry for her having to put up with her grumpy, impatient and sometimes domineering husband. They saw her as a timid, rather dowdy woman who said very little and kept herself to herself most of the time. Little did they know that once upon a time, many years ago, Maggie had been a vibrant, impulsive young woman. A bit of a free spirit some would say. Her young, staid and serious boyfriend loved the way she threw caution to the wind and could be prone to recklessness. His parent's warned him that she wasn't his type of girl and that he shouldn't be surprised if she tired of him and broke his heart by disappearing one day. They had made it quite obvious that their preferred choice was Jane Chalmers, daughter of the captain of the bowls team. Not an attractive girl, but came from good stock and would make the perfect wife for their only son. Gordon was smitten though and had fallen in love with Maggie from the moment he first set eyes on her. Maggie had found his cautiousness and strong sense of right and wrong endearing. She was over having flings with 'bad boys' and on one reckless occasion,a disastrous affair with a married man and was ready for a little stability in her life. Gordon had a good job as an accountant with the local council and even had a car. Granted, a beige Mini Metro wasn't the most exciting of cars but at least she wouldn't have to catch the bus home from work again. Gordon was more than happy to pick her up and give her a lift home.

Had she married Gordon for the right reasons? At the time she thought she had and she was very fond of him.

At first married life had been good. Not exactly exciting, but good. They started married life together in a small one bedroom attic flat but within a year of careful budgeting and saving, they were able to put down a deposit for a detached house in a quiet close on the outskirts of Gloucester and Maggie enjoyed being the attentive wife and looking after their home. She no longer needed to work. Gordon was very keen for her to give up the job at the record shop where she worked. His mother had never worked and he didn't really want his wife to either. Besides, she would be a mother soon and would be needed at home to look after their child. In those early days she enjoyed having a meal ready for when he came in from work and making sure his work shirts were neatly ironed. She even tolerated listening to him talk about his day at work and smiled and nodded in the right places even though she really didn't understand what he actually did all day. She cooked Sunday lunch and invited his parents over every week. She would have liked to have invited her parents over on the occasional Sunday but Gordon said that it would upset his parents routine. It hadn't taken her long to realise that Gordon liked routine. He gave her enough housekeeping money each week to make sure the fridge was well stocked and she wanted for nothing. She had the stability that she thought that she wanted.

Over the months the novelty of married life wore thin. She discovered that housework was monotonous and boring. Being at home all day was lonely and everyone in the close was that much older than her. She missed the record shop, even though she spent most of the day sat behind a counter waiting for customers to come in. But at least she got to talk to them when they did. At home there was no one. She didn't even need to go to the shops because Gordon took her to the supermarket every Saturday at precisely nine o'clock. Everything with Gordon was a 'precisely' Supper was at precisely six o'clock. Leaving for work was precisely at seven thirty and he was out every Tuesday evening for precisely three hours to attend his bowls club meeting. Sex took precisely five minutes from the first fumble to his, not hers, climax!

The babies came. Her home became more and more a prison. She didn't bother to shave her legs any more or apply lipstick. Gordon moaned about pretty much everything. The neighbours started to avoid him. Their parents died. Gordon was promoted. She was stuck. Her wings were clipped and she was unhappy.

Did she still love Gordon? If she did, it was hidden under the layers of resentment, boredom and regret and was in danger of being lost for ever. Did he still love her? She had no idea. The word love hadn’t been uttered between them for many years. She had a good idea that if she brought up the subject of love to him, he would tell her that love was for the young and to stop being sentimental.

Maggie and Gordon’s annual summer holiday was always spent in Cornwall and had been taken in the same week in July for most of their married life. They had missed one year only because Maggie had given birth to James a few weeks earlier than the anticipated due date. She had tried hard to get him to reconsider the dates of their holiday or give it a miss for one year but Gordon, being Gordon wasn’t having it and when they should have been travelling down the M5, Maggie was instead panting and puffing whilst pushing their son out into the world. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t had a third child. There was always the danger that a pregnancy could scupper best laid plans!

There was no swaying Gordon in considering going anywhere other than Cornwall. He had always spent his childhood holidays there and he really couldn’t see the point of going somewhere else that would probably turn out to be a huge disappointment and therefore a total waste of money. The one saving grace was that Gordon delegated the job of finding suitable accommodation for the week to Maggie. As long as their holiday home had a decent power shower, a well sprung armchair and wasn’t in close proximity to some awful holiday park full of noisy, irritating holiday makers he left the business of booking a holiday home to his wife. Maggie always chose well. If she was going to have to put up with a week of bird watching and exploring ancient monolithic sites ,she was jolly well going to stay somewhere a bit special. She always searched for a cottage that could have come out of the pages of Country Living magazine and had a pretty garden filled with flowers. Above all, it needed to be nothing like their detached 1970s house that she had fallen out of love with years ago. She couldn’t escape from Gordon but she could escape the drabness that was their home.

This year she had found the perfect house. Situated high up on a hill with fabulous views overlooking Mount’s Bay, Treave House stood alone on a quiet lane surrounded on three sides by an ancient granite wall. It was an imposing grey stoned building with a bay windows and a front door painted forest green and a canopied porch with filagree detailing. The house itself was beautiful but it was the garden that drew Maggie to choosing the property. Maggie loved the maidenhair ferns, bellflowers and Creeping Jenny that sprouted from between the stones and the Montbretia and its vibrant orange flowers that grew like weeds which sprawled over the edges of the old brick garden path. This garden was a far cry from their own which consisted of a well maintained lawn, a few shrubs, a pond and not much else. Here, nature had been allowed to take over and the garden was a riot of colour and a haven for wildlife. Bees and butterflies fluttered and buzzed amongst the lavender and buddleia. Dragonflies darted above a shaded pond, the water hidden under a blanket of water lilies. An old steamer chair stripped of its varnish from years of being exposed to the Cornish sun, mizzle and winds stood under the spreading branches of a magnolia tree in grass that hadn’t seen a lawn mower in a long time. Maggie had looked forward to warm, sunny afternoons spent relaxing in the shade of the tree, listening to the bird song and catching up with some reading.

Maggie took a sip of coffee and stared out at the pretty garden that they hadn't been able to use since arriving. The clouds were the colour of granite and hung low in the sky and were heavy with rain. She pulled her robe tighter around her and cupped her hands around her mug to keep them warm. It hadn’t really stopped raining since they passed Launceston on the A30 five days earlier and according to the BBC things were not going to improve for the rest of the week and to add insult to injury the wind was now picking up. Maggie was tempted to take a photo of her rain lashed view and post it on Instagram thinking that she might get a few sympathetic comments but her phone was by the kettle in the kitchen and she really couldn’t be bothered to get up and get it. It wouldn’t be so bad if the summer until now had been a washout, but it hadn’t and since May the thermometer in their Gloucester home had regularly hit the mid-seventies and the cloudless sky had been a constant shade of azure blue. Wasn’t this just so bloody typical and the story of her life. No doubt that as soon as they loaded their Volkswagen Touran in two days time to go home, the clouds would break and the sun would stick two fingers up at them!

“There’s no point in staring out of the window hoping that the rain will stop.” said a voice from behind that snapped Maggie out of her thoughts “According to the Met office it’s set for the day and there’s going to be quite a stiff breeze with gusts of up to twenty one. Look at it as a blessing,, we won’t have to put up with inconsiderate parking or queues for the lavatories. At the slightest sniff of rain the great British public tend to head for the sofa to watch some awful television programme featuring -cue his incredibly irritating inverted comma gesture- celebrities! I’ve finished in the bathroom so now is a good time to go and get yourself sorted whilst I make us a decent cup of coffee. By the way, and please don’t think me picky, but I noticed last night before I went to bed that the dishwasher hadn’t been unloaded. It’s just a little job that would have taken you just a minute or two to do whilst you were waiting for the kettle to boil. Can you do it before we eat so it’s empty for the breakfast things? I’d offer to do it but I need to look at the Ordnance Survey maps to plan a route after we’ve been to Land’s End.”

Inwardly Maggie seethed.

Fucking well empty the sodding dishwasher yourself

Gordon was already dressed for the day, wearing hiking trousers in beige with zips at knee level so that if the weather turned warm he could unzip them and convert the trousers into shorts., which he never did. Tucked into his trousers was a polo shirt, also beige. A tallish man with long legs and a slight paunch of a belly, his thinning sandy hair with flecks of grey was neatly combed with a parting to one side. He was a man whose face bore a permanent scowl and had deep lines etched across his forehead. On his feet, a pair of brown sensible slippers

She looked at the clock and saw that it was already ten o’clock. Gordon would be getting twitchy if they weren’t ready to leave the house by eleven o’clock at the latest and would start tapping on the work surface and jigging from foot to foot. He tried to make out that the jigging was a sign of impatience but she knew it was because he needed a trip to the lavatory. These days he always insisted that he went to the loo twice before leaving the house and she had become aware that he was now having to go to the bathroom several times a night. Maybe she would drop into a conversation that Sue from the post office had mentioned that her husband Steve had been to the doctors to see about his waterworks and the GP had been ever so gentle when he had stuck a finger up his bum. She could imagine Gordon’s reaction. It would be worth seeing him squirm. She’d had to put up with years of the indignity of being prodded and inspected in her intimate region so it was time he got some idea of what she had been through.

An hour later the ham and cheese sandwiches and tea filled Thermos flask were packed in the boot along with walking poles, binoculars, a guide to identifying British birds, a toilet roll, Ordnance Survey map number 102 covering Land’s End, Penzance and St Ives, Imodium tablets and spare socks. Maggie and Gordon were dressed in matching blue anoraks, as well as their beige walking trousers and sturdy leather walking boots. Maggie had tied her favourite chiffon scarf around her neck hoping that by doing so the pair of them didn’t quite look like a pair of matching bookends.

Why Gordon had insisted they go to Land’s End for the first time after all these years of visiting Cornwall was beyond her, but he’d read somewhere that you can sometimes spot Buff Breasted Sandpipers there so he’d pencilled the trip in for today on his holiday itinerary and despite Maggie dropping huge hints that he would get irritated with the commercialism of the famous landmark and having to fork out several pounds for the parking, nothing but a national state of emergency was going to alter his plans.

As predicted Gordon soon got on his high horse when he discovered that he had to pay to park at Land’s End and could not use his National Trust membership for free parking.

“When did it stop being National Trust?” Gordon mumbled as he fed coins into the parking meter.

“I don’t think it’s ever belonged to the National Trust Gordon. It’s privately owned so they can charge whatever they like”

“For goodness sake Maggie, why didn’t you tell me beforehand if you already knew that? I would have looked for a lay-by to park in and saved me the additional cost if I’d known beforehand. You need to get off that phone once in a while and contribute towards this holiday rather than leaving everything to me!”

Just shut up you stupid little man.

Maggie felt the familiar tightness in her chest that happened when Gordon started ranting in public. It didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest that all and sundry could hear him belittling his wife in public. Maggie wanted the ground to open up and swallow her in one big gulp; instead she walked almost at a trotting pace behind her husband as he stormed ahead in the general direction of the toilets.

Gordon’s mood hadn’t improved after discovering that he had to wait ages in line at the gents whilst a noisy group of teenage French school boys larked around and took selfies rather than waiting quietly in line and not hogging the cubicles. Meanwhile he was becoming more and more desperate to empty his bladder and no way was he going to use a urinal. Where was the person who was responsible for them? Shouldn’t they be supervised in toilets? He had a good mind to go and find whoever was in charge of them and give them a piece of his mind.

And so the day went from bad to worse. Gordon continued to moan about anything and everything. The tea was too weak. The tomatoes in the sandwiches had made them soggy, Maggie was dawdling. Maggie was taking too long in the ladies. Maggie wasn’t listening. Maggie was not looking in the direction he was pointing at.

Maggie knew that it was pointless trying to stand up for herself and retaliate. She just didn’t have the fight in her any more. Once upon a time she would have told her husband what a prize jerk he was and fought her corner, but years of feeling downtrodden and bored had squeezed out anything that remained of her old self. She felt tears of frustration and hopelessness pricking at her eyes. What she mustn’t do is let Gordon see that she was on the verge of crying, he couldn’t abide women crying, but fortunately he announced that he was going for a walk to see if he could spot the elusive bird and would meet her back at the car at 2.30 sharp.

It was a relief to have some time to herself, but the stifling feeling of anxiety was tightening ever tighter around her chest and she felt all the resentment towards her husband and frustration with herself about to explode from her in one enormous scream. She needed a little time away from the busy visitor centre, hotel and attractions and walked towards where the land tumbled down to the sea and where powerful waves crashed incessantly against the rocks. Suddenly a gust of wind caught hold of her flimsy scarf and all she could do was watch as it swirled and looped up into in the sky before returning to earth and getting snagged on the rocks far below. Maggie watched it struggle to get free. She felt like her scarf., trapped with no hope of freeing herself. With a sigh, she turned and walked back towards the car park.

She still had a few minutes to spare before returning to the car so she decided to sit on a bench and watch a small group gathered around a cyclist. It was obvious that from the banner that several of the group were holding that the cyclist was about to start on the long journey to John O’Groats. Photographs were being taken and there was a buzz of excitement. How wonderful to go on such an adventure and what stamina you would need to do it. Just think of the sense of achievement you would feel when you reached your goal. Maggie felt a pang of envy towards this man who was itching to get going. Here she was sitting on a bench dressed in a bargain basement anorak with greying hair and a chin that needed regular deforesting and holding a backpack holding a toilet roll and Imodium tablets waiting to join her curmudgeonly husband and continue her boring life.

She had got so engrossed watching the little group that she realised that she had lost all track of time. It was 2.35 and she was late. She imagined Gordon huffing and pacing next to their car and jabbing at his watch as she hurried towards him. As she made her way to the car park she noticed the bus waiting at the bus stop. She thought of the cyclist starting out on his adventure. Just him, his bike and the freedom of the road. Maggie bit her bottom lip and she looked towards the car park and a future of unhappiness and feeling unfulfilled with a man who was as miserable as she was. She looked back at the bus and did something she hadn’t done in years. She did something impulsive and boarded the bus.

“Where to?” asked the driver

Maggie smiled “As far as you go please. I’m on my way to John O’Groats.”

Chapter Two

Gordon’s irritation at his wife’s tardiness was plainly obvious as his fingers drummed at an alarming rate on the roof of their car. If there was one thing that he couldn’t abide above all of Maggie’s irksome bad habits and that was her poor time keeping. If he had stipulated meeting at a certain time then he expected her to be punctual. She may argue that a minute late here and there didn’t matter but if everyone had that attitude then quite frankly the country would go to pot. The trip to Land’s End had been a total disaster, what with extortionate parking fees, gangs of unruly French students and no sighting at all of the buff breasted sandpiper. Now to cap it all his wife was late. Was it any wonder he was in such a foul mood.

He tried calling her on her mobile but the stupid woman was ignoring his calls. He was busy tapping out a text just as a double decker bus rumbled by.

Maggie, where the hell are you and why aren’t you answering my calls? I’m ready to leave and suggest you return to the car pronto!

His text went unanswered and after much huffing and time checking Gordon decided that the best course of action was to go and search for his errant wife and so off he stomped with long, purposeful strides to retrieve Maggie and by god, she’d better have a decent explanation as to what it was that so important that it had stopped her from meeting him at the designated time!

He had been sure that he would find her in the gift shop looking at some tat or with her head in a book so was rather surprised when he discovered she wasn’t there. He couldn’t imagine that she would have paid to go in any of the attractions. Maybe she had wandered onto the coastal path and lost track of time. It wouldn’t be like her thought to wander too far off. She wasn’t one to enjoy a walk. He’d tried on many occasions to get her to go for a walk but she kept on moaning that he walked too fast and she couldn’t keep up. She even suggested once that they amble arm in arm which apparently other couples did all the time. Gordon really couldn’t see the point in that. A good brisk walk was great exercise and very beneficial for improving your cardiovascular fitness. Ambling had no such benefits!

When he couldn’t find her on the path and was beginning to think that they had just missed each other somehow and that he would find her waiting back at the car, something colourful on the rocks below caught his eye. He still had his bird watching binoculars strung around his neck so used them to get a better view. On closer inspection he discovered that the flimsy strip of fabric struggling to free itself was indeed the scarf Margaret had been wearing that day.

If the scarf was there, where then was his wife?

He could only conclude that she had slipped and fallen into the sea below. For a brief moment he felt his heart racing and his mouth dry as he experienced the fear of losing his Maggie forever, but Gordon quickly snapped back into his practical self and reached for his phone.

“Hello Coastguard, my name is Gordon Thornden. I’m on the coast path at Land’s End and I’d like to report that my wife has fallen into the sea.”

“No, I can’t see her, but I can see an item of clothing she was wearing on the rocks below the path.”

“I last saw her several hours ago.”

“I have no idea if anyone witnessed her falling”

“I understand. I’ll wait here then for you. I’m wearing a blue anorak.”

And with that he sat on nearby rock and waited for his wife to be rescued.

As Gordon sat waiting on his rock for his wife to be pulled out of the sea, the wife in question was staring out of the window of the bus winding its way down narrow country roads towards Penzance. She rested her cheek on the warm glass and felt a wave of tiredness wash over her. It made a change to not feel tense whilst travelling down roads that she knew well from all of their previous Cornish holidays. Gordon hated having to share roads with other vehicles. As far as he was concerned very few people knew how to drive well and he became easily impatient, especially with tractors and people in motorhomes. Many a time, much to Maggie’s embarrassment, Gordon had wound down his window and waved his fist at anyone who pissed him off. There was that awful time when she had sunk low in her seat after he had stopped the car and turned off the engine in the middle of the narrow road to Porthcurno when someone didn’t reverse into a passing place and let their car pass. She would never forget the traffic jam that their stand-off had created. Maggie offered to drive but Gordon believed that it was the man’s place to be behind the wheel whilst the women’s job was to look for road signs and spot parking spaces.

Maggie sat up and looked out of the window and watched the lush Cornish countryside pass by as the bus rumbled down the narrow lanes. She had found a seat on the top deck and could see beyond the high hedgerows and across the fields of cauliflowers or potato plants, every now again catching glimpses of the steel grey sea. It made a lovely change to enjoy the countryside rather than feel tense sat next to Gordon and willing the journey to be over. She wondered if she should get off at St Buryan, phone Gordon, apologise profusely and never hear the end of it, or should she be brave, be spontaneous and keep on going to the other end of the country? On the empty seat next to her was the rucksack carrying an empty sandwich box, Thermos flask, a toilet roll, Imodium and a bird spotting book as well as her purse and phone. She took a long look at it, felt tears prick at her eyes and suddenly felt very sad. Here she was at sixty carrying around toilet rolls and anti-diarrhoea tablets. What had happened to the girl who thought nothing of back packing alone from one Greek island to another, dancing barefoot on an empty dance floor, go on demonstrations, fight her corner, throw caution to the wind, laugh until her sides split, love with a passion so intense that it hurt every part of her?

What had become of her?

The bus trundled on its way to Penzance and much later when the bus had finished its last run for the day, the cleaners at the bus station found an abandoned rucksack stuffed under a seat.

Quite a crowd had gathered to watch the inshore lifeboat from search for a missing woman. People speculated how she managed to end up in the sea. Did a gust of wind take her or was she silly enough to try and retrieve the scarf that was now a soggy scrap lodged between the rocks? Maybe she had decided that life wasn’t worth living and had done herself in? The police had been called and were now taking details of the woman from her husband. Someone had kindly given him a cup of tea, no doubt well sugared to help with the shock. The poor man looked terribly pale but seemed to be jigging quite a bit like he was in need of the toilet. Funny how shock can affect you!

A couple walking back from Sennen were intrigued to find such a crowd on the path looking down at the sea below.

“What’s happening?” The woman asked the one of the crowd.

“A woman’s gone in the drink.” explained the onlooker “Reckon that’s her scarf down there. My bet is that she’ll be a goner. Probably floating half way to the Isles Of Scilly by now. That’s the husband over there talking to the police. Poor bugger. He won’t forget this holiday in a hurry!”

The couple looked down to the where the scarf lay and quickly made their way over to Gordon and the policeman.

“Excuse me officer but we were passing this way earlier today and saw the owner of the scarf on the path ahead of us. A gust of wind took her scarf and it landed on the rocks below.”

Gordon dropped the cup of tea “Tell me, did she climb down after it. She loved that scarf. It wouldn’t surprise me if she tried to retrieve it. She must have slipped on the rocks and fell in the sea. How do I tell our children that their poor mother has drowned?”

The couple looked puzzled “She hasn’t drowned, your wife turned around and walked back towards the car park.”

They thought it best not to mention the bit where they heard his wife shout Fuck you Gordon into the wind as she watched her scarf swirl away high into the sky.

The search was called off and the crowd dispersed somewhat disappointed that it was a false alarm. Maggie Thornden’s disappearance was still a mystery so the police asked to see the day’s CCTV recordings to see if they could throw any light on the missing woman’s movements. Gordon could identify her as the woman sitting on a bench obviously watching something. What puzzled Gordon was the footage of her getting on a bus.

Why on earth was Maggie getting on a bus in the first place, and where on earth could his wife be going?