Authors Note
This story was written for the National Novel Writing Month 2011 in November of that year and was completed on November 29th 2011, although the editing took a little longer, hence the slight delay from finishing to publishing the book.
The setting for this story is a small town in the Midlands and is expressly designed to be around seventy short scenes aggregated into chapters. This should make it easy to read where the reading is stop-start (such as public transport or a busy office) but did make it harder to write so that the story flowed of sorts! Although there are some seriously heavy codes associated with the book, it is quite a light read and shouldn't offend too many people.
I would like to thank my wife for her understanding while writing all of my stories. Alas, as I choose to remain semi-anonymous I cannot name her but without her support I would not have got it finished. To her, I dedicate this work.
While I don't think this is my best ever work I had fun writing it and am happy with the final result, despite its clichΓ©s; I hope you have as much fun reading it.
This eBook, has been released to be freely downloaded and I would ask my readers to drop me a line and let me know what you think of the story; I cannot hope to improve as an author if the readers don't tell me where I succeeded and where I failed! I can happily accept criticism, but I do need feedback.
Kind regards,
John D
15th December 2011
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Chapter I
Joseph frowned when he came into his kitchen, "I wish you'd have breakfast in your own home," he grumbled causing his employee to look up from the borrowed newspaper.
"Yeah, and that means I would have to buy my own bananas," he replied with a smirk, peeling the yellow fruit and taking a big bite. "And anyway, no-one else eats them except me."
"I should bloody charge you. A pound a banana, every day for a year, it'll be close to two hundred and fifty." There was a teasing grin as the tall, well-built man picked up a box of cereal and looked for a clean bowl.
"Honestly, one banana," came the response. "Look at this article, people in the world starving to death and you are concerned about a single tiny banana." Joseph glanced at the article with a sneer and poured himself some cereal.
"Yes, but you are not starving to death, you are pilfering my bloody fruit."
"Ahhh, but I would be starving to death if I didn't pilfer your bloody fruit," he replied with a cheeky grin. "Think of it as charity." Joseph snorted, but before he could reply his daughter, and eldest child, Katerhine appeared in the doorway, dressed only in a flimsy nightie.
Katherine was a few years younger than Matthew, his star employee who lived nearby and who he gave a lift to work every day, and he nodded towards the young lady with a cursory nod. "Shouldn't you be dressed?" he asked and Katherine shook her head, her bosom-length dark brown hair becoming ruffled until she swept it back.
"No classes 'til ten," she replied and sat down at the table, grabbing the orange juice carton and squeezing the last few thimbles of juice into an empty cup, sighing dramatically and looking accusingly at her father.
Joseph scowled at his daughter, he did not believe that her erratic timetable encouraged her to work hard at her studies as she never appeared to be actually at school and she downed the orange juice oblivious to the frown. In his day, he would have to be at college every day all day!
Katherine leant across and put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and yawned loudly. "Tired?" Matthew asked, a smirk on his face and Katherine smiled and nodded.
"Was up until 1am playing on the ruddy PlayStation," Joseph thundered and Katherine scowled at him.
"I am nearly eighteen, I can stay up past your bedtime," she replied and caught the toast as it flicked her lightly browned bread into mid-air, buttering it and sitting down opposite Matthew. "I am not as old as you, I don't get tired as easily."
"Yes, nearly eighteen. You can do that when you are eighteen," came the response but Katherine wasn't listening.
"What's that?" Katherine asked and took the centre of the newspaper. "Oh my God, look at that dress," she shrieked and Matthew looked over see a pretty musician wearing a short, garish dress. "She is such a slut. I wouldn't be seen dead in that."
Matthew's glance fell off the bottom of the page to see the schoolgirl's cleavage down her nightie and he felt a twinge of guilty pleasure but couldn't tear his eyes away from the pert teenage bosom. "You can have that back," Katherine told him passing him the newspaper as she finished reading the article and set about furnishing her toast with jam, oblivious to where Matthew was looking. "Oh and Dad, tell Mum that I am going to Sam's afterwards so don't do dinner for me."
Joseph grunted and his eyes narrowed, he did not like his daughter's boyfriend any more than the young man in question liked his girlfriend's father. Joseph regarded Katherine's relationship with Sam as an unexplained mystery, failing to appreciate exactly what his smart and beautiful daughter saw in the downtrodden boy. Few people expected Sam to go to University, and it was touch and go whether he would finish his A-Levels, such was his lacklustre work ethic. As far as Joseph was concerned, he was destined to struggle through life just like his mother and elder brother, but there was something about him that his daughter just adored. Katherine was smart, beautiful and warm, and as far as the biased father was concerned, the mirror opposite of her partner, but nothing Joseph could say would make her change her mind.
"What time will you be home?" he asked coldly and Katherine got a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"I'm an adult," she whined. "I will be home before midnight."
Joseph spluttered. "You are not eighteen for another week. 10pm at the latest," he warned her and got an annoyed grunt in return. Katherine knew her father did not approve of Sam, he had made that perfectly clear, but she loved him, he was her first love and the man she had allowed to steal her innocence. "It is a school night," he used as an excuse.
"Dad, please," Katherine pleaded. Sam would be home alone until 11pm at the earliest and they had every intention of using the empty property for immoral purposes. "He only lives ten minutes away."
"Ten thirty," came the response. "And not a second later." Katherine barely accepted this as a compromise, and glared at her father.
They were still bickering across Matthew when Charlotte, Joseph's wife and Katherine's mother appeared in the doorway, dressed in a brand new exercise tracksuit with her arms folded. She didn't work: Joseph expressly forbade it, and instead she occupied herself with some volunteering work, housework and gym membership, something her husband moaned about paying for, but nevertheless very much enjoyed the toned body she had worked for. Charlotte was very good for her age, a mere 42 years old, but looked younger with her pert bosom and slim body.
"What's going on here?"
"Dad!" Katherine moaned. "He is being unresonable." Joseph groaned at the accusation and then summarised the argument, with Katherine dismayed to find her mother agreeing with the aforementioned dictated curfew. Joseph cuddled her as Katherine stormed off and she kissed him, his hands slipping up her tracksuit top.
"I can give you ten minutes," Matthew offered when Charlotte glanced over but she patted her husbands arms out of her clothing when she glanced over at the clock.
"You'll be late," she warned and detaching herself from her husband walked over to get herself a bowl of cereal, disappointing the amorous Joseph. Charlotte watched as Joseph left the room to get ready and sat down to talk to her husband's employee. She rarely knew or understood what happened at the company and the odd time she got to speak to Matthew without her husband listening, got to find out titbits of information that Joseph should really have told her β like the fact that there were some business meetings in London the following week and Joseph was planning on going with his co-director.
"It's up to Paul really," Matthew nervously said, repeating a conversation in the car the previous day. "It depends on whether he thinks they both need to go. I don't think they will want them both out of the office, I swear they think us workers are just work shy and lazy." Charlotte smiled at this, and they waited for the businessman to finish geting ready for work.
Charlotte waited for the door to close and the car to leave the drive and ran into the front room, loading up her laptop. She had been told of a great new site from her friend at the gym and unzipping her tracksuit jacket, typed in her login name and password.
"Clever Jackpot" loaded in a few seconds, a garish front page enticing visitors to open accounts and gamble and as Joseph's car drove away to earn money, Charlotte began to spend it.