A brief introduction: I'm developing some character sketches for short story work, so will be posting several of these over the coming days/weeks. Really they're just experiments in creating (hopefully) believable and interesting characters in a relatively short section of prose, and seeing how they could be developed along with their suggested storyline. Your thoughts and comments are desired and welcome!
#1
Mrs Lesley Broomfield was
out watering her tomatoes as the grey silent dawn lifted out of the sea, and
stealthily crept over the shore. Its watery light sprinkled the dappled leaves
of the apple tree before daring to shed precious drops along the lawn, coming
to rest on Mrs Broomfield’s blue-clad shoulders. Her husband was still asleep,
she thought, deadheading a few roses with rough fingers.
Yes, he was asleep,
and that was comforting. She might take him coffee, might watch him for a
moment and trace the lines of youth yet found in his face, might remember a day
years ago and find a smile. And yet, she fretted, as she boiled the kettle,
perhaps she shouldn’t disturb him. She unscrewed the coffee jar.
By the time Lesley
Broomfield mounted the stairs, trepidatious, green mug in hand, the bed
upstairs was empty. She saw the smoothed cover, the dented pillow, the book’s
curled pages, the lampshade’s dust.
‘Will?’
Her voice was tentative,
strained. The wardrobe was open, the briefcase missing.
‘Will?’
She clasped the mug handle
tighter, fingered her cardigan button, stared into the empty bedroom. She would
have to live with her sister. ‘He had a will of his own,’ they would pun
cruelly at The Lion. The woman at the post office would stare when she went in.
She would be a nameless tragedy, wandering the streets in her blue anorak, no
one to carry her shopping for her.
The bathroom door creaked,
and a man in a towel tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Is that coffee for me?’
She handed it to him
wordlessly, received a mumbled thanks, gazed with silent relief at his
retreating figure. She wouldn’t move to the valley. She would stay here, and
still be Mrs Broomfield, watering tomatoes at dawn.
