Write-In 2019: 'Cake' by Annette Edwards-Hill

Lydia opens the front door, it stretches from the floor to the roof.  The floor is marbled, the same pattern Leah gets on her legs when they are cold.

Lydia takes her through another doorway and down the stairs, the carpet is soft under her feet.

 The room is large and white, there’s the biggest piano she has ever seen in the corner. It is gleaming and as black as night. Leah stares.

 Lydia notices and says “The grand, I don’t really have anywhere else to put it.” She waves her hand as if to dismiss the piano.

Lydia takes Leah to a café, they meet a friend of Lydia’s who offers Leah a piece of cake. Leah looks at Lydia. Lydia’s lips are painted pink. She smiles at Leah “isn’t that nice to be offered some cake,” she says.

Leah pulls the plate towards her “just a little piece,” says Lydia.

Lydia’s friend has asked her a question and Leah hears Lydia whisper “just the weekends, her grandmother usually takes care of her, there are problems.”

At home Lydia asks if Leah wants to sit in the TV room which is not the same room that they eat dinner. Leah thinks of the room at home with the kitchen and the couch. With her mother lying in the dark with the TV on, and when she comes home from school on a good day, her mother asking in a dry voice “hi, how was your day?”

Back in the bedroom, Leah runs her hand over the grand. They have a piano at school, a tall wooden box in the hall, the surface scratched and the keys yellow.

She touches the keys, one by one, black then white. There is a knock on the door, she lowers the lid.

Write-In 2019: 'The Reunion' by MA Stewart

‘What the fuck is tack?’

That’s the first thing Lena ever said to me. The second thing she said was sorry, after spilling cider and black on my new velvet jacket.  I told her it was ok, that they were both purple, and that I had no idea what tack was. Then we were friends.

And now here I am, the kind of woman telling Sally that she should go for the more expensive dishwasher, the one with the rack at the top so that the forks get properly clean. I own tea towels that cost £12 each. I have hand-carved salad tongs and a husband. I meant to only have one glass of wine but Sally ordered more and I’m on my third and Lena’s mouth has settled into a thin straight line.  I haven’t seen her in more than twenty years but I recognise the look.

Sally was one of the girls that talked about tack, the ones who all had very thick hair and made jokes in Latin and went skiing in the Easter holidays. It was Sally who was drunk that night and started playing opera in the common room and her and one of the other horsey girls started swooning about with scarves and Lena had pulled me aside and said ‘Let’s get the tack out of here’ and we’d left, kicked through the leaves to our shared house and sat on my single bed listening to Radiohead and drinking Sally’s wine out of mugs until our teeth were black and we were laughing and then Lena kissed me and we didn’t stop and then we never talked about it again.

And now she’s followed me, is standing very close while I wash my hands. This time, I kiss her.

Write-In 2019: 'Red Snappers on the Number 47' by Jennifer Cousins

I was next to him on the bus. He asked me where the fish market was.

I’m buying a box of red snappers and a kilo of hake, he said.

Oh, I said, that’s nice. What are snappers?

No idea, he said. I’m actually a painter and decorator.

And I’m a nurse, I said, but I’m not buying red snappers and a kilo of hake.

Well, this woman whose house I’m painting, wants the snappers for tonight and she’s laid up.

Lucky she’s got you then, I said.

I also paint properly – you know, and draw. I draw for my grandson.

He scrabbled in his pocket for a piece of paper and drew a passable representation of a fish.

But is this a red snapper? I asked.

Species unknown, he said. Could be a hake of course.

Not bad, I said.

I used to be a car mechanic, he said.

Oh, I said. What did you buy when you were a car mechanic?

Funny you should ask that, he said...