Best Served Cold

They may have looked pretty but the yellow suede pumps – bought especially for the trip – hid two sizeable blisters and enough dead skin cells to create a small artificial beach. Jenny was dying to slip them off but she suspected they would smell like a school locker room.

The Moroccan sun glared down, a burning copper penny in the sky. She closed her eyes, leaning back against the whitewashed wall, trying to ignore the unsettled stirrings of last night’s lamb.

When a shadow fell across her she sighed with relief.

It was short-lived. ‘Miss Williams! Are you going to find out where our tea is? It’s eleven o’clock!’

Jenny looked up into a fat, sweaty face that made her fingers twitch into a fist. ‘Certainly Mrs Walton-Clarke,’ she said, summoning a smile. ‘I’ll just see to it.’

As soon as they were in the car the shoes were coming off.

Rin Simpson

Rin Simpson is a Bristol-based freelance journalist and creative writer, and founder of The Steady Table writers’ group.