A dark tale of childhood humiliation and revenge involving a pair of lemon yellow gloves. When Jenny discovers an old glove in a drawer at home, it brings disturbing memories - and an urge to make her mother understand in any way she can.

The story has been published in 'Radgepacket Volume 4' by Byker Books, an independent UK publisher based in Newcastle.

"We’re back again with yet more of our favourite renegades and radgies.... Radgepacket Four brings you over twenty tales of murder, mayhem and madness from the Inner Cities."
Byker Books

"Another fantasic hit with a whole bunch of stories not to be missed. Within these pages you will find gem after gem."
Sheila Quigley

The glove was right at the back of the drawer - dusty, crumpled, squashed under her mother's sewing box and half a lifetime's collection of handbags and belts. Jenny wouldn't even have found it if she hadn't been hunting high and low for her mother's heart pills, which the old dear had stashed away somewhere 'safe'. She recognised it the minute her hands touched the leather, though, and brought it out between two fingers with an odd little shudder.

For a single glove, it was a potent reminder. A symbol of her childhood and everything that had been wrong with it. It was faded now and the finger pads were grubby where a child's hands had touched things they shouldn't while wearing the gloves. Magazine print, perhaps, or a sticky bag of sweets, or the moss that grew in soft green cushions on top of the garden wall. Below the stains, though, and inside the cuffs where the leather hadn't seen the light of day, you could still see the colour it had been. A pale, pretty lemon yellow - the colour of primroses, or kitchen units from the 1950s, before Jenny was born. Her grandmother had had a kitchen that colour when Jenny was very small.

"Quickly, dear," - a wavering croak, and she could hear her mother's breathing, harsh and laboured, from the room next door.

"In a minute, I can't find them," she called back, thrusting the glove away again and banging drawers open and closed at random. "Where did you say you'd put them?"

"...back of the drawer," came the wheezy reply. Was it just her imagination or was her mother's voice fading the way the yellow leather had faded over the years? It had been crystal-bright originally, with clear diction and the Received Pronunciation beloved of everyone of a certain age and class. Now it was hoarse and the words were slightly slurred, the product of last year's minor stroke. Jenny still found it odd not hearing the strident tones that had formed such a cut-glass counterpoint to her childhood years.

'Keeping up one's standards': that had been a favourite; along with 'doing things properly' and 'what will the neighbours think'. Meaningless platitudes, most of them, designed to deflate argument and crush teenage rebellion in its tracks. Jenny had only to hear the words 'Now, dear, we must all keep our standards up,' and her resolve would fade, no matter how much she wanted to resist. It was impossible to argue with something so woolly and vague.

"I know that, but which one?" she called back. There were three chests of drawers and two cupboards in the guest bedroom - it would take her hours to search each and every one. Time her mother probably didn't have. There was no reply; she would have to do this on her own, and do it fast.

Her mind went back to the gloves, even as she rattled handles and slammed cupboard doors. When was the last time she'd worn them, the last time she'd succumbed to the insidious drip of her mother's voice? Cousin Jack's wedding? A holiday somewhere? No. A hot flush of shame flooded her limbs, even now, nearly thirty years later, as she recalled the time and place...

© 2010 Fiona Glass