Welcome

Five, six, seven rings... eight, nine... I expected the voicemail greeting, but it wasn’t the usual cheery young woman’s voice welcoming me...

”Welcome to shitcreek voicemail.. and what the hell have you done with my paddle?”

‘Welcome to shitcreek!’ had been a standard greeting between me and Aidan. It started banter about paddles, brown fishes, clothes pegs on noses and general lavatorial humour. I couldn’t imagine anyone else, particularly rather prissy Jenny, being in on the joke. Despite all sense and logic, I was now convinced that Aidan was on the end of the line.

“I dumped it!” I answered.