Death of a Macho Man by M C Beaton

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Why do they call fiction creative writing? What’s uncreative writing?

Death of a Nag by M. C. Beaton

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And then he heard barking from the beach. His heart gave a jolt. The barking sounded like Towser’s. He turned and ran towards the beach, stumbling over the dunes towards the sound of that joyful barking. He could make out the dim shape of a large mongrel running along by the edge of the curling waves. “Towser!” he shouted. And then there was nothing there, nothing at all but the waves curling in the moonlight, the hissing sand, and the empty beach. He walked slowly back, realizing he was so very tired, he must have been hallucinating. On the other hand, it would be comfortable to think that somewhere there was another world for dead pets where they were happy and that he had briefly had a glimpse of it.

Death of a Nag by M. C. Beaton

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Surely the whole village was there, she thought, startled, as she set off up the hill after him. Silent men and women stood around the grave Hamish had dug. The men were even wearing their "best" suits, the tight old-fashioned ones they took out of mothballs for weddings and funerals. She tried to find it ridiculous, that a whole village should turn out for the funeral of one mongrel, but there was something imposing in the scene. The ragged clouds flew overhead, whipping at the women’s scarves and skirts. The solemn faces seemed to belong to an older time.

She could see the minister at the edge of the grave in his black suit and dog collar. Surely he was not going to read the burial service. She joined the crowd around the grave but could not see anything because of the press of people and so she moved a little way up the hill and looked down on the scene. Hamish laid Towser in his tartan covering tenderly in the grave. Maggie thought it a waste of a good travelling-rug. He dropped some earth on the top.

The minister, Mr. Wellington, addressed the crowd. "I am sure our hearts go out to Hamish on the sad death of his pet. The dog has often been called man’s best friend, and Towser was a good example of this. May the Good Lord comfort you in your loss, Hamish. Let us pray." To Maggie’s acute embarrassment, the words of the Lord’s Prayer rose to the windy sky. When it was over, Hamish picked up a spade and shovelled earth onto the grave.

Mr. Wellington spoke again. "Mrs. Wellington and I have a dram for all of you at the manse. All are welcome." The villagers began to file off. Hamish leaned on his spade and stared down at the grave. Off they all went down the hill in a silent procession. Some instinct told Maggie it would be the wrong thing to stay behind and so she went after them. She turned back at the bottom of the hill. The tall figure of Hamish Macbeth was silhouetted against the windy sky.

"It’s only a dog," she told herself fiercely, but there was a sad dignity about the scene which caught at her throat. Hamish stood there for a long time. Bright images of Towser chased each other across his brain: lazy Towser sleeping on the end of his bed; Towser giving Priscilla a rapturous welcome and putting muddy paws on her skirt; Towser running across the heather after rabbits. At last he gave a bleak little sigh, and with the spade over his shoulder, walked back down the hill.

Death of a Nag by M. C. Beaton

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Then there was therapyspeak or psychobabble to cover a multitude of emotions. People said, for example, "I am chemically dependent on so-and-so, I am obsessed, I am emotionally dependent, I have been taken hostage." The old-fashioned words wouldn’t do anymore. To go down to the basement of one’s emotions, switch on the light, stare the monster in the face and say "I am in love" was not on, because that meant giving up control, that meant being vulnerable.

Death of a Nag by M. C. Beaton

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It all felt claustrophobic. He rose to go. “You’ll stay for a cup of tea,” she said. Naked loneliness suddenly looked out of her eyes. Of course she was lonely, Hamish thought, nasty old bat. But he sat down again. One day he might be old and nasty, too.

Death of a Charming Man by M. C. Beaton

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She opened the door of the staff common-room and a fog of cigarette smoke rolled out. They may dash the weed from your lips in New York and frown on you in London, but the north of Scotland is the last hope of the tobacco companies outside the Third World.

Death of a Nag by M. C. Beaton

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A murderer who planned things would have waited until a quieter time of the day, not marched in boldly in broad daylight, when anyone could have seen him or her. His thoughts began to wander. It could be a murderess rather than a murderer. Or was that not going to be used any more in these politically correct days? Would it soon become murderperson?

Death of a Nag by M. C. Beaton

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He found a comfortable hollow and settled down to read with Towser at his feet. It would not get really dark. A pearly twilight would settle down about one in the morning for about two hours. He read a tough-cop American detective story. The detective in it seemed to get results by punching confessions out of people, which gave Hamish a vicarious thrill as he thought of the scandal and miles of red tape that would descend on his head if he tried to do the same thing. The story ended satisfactorily with the detective incinerating the villains in a warehouse and getting a medal for bravery from the mayor in front of a cheering crowd on the steps of City Hall. America must be a marvellous country, thought Hamish wryly, if any of this was real. He imagined what would happen to him if he did the same thing. He would be hauled up before his superiors, who would want to know first of all why he had tackled the villains single-handed and not called for back-up, and why he had wrecked three police cars. Then he would be told that when he had finished writing all that out in triplicate, he would be interviewed by the gentlemen who owned the warehouse and their insurance company to explain why he had torched billions of dollars’ worth of stock.