Liars' League

Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy your Life by Niall Boyce

Read by Ray Newe

Dr Frank Blood wasn’t bothered when people made jokes about his name. After all, it gave his patients and their families something to laugh about, and in his line of work there weren’t too many laughs.

In fact, Dr Blood found that if a new acquaintance didn’t pick up on his name, it was a sure sign that they took things too seriously. This was the first thing he noted about the man standing in his office on the Euston Road one Friday morning in mid-April. The second thing he noted, as the man removed his coat, was that his visitor wore a black shirt and a smart white dog-collar.

The Door in the Wall by Sam Carter

Read by Danielle Fenemore

Mr. Bridge dint shave this morning. There’s dusty light comin through the classroom blinds an it makes his blond stubble glint as he sorts through our essays. Mine's on top. I lean over to see what Mr. Bridge has written an nudge Santos by mistake.

What you pushin me for, ho? yelps Santos. His voice is all high an disgusted, like he never been so insulted in his life.

I aint even touchin you, freak.

Rabbit’s Foot Ralph by M.L. Stedman

Read by Steve Wedd

I can see all the way to the Heads from up here. And way past the cliffs to where there’s just ocean – still just like it must have looked to Captain Cook. Then there’s the hundreds of little frilly bays all around Sydney Harbour. I read somewhere how much water there is in it. I can’t recall the exact figure now, but it was a lot, I remember that much. Fair made me whistle.

The Suitcase by Rosalind Stopps

Read by Carrie Cohen

It is everybody’s duty to be on the alert for terrorists and snipers in London these days, but as a senior assistant in a shoe shop in a large precinct, I am obviously used to living on the front line. Things are not necessarily what they seem, that’s the important thing to remember. You have to look behind the obvious for the extra something that might be lurking there, a bit like when you meet someone’s boyfriend or husband.

Alternative Navigations by Nichol Wilmor

Read by Paul Clarke

Leo’s godfather, Benoît, lives by himself in an apartment in the sixième.

— You know, Leo, he says. One should always marry a foreigner.

Leo smiles. He has heard this from Benoît before.

— Find a woman whose first language is not English. In my case, naturally, I mean French. This is the way to avoid misunderstandings.

Benoît speaks from experience. He has, successively, married a Greek, a Guatemalan and a Hungarian; until recently, he lived with a Texan. Their months together constituted an interlude of bliss, he says, and he and Mary-Beth barely understood one word the other said.