The road is long, and curves close to the shoreline, rather like a ribbon edging at the hem of a dress. On the left, if you are driving towards the house, there is little to see except an expanse of dry brush, a kind of exhausted vegetation, spindly and as brittle as kindling. To the right, the ocean drops away in an endless falling, plummeting eternally, containing nothing and everything, the sea bearing all our memories.
When Karen Ward’s son left for school at 9.37 this morning, she had already decided that by teatime he would be dead. In the hours in between she bought fish fingers – the expensive brand – and potatoes to make chips from scratch, because he liked hers better than the frozen crinkly ones you could buy in the supermarket. Then she climbed four flights of stairs to get to their flat, and she sat on the balcony amongst the pigeon shit, drinking milky tea and wishing she’d nailed up the wire mesh like she always threatened to.
He walks round the aisles of the supermarket nervously, like a caged animal unsettled by an oncoming storm. He grips the handles of the basket so tightly that it hurts after a while, and he swaps the basket from hand to hand, flexing his red lined fingers absent-mindedly. He picks up items, examining them minutely, and then puts them back again. None of them are what is needed, none of them are Right with a capital R. Pasta? Everybody cooks pasta. A joint of meat? What if she doesn’t like meat? It's too early to know what she likes and what she doesn’t. This is a fucking minefield. It all depends on the details, he murmurs, as he puts some soup back on the shelf, angrily – what kind of a starter is soup? This isn’t the fucking 70’s, he berates himself.
I could go out and enjoy the sunshine, thinks Rachel, but I am going to die.
Rachel has been thinking this for several months now, so it is bound to happen any minute. It had almost happened in Tesco, that day, several months ago, after work.
The sun is a baleful red eye that has been setting for the past 19 days. Only another 346 to go - 346 days of flying West as fast and hard as I can, merely to stand still. If the last two weeks is anything to go by, it’s not going to be easy, and it certainly isn’t going to be cheap. If he hadn’t been so generous, I wouldn’t be able to do this, but then, if I hadn’t been so generous, I wouldn’t need to.
Journalist Catriona Troth came along to our Twist & Turn night, reviewed it and interviewed Katy, Liam, Cliff and author/actor Carrie. See what she said in her article for WordsWithJam here.
BUY OUR AUTHORS' NEW BOOKS!
Longtime contributors Niall Boyce, Jonathan Pinnock & Richard Smyth all have books out which you'd be well advised to buy, then read, then buy for others. All genres are catered for, from novels (Niall's Veronica Britton) and short stories (Jonathan's Dot Dash) to nonfiction (Richard's Bumfodder)
KATY LIAR'S DEBUT NOVEL
Liar Katy Darby's debut novel, a Victorian drama called The Unpierced Heart (previously titled The Whores' Asylum) is now out in Penguin paperback. It's had nice reviews in The Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times & Metro (4*).
OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNEXE MAG!
They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here
