Head for the Edge, Keep Walking - Softcover

Tough, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908885580 ISBN 13: 9781908885586

Verlag: Freight Books, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Jill Beech's nine-year relationship is over. She covers the sadness with madness, going dancing with her off-beat friends and attempting a series of hilariously bad internet dates. Then life is flipped on its head again by some shocking news. Adrift in her mid-thirties, no-one does lost quite like Jill. Wry, witty, resilient but bewildered, she is left asking, what does it take to stay sane in this life? And why does it look easier for everyone else? While her friends are preoccupied with pregnancy, Jill looks elsewhere for meaning. Will she find happiness with a kitten called Cyril? A job she can finally believe in? Or a charming ex-snowboard champion who wants to settle down? Events force Jill to head for the edge—will she fall headlong or turn things around and keep walking?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kate Tough is a writer and workshop tutor. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in anthologies and magazines. She holds a Scottish Emerging Writer Residency for 2014.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Head for the Edge, Keep Walking

By Kate Tough

Cargo Publishing

Copyright © 2014 Kate Tough
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-908885-58-6

CHAPTER 1

I step off the bus and stand there, planted; no part of me ready to go home. I watch the bus continue into the distance: start to pick up speed, stop to let someone off, start, stop. All that curbed potential.

A woman in joggy-bottoms walks by, supermarket bag on one arm and yoga mat rolled-up under the other. That's one way to spend your evening. But is it a life: a job, a hobby and dinner at nine o'clock at night?

My mind searches for things I could do at this time on a Tuesday. Sensing it might take a while, I move inside the bus-shelter to perch on the pole that passes for a bench. I scroll through my mobile looking for a companion; someone without children, or an early start, who could meet me for coffee. Names flow up the screen and the thought of holding another conversation wears me out. That woman's voice says things ... I don't know where she gets them from. Since the split, I've been out in public as her, yakking, or home alone as I don't know who, silent. What I really miss is being quiet in the company of another. I need to be quiet. I don't need to be alone. Nor do I need to foist this on anyone else.

I put my phone away and stare up the street.

* * *

I get up. I go to work.

I spend the whole day there.

* * *

Emerging from the underpass something cold and sudden hits my legs. I look down and my thighs are wet; soaked through. Brain whirring: supposed to walk home like this? Is it water? Is it piss? Was it deliberate? Are they laughing? More to come?

On the ground: tattered rubber.

Look left, right. Up.

A collection of boys at the wall, a camera-phone pointed at me. "Very funny you wee pricks! Is it not past your bedtime?"

I bring out my phone and raise it towards them. They scatter. One stays.

Look away. Look back.

He's about thirteen, in his customised school uniform of shortened, fattened tie, un-tucked shirt and no blazer, no jumper.

"C'mere and say that tae ma face," he goads. "C'mere and say it."

* * *

I get up. I go to work. I spend the whole day waiting for the words on my screen to make sense.

In the commuter broth of the carriage home, tears run in hot lines to my jaw and for a minute or so, I let them.

* * *

I don't even take off my coat. I beeline for the walk-in cupboard in the living room. Moving a portable heater to one side, I can access a large cardboard box to reach inside. Both blind hands are required to lift out a smaller box placed there in July; when I swore I'd never do this.

Cross-legged on the rug, my coat-seams cut into my armpits as I hold him.

My lungs remember air.

I slip-stop through the glossy stack: him alone, me and him, headshots, full-length, family groupings. Set against: landmarks and landscapes and sun-loungers and celebrations.

Today has been a subway train rumbling towards this point, now arrived – I have to hear his voice. Just for a moment. The sound of it. I need to. I must.

I can't.

I don't have his new number.

I know I don't. But maybe I do. I reach for my bag and rummage to retrieve the phone. As soon as it's in my hand I feel a little better. Like I've fulfilled at least part of the craving that clawed at me all afternoon, from below the place where I know who I am or what drives me. I click the contacts icon: A ... Angus. There he is. With his old number. The one he no longer uses because it's a UK mobile.

I hold the phone to my ear. I imagine it ringing and him answering. I feel sick and stupid f

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Freight Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1908885580
• ISBN 13: 9781908885586
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 364
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland