She rummages in a plastic shopping bag under the table, and pulls out something stiff and white. Lacy, like old-fashioned underwear. ‘It’s nearly finished,’ she says, holding it wide near her face, making a shape I can’t distinguish. ‘What is it Lou?’ Liz asks. ‘Frida’s undies?’ ‘One of her costumes, cara.’ Lou’s fake Mexican accent … Read more…
Writing
The Blind Astronomer
It was Aunt who taught me not just to look, but to really see. She taught me to look with an artist’s eye, and that’s what I’ve done in my work. I’ve seen the planets with an artist’s eye, charted their courses with a sense of the beauty their paths carve through space. Connecting memory, … Read more…
Surface Tension
The roads have changed, the houses of Helen’s childhood gone, and she is always shocked when she visits to come this way, to see the great walls of roadway where the little dark houses used to be. She turns the car into North Street, pointing straight at the sea. In ‘Surface Tension’, two long-ago lovers … Read more…
Trick the Light
At the western end of the bay, where the beach curved around, long shadows from Norfolk pines fell on the beach, formed strips of shade on the white sand. We fell in and out of darkness as we walked. ‘Trick the Light’, a chapter extracted from The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, appears … Read more…
Once Had Me
The car winds between steep fields that sweep down, green, to meet the road. The high sides of hills make corners you can’t see around. The sun’s out, but everything’s still soaking, the road steaming. Lucy presses the button and the window glass moves down, widens the gap, lets in damp fresh air. ‘Go right, … Read more…
Yargnits
They walk on the crunch of gravel and shells. There are voices from the marae, kids and grownups all outside and inside and the noise of them carrying on the still-warm night air. To the left of them is the sea, flat, like a lying down window. Dark like a window at bedtime, with only … Read more…