Extract from a novel Men hate condoms but can’t admit why. Usually our excuse is the extra pressure they bring into the room, that half a minute interval to cordon everything off before the moment deflates. Although in this respect we don’t help ourselves, the precursory ‘just a sec’ imposing the expectations, most of us […]
Archives for 2015
The Juniper Tree
Extract from a novel The lake was always a surprise. The edges were his. He could cut their shape into the ground with a knife, but the water made him stare. Grey-blue eyes sinking in to find something. For a while it was still. Mountains bowed deep into its bed. Hemp sat with him, mouth […]
(Touch)
Chapter one of a novel * Boom. The crash rattles the house, knocks flat all the ornaments on her television set, ripples through the carpet, shifts the curtains, makes even the air, for a moment, fizz. Her first thought is blank; before she realizes what’s happening she’s up at her window, cranking flat her blinds […]
São Paulo Riviera
Prologue Eduardo is tired. He’s been making dogs for ten hours. He leans out of the van, elbows on his serving hatch. The river is pink, rippling grey – the sun a red-rimmed shimmer beyond. The club behind is buzzing thickly. Everyone who was going home has gone home. The kids in there now won’t […]
The Attendant
Extract from a novel ‘Where’s your Mummy, Henry?’ Ellie asked. The boy must have been about four. He was a wretched thing – tears rolled down his hard-boiled face, which strained at the effort of vacuum sealing his mouth. He’d been standing in the main room at Russell House, fearfully peering into the smaller side […]
The Covenant of Blood
This is a section of a gothic novel that features two intertwined narratives: a contemporary narrative set in the South of England, and a nineteenth-century narrative set in North Yorkshire. Both are stories of greed, ambition and incest. Demi plié in first, spines pulled straight, an avenue of legs concertina into a grand-plié, right arms […]
The Flack
When the pix came out, my company went into crisis mode. That was my occupation – crisis PR – but the Boss got a special thrill by sending messages with the subject line CRISIS MODE before 4 a.m. I flipped open my laptop to assess the situation. Nudie pix. OK, right, we just needed to […]
Blue
The beginning of a short story A bar, late at night, in the depths of winter. All biting dreariness, all new vows smudged and turned bitter. Peasants, Producers, Queens, Barons, Bankers, Witches and Bitches, we sucked on rhubarb pickle sours and tipped Earl Grey whiskey martinis into our gullets. Snorted up fairy powder and blew […]
Bigger, Brighter Things
Novel extract Prologue Whoever designed my P.E. kit is a sadist: stiff, black shorts that ride up my thighs and a scratchy polo shirt that bobbles after each wash, and hisses with static as Mum shakes it free from the washing machine. The worst thing, though, is the colour. Amber, the egg-yolk yellow of flickering […]
The Taxonomy of Soy Sauce
Pig kidneys in a cider and mustard sauce Xiuying Zou ripped open the cellophane cover on a pack of British Pig Kidneys with her meat-and-poultry knife and transferred its contents onto a chopping board. Her knife sliced the kidneys into halves and diced the meat, gleaming with lard and droplets of moisture, into pieces that […]