Stories from various anthologies. 1 to 25 pages long.
- Strangers - 1st-person PoV Liz's 90 year-old mother Doris has died. They both found her father's death arrangements impersonal so they planned something else - Liz would drive her mother's body in the campervan to see her oldest/only friend Edna, then to the seaside near Blackpool where she had happy holidays, then to Grace, Liz's daughter (married to Haroon) living in London before a Cornish burial. During the tour we learn that her mother and her grandmother were fearless, but Liz (divorced from Steve) thinks she hasn't inherited it. Grace, tearful, seems closer to her father, taking career advice from him etc. Grace and Steve think her mother's lost it. Liz says it was her dead mother's wish. Then Liz drives to Cornwall. Patricia moved there 10 years before. Liz is nervous about meeting her having broken contact years before. They were close. Liz thinks back to when she discovered Steve's unfaithfulness, when she sought Patricia and was shocked to find she had a lover, Jasmine, who she eventually moved to Cornwall with. Patricia has found her a burial site. Liz spends the night in the campervan, then digs the grave from 6am. As it gets dark a man brings tools and lamps. He had buried his father. He leaves. She finishes digging. At dawn she wakes. At the end she kisses the corpse. "I begin to sing. But it's her voice that I hear - thick and glitchy, and always right beside me whenever I feel afraid.".
It works for me - moving without being too sentimental - though the Edna episode doesn't quite do enough. And maybe there could be more about Liz's fears about the future now that she only knows strangers. The ending is optimistic. - Cluster - Second-person. A mother of a 15 day old baby watches drug dealers and couples in the street blow. A man mends bikes in the night. There's a duck nest opposite. At the end the narrator says that the mother will see her mother in the street. She'll lift the baby up - "And if you never see her again, you'll have this - this moment of her trembling care".
It was in BBSS 2019, which surprises me a little. Even in this book I think there are better pieces. - Forever chemicals - In the 6th form Sylvie and Nathan have a steady relationship in Brighton. They often swim. When she goes away to study she tries to stay in touch but he cuts her off. She gets a job that requires her to travel often to inspect environmental sea damage. Back in Brighton, she chances upon Nathan in a pub. It's 15 years since they've seen each other. He has 2 kids. They swim again. He leaves her in the sea. She feels something beneath her - a plastic bag? "But couldn't it be something living, still? ... A shoal of mackerel - their bodies so exquisitely sensitive that a thousand fish move towards the deep as one."
- Animals at night - Ayesha (breastfeeding mother of 16 month Sofia, wife of Tom who grew up on a farm, who's still gigging most evenings) has organised a weekend stay in a cottage with uni friend Hanna (lawyer mother of 16 month Theo, wife of music journalist Piers) who she's not seen for 2 years. The place isn't child-friendly. Walking on a pavementless, busy road to a nature reserve there's a squashed hare with a skinless face. It dominates future discussion which freaks Hanna out. The nature reserve's a disappointment. Hanna thinks Ayesha still has post-natal mental issues, and tells her so. On the way back, Ayesha sees the hare twitch. She wants it put out of its agony. The others decide to leave it. A decade before, Hanna had jilted Tom. Ayesha had comforted him in the night. She's now rather addicted to comforting Sofia as she falls asleep. As the others have fun after the evening meal in the kitchen, she's with Sofia recalling the gore of childbirth, the hare. She slips out in the dark carrying Sofia, heading for the hare.
- Plausible objects - She goes to A&E after having an accident when having sex with Wardy for the first time, in house with a dangerous dog.
One page. I don't get it. - Tell me what you think - She drives to the cottage she bought 40 years ago, by the sea. She had childhood holidays and a honeymoon in this area. Her husband's (fairly recently?) dead, her son's in his twenties. "She has always loved coming up to this cottage ... And she had dreaded coming to cottage ... How she had loved those early years of mothering ... And also: those early years had been totally unbearable ... How she hates being newly alone like this ... and how she loves being newly alone". She tries to save a stranded "Daddy" jellyfish and fails. She saves the "smaller Mummy" one.
- Clean work - A single mother (an editor who tidies text) moves into a damp house with baby Lola, then struggles with slugs, fleas, and rats. Everyone (including father and uncle, who she's not seen for months), knows. 10% of the story is a flashback to when, in her old flat, the locksmith who repaired burglar damage told her he wanted to become a pest controller. Next year the rat returns. She dreams that her milk is somehow poisoning Lola.
- Transcendent inadequacies - Coral has piano lessons at Mr Scholes' house while her mother cleans it as payment. She's not good - Mr Scholes says so. Her mother, who does 3 jobs now that her husband left with aunty Tracy, says "We keep going, don't we?" when Coral tells her she wants to give up. Coral continues for 5 years, looking after her little, violent sister Molly. She realises that Mr Scholes even criticises good pupils. She thinks she should tell good pupils (and their mothers) that they're good. She realises that her mother is friendly with her old maths tutor. When they take Molly, 6, to her first piano lesson, Coral tells her to attack the notes. Molly thumps the keyboard. Mr Scholes protects his instrument. Molly's mother attacks Mr Scholes.
- Days clean - She sleeps with her hairdresser who she knew at school, while his wife's away. She won't do it again. He's done well for himself. At 15 she was a county-level runner. She still runs - it's one of the self-care items on her anti-anxiety list. She repeatedly reminds herself that she's been 289 days clean. She knows she's a cautionary tale in the village. She sees a cat bite its own tale off to escape.
I didn't much like the story. - The chrysalides - The first-person is asked by her daughter Nia "why are we alone?". The town is empty. Ah - Covid. From their flat she can see an old man opposite getting worse. She lives with Sam, though he only seems to provide (parental) advice. Her daughter is send dormant caterpillars through the post by her aunt - an educational toy. When they revive, Nia wants to touch them. She misses touch. So does the mother. The caterpillars become chrysalids which they transfer into a netted frame. The old man gets daily care and an oxygen mask. They release the butterflies. The old man dies. The mother has a talk with Nia about the circle of life.
- Lovebirds - Three weeks after moving in, Emile started acting strangely, no longer working. He buys a parrot which he keeps uncaged. It bites her. She lets it out. Emile agrees to get help. They imagine the parrot happy in gaudy Manchester.
2 pages. Doesn't work for me. - The mouth of vault - Manchester. She's about 22, starts going out with Matthew De'ath 32. He's reserved. After 6 months he drives her to Norfolk where he grew up. Roadkill, narrow roads. Nobody around, though it's a hot August. They've rented an isolated cottage. When he's disappointed that she doesn't respond to his opening up about his past, he gets up too quickly and cuts his head on a low door. She can't drive, there's no phone reception, and he dies.
The least good of the longer stories. - Intermittent visual disturbances - She's struggling. Over Xmas she stays with her struggling father, friend and cousin. They're struggling but have found survival strategies. Back home she studies Jan, Stevie and Nadia, none quite "normal" but they've each found a way to live.
3 pages. I don't like her short pieces. - Sour Hall - The first-person protagonist, Ashleigh (female, mid 30s), is with Georgina (George) who's inherited the family farm. They move in, buy a dairy herd, try to develop artisan produce. There's a mysterious banging in the dairy - a poltergeist in the old butter churn? There were rumours about one. A cow gives birth. We learn that when Ashleigh told her then boyfriend that she was leaving him for Georgina, he kicked her and she lost her baby. The butter churn contains the baby's spirit. Ashleigh runs away unable to cope. Georgina gets her back. The story ends with Ashleigh talking to the churn - "We've both seen you, and we know what it's like to live in darkness and in fear. You were there with me at your very beginning. And you'll be there with me until the end. You bloody, fragile clot. You bright little scrap of life".
The scenario is usually established early. Mothers are common. Men don't come out of it well. There's often a key theme with a related symbol that returns at the end. Changes in characters are usually represented by some event (which is why my descriptions above are rather long).
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