Last week I put up a small extract from my new novel The Death of Remembrance - since then I have been deluged by readers wanting more... well, just for you:
"His heart thudded against his chest in an alarming way,
causing nearly as much discomfort as the tight boots on his feet. He trudged
on.
‘We’re
nearly there, darling,’ her voice was clear - she was not in the least out of
breath. ‘Another ten minutes and we’ll get a seat and open the flask.’
‘I…’ his
breathing was very laboured, ‘I…’
‘Don’t try
to speak until we stop, my love, or you might not get there at all,’ she said
light-heartedly. ‘It’ll be worth it in the end - you’ll see.’ She bounded ahead
as he was forced to stop yet again and gulp down a lungful or two of cold air.
Half an
hour later he was beginning to feel just about normal. They were sitting atop a
grassy mound, which itself constituted the summit of Ben Saarnie, a modest hill
that overlooked Kinloch. The town lay before them like a miniature toy land;
traffic, buildings and people looking busy, yet somehow pointless at this
remove. He realised what a local he was becoming as he found himself able to
recognise some of the cars and vans, picturing their occupants. Never let it be said that Jim Daley was not
observant.
‘This was
the site of an iron-age fort.’ She was taking photographs with an expensive
digital reflex camera. ‘Strange to think that people, hundreds of years ago,
stood exactly here - breathing this air - just being alive. Don’t you think,
darling?’
At that
exact moment, all of his concentration was focused upon removing a Penguin chocolate biscuit from its most
recalcitrant packaging - his reward for the struggle up the hill. So, he
employed his habitual reply when he had not quite heard what had been said - something between a grunt and word, ambiguous
enough to be taken as the coherent answer of someone who was actually paying
attention. ‘Uhmm-uh.’
‘I think
I’ll get my tits out; it’s a really liberating feeling at this height – do you
fancy a quickie?’- she smiled as she watched his continued attempt to get at the
confectionery.
At last! He
had broken into the wrapper and thought he better reply before he set about the
contents. ‘Absolutely, Liz - aye whatever,’ he then devoured half of the
confection with one bite.
‘You’ve not
been listening again,’ she said, with I
told you so intonation.
‘Eh? - wha’
you shay?’ he spat out a few crumbs as he looked up at her, mouth full of
chocolate.
‘Nothing,
Jim,’ she laughed, putting the view-finder back to her eye. ‘Just you enjoy
some more empty calories.’
Suddenly
the biscuit tasted sour in his mouth. This little hike was part of the
‘fitness’ campaign that his wife had so generously devised for him. She
reckoned that with regular exercise combined with an excruciatingly austere
dietary regime, he would be able to lose at least four stones before the
spring. This was week three: and despite enormous blisters on his feet and a
gnawing hunger that never abated, he had managed to shed a paltry two pounds.
Undeterred,
his spouse had shrugged her shoulders at the most recent weigh-in on their
newly acquired bathroom scales, declaring that: ‘The first few pounds are
always the toughest to get rid of - after then - plain sailing.’
He wondered
how she was so sure of this, as in the many years he had known her she had
never put on as much as one ounce of weight and had never been on a diet in the
whole of her life. However, to please her, and to bask in the fleeting joy of
virtuousness, he continued to suffer the sore feet and the rumblings from his
large intestine. Yuletide beckoned though, with the prospect of calorific
indulgence combined with general slobbery, never mind the immersion in various
types of alcohol. He tried not to think about it.
The air was
cold and exhilarating as they trudged down the hill, Daley’s knees throbbing in
time to the rumble of his poorly nourished belly. There seemed to be a kind of blueness in the firmament, framing
everything in a light that could only be that of early winter. The still water
of the loch below appeared more viscous than the sea should be; the scene was
calm, cold and glorious. Daley hadn’t noticed all of this on the way up as he
had been concentrating on reaching the summit without expiring; he had to admit
though, his surroundings - even some parts of the experience of walking - were
stimulating. Was he beginning to fall into step with his wife’s pursuits at
last?
Well, one step at a time."*
* Extract from "The Death of Remembrance" , the sequel to "Whisky From Small Glasses" - to be published later this year.
BE IN IT FROM THE START!!
Don't miss the first book in the series:
Whisky From Small Glasses
As a Book on Amazon, online and from all good bookshops.
As an ebook on Kindle and Kobo.
Now all available worldwide via The Book Depository and others!
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