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In two places at once (an ode to books)
Reading was always a thing I did. Like eating three meals a day. Like break times or the last day of term when we’d all bring a game in and go outside for classes if it was sunny, on the grassy mound...
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You don’t know how lucky you are
My friend and I are standing awkwardly on the sidelines at a local writers’ night. We don’t feel like writers, or, at least, I don’t. It is hard to reconcile these evenings while the laptop sits...
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A book per year cures all
I have always liked dates and numbers. The flow of the year. The fast swing through autumn, hurtling towards Christmas. The slow rebound of January. My birthday. Longer days. The hum of spring-summer....
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Sam.
“They tried to resuscitate him, but he… well, he died,” I say. There’s no way of saying it lightly, and no way for it not to be a bombshell, but I somehow don’t care: if shocking a stranger is part of...
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Deuce
“Billygean, you remember Chris, don’t you?” MadFather says to me. He picks a can of coke up off the kitchen counter and hands it to me. I’m home for a Christmas party. I’ve already crept up to visit my...
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I have some big news
There are many unusual things about where I’m sitting right now. That my car is, just down the road, racking up charges at a rate only central London could justify. That nobody, really, knows exactly...
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28 on the 28th
“And how old will you be?” An aquaintance says to me. “28,” I say, grimacing as I race towards my thirties. “28 on the 28th!” “Oh, yeah,” I say, marvelling for a minute. “I’d forgotten.” An image...
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Panic! at the Dentist
“Are you alright?” The dentist says to me. “Er yes,” I say. “I just really don’t like the dentist. I don’t mean you – all dentists.” It’s the smell. The hospital smell. Today has been a while coming. I...
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The Dust
“So tell me who these people are,” Dad says to me. We are on one of our book walks. They began in November 2013, in the cold and the wet, slick leaves sticking to the underside of our trainers, and...
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I have a two-book deal with Penguin
I had often wondered where I would be when it happened for me. And, of course, I wasn’t where I expected. I would touch my desk and wonder if maybe I’d be sitting there at lunchtime, unknowingly about...
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Post-Traumatic Something
I click onto my emails and see the confirmation. I will be returning to the College of Law next week, to complete the very final piece of my mandatory professional qualifications. I had forgotten about...
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Subtext
I often think my legal career is better depicted not in the things I’ve learned or the late nights worked in the office or dashing to court at the last minute, a documents suitcase rattling on the...
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The double lives of Billygean
I get up early on Saturday and get the train to London by myself. I treat myself to a mocha on the train and feel the ridges in the cardboard cup as I stare out of the window at the city becoming...
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Summer boyfriend (shared outlook)
He has always felt like summer to me: the drip of condensation onto a picnic table, going to get a cardigan at 9:00pm at the beach, the imprint of warm toes on a car window in July. In the unwrapping...
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Celebrating the milestones not the destinations
“This is my book,” I say to MadFather. Forty-seven index cards are laid out on the bed, each representing one scene. “But it lacks pacing here, and I think these four scenes need to go, and this reveal...
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If I should think of love
2003 I am out playing pool with my friends from sixth form. We got pretty good at pool, that summer, though my skin was pale from drinking too much inside under the dim red lights and not outside in...
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Discharged
“So your CRP wasn’t raised – in fact it’s unusually low,” my immunologist says to me. He has small, neat features and wild eyebrows. “But that means you’re extremely unlikely to have a heart attack.”...
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A small scene of domesticity
“Or a Greek Island?” I say. MindReader leans on the doorframe, folding his freckly arms. “Or Italy, we haven’t been to lots of nice places there.” “Ooh, ooh, or the Cape Verde islands,” I say. I pick...
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All the world’s a stage
My doctor has always used the term remission, though he prefers ‘flare’ to ‘relapse’. I have been here once before, in an August years ago. I waited for that day for months. I went to London on my own...
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The blank page
Being a writer got me a sun tan. The break I took from writing after I finished my novel in Mexico. The meeting with my agent in the sun. This past weekend editing my manuscript in the garden during...
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