Vandalism Chapter One

 

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Vandalism (Merlin Publishers 2015) is set in my home city, Glasgow, and it was published in Malta, the country where I’ve lived for nearly 10 years and which I now, and very easily, also call my home. The year after it was published, it was shortlisted for a National Book Prize and, at the same time, Vandalism went on sale in Waterstones Byres Rd Glasgow: the heart of the novel’s location and the place where I grew up. Last June, I was lucky enough to be invited to do an Author’s Evening there, a homecoming all of its own [Vandalism Goes Home: An Author’s Evening at Waterstones Byres Rd Glasgow] This year, Vandalism was made available on Amazon.

The story focuses on a young woman, Moira, whose best friend is dying of breast cancer when a man she once loved reappears in her life. Exploring the universal experiences of love, loss, betrayal and grief through the eyes of particular characters in a specific situation, Vandalism seems to tap into emotions which impact on us all.

Here’s a wee taste and I hope you enjoy the opening extract from the novel and that it inspires you to want to read more.

Vandalism
Chapter One

 

            Don’t come out till you’ve stopped laughing, were Ewan’s final words.

Don’t come out till you’ve stopped laughing, he said.

I never did stop laughing. But life went on anyway. It always does. The earth can swallow a thousand people in one go while the survivors manage to pick up their belongings and fill their stomachs with warm soup. My loss seemed insignificant in comparison.

It wasn’t as if we’d been in love for long. Seven weeks of looking into each other’s eyes and wishing we could defer the pain of what was to come. But the limited timespan of our romance was its making, not its undoing. No worries about growing grey and tetchy together. Contempt for the familiar was not an option.

The next time I sensed that same urgency was when my closest friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. Both twenty-eight, friends since school, such things didn’t happen to girls like us. We met up in the same bars, smoked the same cigarettes, shared endless complaints about the men who didn’t stick around and the ones we wished had not. Connie was older than me by a whole month and that month now lurked like a gaping hole within her absence.

She told me she’d found a lump.

It’s like a penny piece, it is, but without any hard bits… A penny piece without any edges, she said.

She found it when she was having a bath and was going to get it checked, the day after next. It was probably nothing. She was sure it was nothing. Och, nothing to worry about, she said. And when Connie didn’t phone to cancel, we met up the following Thursday as we always did.

Connie was already in the pub when I arrived. It had been raining and both of us had come out without our brollies. Connie was sitting on her own, staring firmly through the window. I knew as soon as I looked at her. I bloody knew.

They’re going to operate as soon as possible, she said.

And I sat down, mouth stupid and wide open, unable to offer anything that might come close to consolation.

After that, I found myself clinging to each moment that we met, each quiet pause when neither of us needed to say a word. Limitations place infinite significance on the everyday mundane. Perhaps all of life should be lived like that, I thought, remembering crying as a child because Christmas Day was over for another year. Never enjoying the present because of its ephemeral loneliness. And then love and death enter the equation, forcing things to be perceived in a wholly different light.

Our love affair was tightly packed. We crammed into a few short weeks what most lovers share across the years. Full speed and fast forward, sleep was an unwelcome interruption.

This might get dangerous, he said when we first kissed.

And I smiled, almost frightened, but hopeful that he might be right.

We met analysing Ford Madox Brown’s cattled view of Scotland. Fuelled by Furstenberg, Connie was at that party, too, but left before the debate got fully underway.

Highland fuckin cattle? cried one voice in disbelief. That’s Scotland, is it? I bet the stupid bastard had never been to the Drum.

Ahistorical rants are always a sure-fire winner when nobody can be bothered taking sides.

What are you talking about? asked someone else. Who the hell would want to paint the Drum? Would you not rather see a few daft cows?

I noticed him then, laughing at the disparity between Highland cattle and Drumchapel, a poxy housing scheme which seemed to provide the majority of chefs for the entire city, wee neds with checked trousers and mothers reminding them to go out there and get a job, son.

I noticed Ewan then. Eyes glanced, quick down. Laughing at the same jokes is no guarantee of eternity but you like to think it helps. We smiled briefly and then to check or verify, we caught each other’s gaze once more.

At certain moments, when I rummaged through those times again, I was left feeling ridiculous, naïve, used, things I’d never felt when it was happening. Still didn’t, even now, when hindsight should provide the best advice. But, no matter what anybody else might say, I’m not a complete fool.

Vandalism – available in bookshops across Malta, at Waterstones Byres Rd Glasgow, and on Amazon