You Are Here

by David Nicholls

Northumbrian beach

times where he might find a temporary peace of mind.

squelched gingerly

‘So do you want to carry on or—?’ ‘Turn back,’ shouted Anthony. ‘Obviously we’re turning back,’ said Cleo.

‘I’m staying with you,’ said Marnie, ‘if that’s okay.’

vile!’

‘Great. Great,’ he said, and felt his dream of solitude collapse.

‘The sooner we start,’ she said, ‘the sooner we finish. Let’s get it over with,’ which, he thought, was not the point of walking at all.

It was also wide enough to walk two abreast

clatter

‘So, weather aside,’ he said, ‘how is it so far?’ ‘Very nice,’ she said, but...

as just...

grizzly bears

(북미·러시아 일부 지역에 사는) 회색곰

‘The River Liza,’

She was wittering. Don’t witter.

‘Classic ribbon lake.’

‘It slips out sometimes. The geography. Like wind.’

petered out.

‘English, surely.’ ‘I was okay. Not great in exams. Just as I was getting the hang of it, it was over. Books were my TV, except I was really obsessed.

‘Country parks, you know, in the car, for ice-cream. We went outside but only so we could go to a different inside.’

retract.’

but there was a change in its intensity,

She was already soaked,

Still, she was determined to go on.

If she stayed, she’d only spend money.

fret

She wondered: did Conrad realise she was . . . well, not poor but not secure?

the cuffs of her winter coat were frayed,

Her old work pension promised an income of two pounds twenty a week, and she furiously resented belonging to a generation whose future security depended on their parents’ death, so that only orphans could afford a holiday.

All of these anxieties came garnished with rage,

trumped

retrieve the money

Circular anxieties, ancient regrets, there wasn’t a mountain in all England that could obscure them.

The sentence “Circular anxieties, ancient regrets, there wasn’t a mountain in all England that could obscure them.” means that the character’s worries and regrets are so persistent and deeply rooted that even something as massive and imposing as a mountain couldn’t hide or block them out. • “Circular anxieties” suggests repetitive, looping worries that go nowhere. • “Ancient regrets” points to old, long-held feelings of remorse. • And “there wasn’t a mountain in all England that could obscure them” is a poetic way of saying these thoughts are impossible to escape—no matter how far or high the character might go, they’re still mentally weighed down by them. It’s emphasizing how inescapable and overwhelming those inner burdens are.

how many decisions had been tilted the wrong way by this kind of calculation?

Too gloomy to think about.

firs

desolate

tra...

The rain stiffened again

mountains looming abruptly on every side, their peaks obscured by clouds.

She was a spider in a bathtub, with no way out.

a cul-d...

‘I’m afraid so.’

clamber.

scramble,

scramble 기어오르기

eaves,

At least she felt in safe hands.

Herne Hill

She fingered the sweet mush into her mouth.

‘I’ve thought about it and I don’t think I’ve ever in my whole life been this far away from another human being.’ ‘Well . . .’ ‘Except for you, of course,’