RICCARTON JUNCTION - EXTRACT...

SB: Well, of course any professional writer would say he ‘made it all up’ but of course I didn’t. My wife is a JP, a Magistrate, formerly a Senior Social Worker and Marriage Guidance Counsellor and she also worked in a womens refuge for several years, so as a family, we are very interested in social issues.

BB: One of the interesting changes in the family's life after they've moved from London is the almost feudal relationship between Kiri's father and his employer, the local laird. Did you come across this older world form of relationship a lot?

SB: Sorry, no. I made it all up.

BB: Which Riccarton characters did you enjoy writing the most and why?

SB: Ainslie, Ainslie, Ainslie. Fabulous character. And Midori, which is the character I had to research the most. Lines like, ‘It only takes one cloud to blot out the sun’ come out of research, not my writerly gifts.

BB: The novel has a rich background of railway running right through it [no pun intended], not just the station in the title. Are you a train enthusiast?

SB: Not exactly; I am more of a Victorian enthusiast if you know what I mean. They were as strong, bold and committed to progress as say the Americans were in the early sixties with the space programme. Their constructions are very obvious in the Scottish Borders and North Pennines; disused railway stations and viaducts, cuttings and sidings that have never really been dismantled. Just left to neglect and the sheep.

BB: Growing up on the notorious Easterhouse Estate in Glasgow, what sort of childhood did you have?

SB: Don’t want to say too much about that. It’s too Pythonesque [You had a house! Luxury! We lived in a hole in the ground! E&c].

BB: You left school with two 'O' levels, neither of which were English [again telling you something you already know!]. Do you have any advice for potential novelist, particularly those whose sense of their ability has been deflated by their experiences?

SB: Well, I think the opposite is true. If you have lived a life, then you have experiences you can draw upon. The thing is, to live and gain experience, not of course with the intention of keeping a diary or thinking, ‘that might be useful if I write a book in twenty years time’, but to challenge yourself, use your talents and hone your skills [some of which you never knew you had], find resources you never knew you had and apply them. Pretty much the whole of Riccarton Junction is completely made up; never known a Kiri; never known a Chris; never known a Midori; never attended a country school; never driven a Forwarder; never set foot in a Young Offenders Institution. Never ridden a horse. But I have done lots of other things, met lots of different people from every kind of background, dealt with them, worked with them loved them hated some of them, got ripped off by some of them should never have trusted some of them, been helped immensely by others. They all become characters in the book for their qualities, not their personalities.

I actually find it difficult to comprehend how someone with a degree in English from a good university whose life experience is school then college, maybe a bit of travelling can say anything meaningful in a novel. Okay her father was cruel and abused both her and her mother and okay maybe there is a book in there but it is going to be thin gruel.

Advice for authors? Same advice I was given: read and absorb Solutions for Writers by Sol Stein. Keep it handy. I found it indispensable.

BB: Which authors inspire you?

SB: Inspire? Anyone that can keep on going after their fortieth rejection slip. Having said which, you don’t get rejection slips these days, you get ignored. Anyone who sweats blood and tears for two years to produce their best work, has it published and then the publisher more or less ignores it.

BB: What's next for Scott Beaven?

SB: I am completely one hundred percent committed to raising awareness of all my books; trying to get reviews; trying to get interest. I spend at least half of every day on this task. I do not have any time spare for writing new work.

BB: Thanks for chatting to us, Scott.

TRAIN THAT CARRIED THE GIRL - EXTRACT . . . .

I soon start to realise I am in couples hell. Everyone is with someone, mostly someone they are in love with. Evidently, Vegas isn’t for saddo single travellers like me. There was one other loose unattached girl; Flora from Windsor who was married and had kids, but her husband had agreed to stay behind and look after the children while she came out for what she kept insisting was, ‘the holiday of a lifetime’. Good on him, I thought. She was thirty-seven but with her boutique spray-tan and her cleavage, shown to flattering effect by a plunging, shrink-tight silver top, she could easily pass for a girl in her late twenties. Or late forties, depending on whether she had slept or not.


There seemed to be two ‘unattached’ men; actually I am struggling to express myself here because the reality was that I was the only genuinely unattached person in the group. The only one who didn’t have a wife or husband somewhere. One of them was truly one of the handsomest men I have ever laid eyes on. Extraordinarily striking. He was like a computer-generated model of ideal male beauty. He was kind of familiar. He wasn’t tall; five-ten, possibly, slim body, good jaw and a symmetrical face, mop of dark hair, with speckles of grey. He was dressed in a well-worn cream/custard yellow shirt with the sleeves tucked back; strong tanned arms. Flora was absolutely knocked sideways by him; me less so. He was good-looking but a little distant, aloof almost? Saturnine is the expression, he seldom spoke or smiled. The real great-looking guys, your Brads, your Becks, have a twinkle in their eyes, a mouth always on the edge of a slow smile. This guy was too severe.


The other one was a plonker, a braying git called Ivan. He was from Lincoln, married with children, but quite open about his intentions toward the women of Vegas. He wanted to sleep with as many as he could between now and one o’clock on Sunday. I suspect that under bright lights and mild interrogation, all the men in our party would have confessed to similar sentiments. If their wives hadn’t been there.


He and I were seated next to one another and Flora was placed down at the other end, next to her new paramour, Mr Severe. I was quietly amused by what the couriers had done. There were no queries, no questions, no tender ambiguities. They only have four days, they are here for a good time, let them get on with it.


On my other side was Rachel, from Evesham and across from her was her husband, James, who quite literally couldn’t take his eyes off me, to Rachel’s increasing embarrassment. ‘So that isn’t a Geordie accent, is it?’ she asked once we had introduced ourselves.


‘No, I moved up North when I was seventeen,’ I smiled, ‘long time ago.’


They had been to Las Vegas before. ‘The Venetian is nice,’ she said. ‘The shopping there is very, very nice. Pricey, but the quality is there.’


‘It isn’t that bad,’ James agreed. ‘I bought a new golf cart there last time and it is much better than anything I have seen in England, at over twice the price.’


‘You are on your own, aren’t you? If you want, I can go with you to the shops,’ she nodded across at James. ‘He is always looking for an opportunity to slope off.’


On an impulse, I said, ‘Do you play the slot machines?’


Our meal arrived. It looked delicious; chicken of some kind. We weren’t given a choice.


A voice next to me said, ‘The slots in Paris pay the best odds.’ It is Ivan; he too has been here before. Many times, it turns out.


He leans forward and speaks quietly and authoritatively. ‘I can show you where to go to get the best odds.’ James and Rachel are straining to hear what he is saying. ‘I have been here eight or nine times and have always won enough to pay for all my flights and hotels.’ He makes a face. ‘I normally stay at The Bellagio; wouldn’t usually be seen dead in a dump like this.’


I notice he hasn’t touched his chicken slop; it has a greasy skin on it already. Can’t say I fancy it much either. They have provided champagne, a beverage I avoid. I may drop to a ten by Sunday. ‘In England,’ he is saying, ‘by law, gambling is restricted to 3% profit margin. You may think you are pouring unlimited money into a slot machine or your horse always comes in last, but in reality, the pub or the bookmakers have to set the odds so that the punter wins 97% of the time. It is illegal to set them any higher.’


‘I never knew that,’ James says, his eyes widening.


‘It is the same whether it is horse-racing, roulette or the bingo, although I believe the National Lottery is a little lower. But here in Vegas, the odds are 99.5% in favour of the gambler. That’s why people flock here.’


I blink at these revelations. ‘Because they can win.’


He nods, ‘That’s why there are slots in the toilets,’ he continues, ‘it is quantity not quality. There are two thousand two hundred slots in this hotel alone; plus all the blackjack tables and so on …’


‘… why are there no clocks?’


He smiles conspiratorially, ‘So you can’t be distracted. That’s why you get these girls over there,’ he gestures with his eyes and I turn to see a pair of bikini-clad young women on roller skates amongst the aisles. ‘They are there to ply you with snack food and drink.’ He sits back and puts his napkin on the table, his food still untouched. Not a plonker, I am thinking now. ‘All for free,’ he adds by way of afterthought. He stands to go. ‘Coming?’ I shake my head; I don’t want either to be with him or spend any time gambling. ‘Another thing,’ he says. ‘Have you noticed there are no windows?’ I glance about; he is right. ‘So you can’t tell if it is day or night,’ he grinned.


All part of the larger beguilement.


‘I feel a bit like that myself,’ Rachel says, from behind me. ‘My body clock has gone completely haywire.’


Ivan moves away and one of the other men excuses himself and follows him.


‘What we did last time,’ Rachel is saying, ‘is we ate in Paris, they have the best food.’ Although she is self-evidently talking to me, she is looking across at James.


‘But the best breakfasts,’ he advises, ‘are at Bellagio, across the road from here. You have a choice of the most wonderful Swiss Muesli or eggs done any way …’


‘… or every way …’


‘… or every way you can possibly imagine.’


‘Don’t you have to be a guest at Paris, or Bellagio?’


He shakes his head vigorously. ‘No, no. They want you to play their slots, not ours. Are you not eating your chicken?’


I see he has consumed all of his; they both have. I push my plate towards him.


I tended to avoid people like these in my life, vanilla people. Sure of their opinions, certain of their status. In truth, it wasn’t just that my husband was so much older than I was that we rarely socialised; it was mixing with people like these, being judged.


I was wishing I hadn’t come. Shouldn’t have come. Mark should be here; we should be making love hot and naked upstairs in his room.


I wonder to myself what they would make of Aristotle. Aristotle taught the value of the Golden Mean; courage, for example, as the middle ground between rashness and cowardice; and generosity as the mean between selfishness and profligacy. I am not sure what his judgement would have been on eating greasy, mass-produced chicken in a windowless room without clocks, but his belief in living justly and wisely, involving respect and concern for others, would definitely have floundered here.


I don’t normally talk like this. It’s extraordinary that true beliefs have to hide themselves.


‘So why have you never married, Kikarin?’ James said, through a mouthful of the slop.


I gave a smile that was intended to warn him off. Usually it worked, but he glanced down at his plate at just the wrong moment and missed the nuance. He looked up, expecting an answer.


‘Maybe she’s married,’ Rachel said, taking a large swallow of her champagne. She leered back at me over her shoulder. ‘She’s probably just looking for a good time, eh?’


I tried a dismissive gesture, but it failed. I burst into tears.


‘Oh, darling, what did I say!’ she exclaimed.


‘… what’s her name again?’ I heard her whisper, ‘Kikie! I’m sorry, what did I say? I wasn’t insinuating …’


I was okay, really. I don’t get soggy; just didn’t see it coming. The other women crowded round, offering hankies and ‘there, there-ing’ at me. Flora came and crouched down and took my hand. ‘Shall I take you back to your room?’


I shook my head, ‘I’m alright. I can get back on my own. Walk will do me good, it’s just jet-lag.’ I blew my nose. I didn’t want to spoil her evening as well, especially if Mr Severe had been won round. I felt badly for having lost control, I didn’t think I was so vulnerable still to other people’s insensitivity. Mark, where are you? I need you here.


‘Somebody’s dog die?’ I heard one of the Americans say with vacant interest.


Mr Severe himself spoke; he was standing next to Flora with his chin on her shoulder. ‘I’ll walk you back to the Flamingo, Kikarin,’ he said slowly. ‘Will you stay here and wait for me?’ he asked Flora.


‘Don’t worry about me. Please,’ I said apologetically. ‘Honestly, it is ten minutes at the most to the Flamingo.’


People … my audience … were getting up to go; pushing their chairs back, making plans for the evening revels. Let me out of here. ‘Okay love, I’ll take Kikarin back to the Flamingo,’ he laughed, ‘then I’ll sprint back here for you. Why don’t you wait in the bar? Can’t take me more than …’ he hesitated, ‘… twenty-five minutes.’






‘DON’T KNOW ME, do ya?’ he said, when we finally reached the warm evening air.


‘Go on, tell me. I know we’ve met, but can’t think where. You gave the game away when you called me by my name. Are you an architect?’


He took my hand. I realise now, in retrospect, it was to prevent me from running away as fast as my legs could carry me. ‘Think back to when ya was fifteen, sixteen. You was at Hurlingham.’


‘Michael Oxley!’


‘That’s me.’ His hard mouth broke into a broad smile. ‘Still crazy about yer, Kikarin; and that amazin’ hair … you are even more gorgeous than you was then; wouldn’t have thought it possible.’


I drew my hand away as a shiver of recognition ran through me. ‘Sorry Michael, not interested. Go back to Flora. She is beguiled by your charms; I’m not.’


‘Not interested in that slag,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Couldn’t believe my eyes when you sat down at that table; how long has it been? Twenty years? You married that Lord bloke, didn’t ya?’


Remembered treachery.


We stood on the sidewalk, people pushing around us, enveloped by the heat and the desert aroma; the traffic, the neon; and the blue, green and yellow fountains shooting water in the air on the other side of the road. ‘Please Michael, leave me alone. I can get back by myself.’ How could he possibly think I would want to have anything to do with him? Resolute, I must be resolute. Like, this was a horrible mistake, nice to meet you again, bye.


I turned and walked toward the Flamingo. ‘It’s this way,’ he said from behind me. Yes, he was right, I was walking in the opposite direction. ‘I’ll get ya to the lobby,’ he murmured. ‘Give me your arm.’ He steered me through the throng of people; a couple of Harleys roared beside me and I jumped in the air. ‘What made ya cry back there?’


I shook my head. ‘That woman. She assumed I was trying to find a husband.’


‘Right. But you’ve got a husband?’


‘No, he died in June.’


He turned and looked to see where the traffic was. ‘It’s Green Man, Kikarin; quick!’ We hurried across the junction. I saw the lit-up sign for the Bellagio in front of me; so that’s where the wonderful breakfasts were served. ‘Was that the Lord? What did he die of?’


‘No, I divorced the Lord. His name was Ben, we had been married nearly ten years. He died in my arms.’


‘It’s just down here on the right, love. My son died, two years ago. Still can’t get over it. I think about him every day.’


He still held my arm, but it was becoming awkward to negotiate the crowded streets … where do all these people come from? … so I gave him my hand. Bustling elbowy people, I was glad he was there; I found the whole place rather threatening at night. Big, tough-looking men everywhere. It would be easy to be mistaken for a rental if I was just on my own.


‘We are here.’


‘Thanks,’ I said as the doors swished open in front of me; automatic on this side. Away from the clamour at last. I felt the blast of cold, air-conditioned air hit me. ‘What happened to your son?’


He half-shrugged and looked in the direction of the lifts. ‘Cycling accident. He was twelve. I’m in 2348, Kikarin, if you feel like talking?’


I thought for a moment. Surely he has changed, matured, moved on. Or maybe he hasn’t; he was vile and evil then. But he couldn’t have been kinder tonight. How strange to meet up with him here, now, a million miles from Putney. I nodded, ‘We can talk for a bit. But in my room.’


He didn’t say anything, but followed a couple of paces behind me. The elevators came in seconds and the doors parted with a metallic sigh. We went up to the 5th floor.


I made tea for us both which was okay; I had assumed that American tea would be dire, but they were English Twinings teabags. The milk was powdered, though. I was exhausted, suddenly this seemed a bad idea. He sat in the chair and I sat on my bed where I could make myself comfortable but be on my guard. It is hard for historians to remember that events now past were once in the future.


‘We only had the one,’ he began. ‘Matt; Mathew, his name was,’ he sipped the tea, ‘my wife is called Helen, Helen Reed was her maiden name. You wouldn’t know her, she came from up your way, Darlington. We met,’ he smiled, ‘fell in love and all that.’


‘Sorry, do you want the curtains closed?’


He sat up, ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ he stroked his mouth with the back of his hand, ‘It’s a crackin’ view; all the lights and everything. My room’s a bit manky.’


I reached over and turned the bedside light on. ‘So, what happened?’


After a minute, he said, ‘Got run over by a bus; by the school bus.’


‘That’s terrible.’


He sat with his elbows on the arms of the chair but with his hands tight around his chest, staring out the window at the lights, ‘Bike was all smashed and twisted; I think it was instantaneous,’ he mumbled in reluctant whispers.


I wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk or not. He had crossed his legs and was apparently concentrating now on what was happening outside, ‘How did you find out?’


‘Helen’s mother phoned,’ he was still speaking to the plate glass window, ‘I was in Bangkok still.’


‘And this was two years ago?’


He nodded. There was an air of stillness around him. No-one spoke for a long time, then he said, ‘So …? Your second husband; what did you say his name was?’


‘Ben. We were married almost ten years.’ I pulled my legs up under me.


He took a side-glance at me, ‘Was he in an accident?’


I waited before I spoke; wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. Was he being ‘nice’, letting me unload? Or were we comparing notes; was he going to come out with ‘time heals, I know how it feels’ or was he the one who was unloading? He seemed a bit forbidding; haunted eyes. Maybe it is hard for a man to talk like this. ‘He died of a heart attack. I think he had been ill for a long time and didn’t want to tell me; didn’t want me to worry or something.’ Didn’t want me to abandon him.


‘Was he a bit older than you?’


‘Hmmm. A bit.’


‘I miss Matt. Did I say that already? Sorry. I think I should go. Sorry, Kikarin, I’m tired and jetlagged and …’ he stood and looked straight at me, ‘… quite honestly, it is still too painful.’


I smile. ‘That’s okay. I’m glad we have reunited, as it were. It’s good to see you.’ I edged myself to the side of the bed. ‘Helen must be devastated.’


‘Torn in half.’ He pushed both hands into the back pockets of his jeans. ‘We broke up.’ He seemed unsure whether to say any more. His speech was spare, quiet, to the point. He whispered, ‘It is so sad, but grief can have that effect.’


‘Does she blame you?’


He nodded imperceptibly, ‘Says I should have been at home, not working abroad on the other side of the planet.’ He sniffed and his face seemed to harden, ‘I don’t think it can be saved,’ he looked over to the door, ‘the marriage, I mean.’


Our heartache poured into one another. He was like, like a Spanish guitar with its abject neck snapped in two, so utterly forlorn. I walked across to him in my bare feet and put my arms around his waist. ‘Maybe we could be friends again,’ I said softly.


‘This isn’t what ya need,’ he said. His cheeks were wet. ‘You don’t want to get tangled up with me.’


But what happens … and this is the thing I’m not sure about … when it comes to the point, when I try to think back to that night, when I try retrospectively to impose some meaning on what might or might not have happened, is I let him take my face in his hands. ‘It might be just what I need,’ I whisper.


If it had been down to him, I suspect we might never have left my room; left the bed actually. He was overwhelming; needy; insatiable but it was okay; I needed the release too. I finally sent him off to his own room to put on clean clothes; my clock said ten to ten … I hoped it was ten to ten in the morning. I wanted to have breakfast at Bellagio.

MY BOOKS

PARALLEL LINES

SYNOPSIS

Putting the past to rest.
 
This is the final instalment of Kiri’s tale. Now aged forty-one we find her working at the Courtauld Gallery in London guiding visitors around the exhibits, on her feet all day . . . sometimes seven days a week . . . but loving every minute of it.

She has moved to a house with a small garden in Fulham. There is a new man around, Graham a millionaire businessman looking for the love of his life.The trouble is at over 40, the bullshit detector is on High Alert and very efficient. She can spot a lie instantly, [though she wouldn’t mention it) and she has no time for the stuff men say to impress women. Really nothing can replace compatibility and a shared sense of humour. Forget telling me how many miles you did on your super-fast bike! Amiable chit-chat is fine.

But this is partly Graham’s story too; he sells cheap imports from China and we watch as he accumulates more and more wealth and money, at the expense of British and European jobs.
 
Meanwhile, her brother Keith is bidding to rule the world and fill his bank account by bringing the American economy to a standstill. Keith has found the nexus of the North American grain trade, and intends to choke it off.

REVIEWS

There are reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.


This is what book-blogger Megan Fitt said about it: 


Just to let you know, I have read Parallel Lines and thought it was absolutely brilliant! I couldn't put it down!
Thank you again for the opportunity provided in reading this. Well done for making such a brilliant book! I'm looking forward to your future releases and will definitely be reading Kiri's story prior to Parallel Lines! 

All the Best,
Megan

Beaven has truly surprised me with this book, at first I didn't think I was going to get on with it but I am so glad I persevered. The story gripped me and I couldn't put it down! Kiri really does have an interesting story to tell, and Beaven writes it in an incredibly way that keeps you wanting more!

For a self-published author, Beaven really has written a fantastic novel that gets you hooked and doesn't let you go - something that some of the more successful authors out there still haven't got the hang of!


This is what book-blogger Clare Diston said:

Scott Beaven's 'Parallel Lines' is a well-written, often surprising book that weaves together realism and action really well, and will certainly keep you gripped right to the final page.

Read the full review on my blog:
 
http://www.50ayear.com/2015/12/06/46-...

EXTRACT

Kiri

At this point Kiri has coped with everything that has been thrown at her, then this happens:



Kiki and Estelle bring in the food.

Christ, I am completely out of my depth here. Sadlers Wells, Italian opera, the BBC, Glyndebourne, books I have never read and never will, executive chefs. This is the top layer of English middle-class society. These are the people the Tate Modern was built for; the jeunesse doree dyed-in-the-wool season ticket holders of English institutions. But no, the talk at the table is of over-development; Kiki and her HS2 committee; over-fishing; the destruction of rain-forests for palm-oil production. It isn’t punditry in any sense, no-one gets up on a chair and declaims. Just quietly argued facts. They are even further to the left than me; and better informed.

They have a moral purpose even though they work by and large for bureaucracies, owners of capital and corporations, which always seem to me to be unconstrained by moral purpose. I continually struggle to accommodate that.

Lee catches my eye, whispers, ‘Not a jazz girl, are you by any chance?’ I smile and nod, his eyes widen. ‘Charlie? Miles?’ Another nod, ‘Charles Bradley is playing the Vortex on Sunday, want to come? I extended my stay so I could catch their set, he adds. Never heard of him either, God, I am so out of my comfort zone here: I have nothing to hold on to. These are the limitations of door-handle world; we go nowhere, do nothing, talk only about money and business. There is a parallel universe where people have intelligent conversation and visit galleries and know what is current in music and art. ‘And it’s Lizz Wright lunchtime Sunday at Cafe Oto’. Someone I have heard of. I am grinning, at last; Lizz Wright was Mark’s muse. We played her stuff all the time when we were travelling up and down the M1. Dear Mark, how I miss him. Yes, Lee Sunday. Let’s make it a date.

It’s like I took the wrong train, got off at the wrong station. On the parallel lines in the parallel universe, they have kids, families, well-paid jobs, friends who have gathered loosely to come round here for a meal on a Friday night and can talk knowledgeably about culture; reflect back not just their interests but who they are as people, smart, artistic, wise. No codified rules, more an ethos; an ethos of what it means to be British. Only thing I was ever interested in was Ritual Landscapes . . . the career I never had . . . the flower that never blossomed.

Home-time. The chauffeur is at the gate, Don and Kiki are in the hallway, she is just finishing a sentence with, ‘. . . I believe he lives in Bristol’, and then I overhear what I shouldn’t, ‘I knew I knew the name, Graham Robinson, Bristol Brass he calls himself. Yes, she would be just the sort of woman he would be with; obedient. Pretty mind. He sells imported Chinese hardware; single-handedly closing the Midlands manufacturing industry, factory by factory’.

‘I’m off now, thanks for a lovely evening’. And with my accustomed, self-deprecatory flutter, in front of everyone still getting into their coats, ’I’ll see you on Sunday, then’.

A rose is still a rose.

SUNDAY MORNING WE meet for a walk in Hyde Park then go on to Dalston. He’s flying back tonight so if we are going to make a connection, it’s going to have to be within the next couple of hours. No-one bothers us, joggers, horses gallop by but I find myself avoiding eye-contact with people. Being with Lee somehow accentuates my being Asian in a way it never does say with Graham or did when I was selling automatic doors. He is gentle, cultured and he listens. Asks. Not cross-examines, just, ‘and then what happened?’ And, ‘why did he say that?’ He considers each answer separately. Gets most of my life-story in twenty minutes and tells me his in half an hour. Then places we have been and jobs we have had and art that we like. Admits to being a good player himself; piano. Have you ever done sculpture or anything with your hands? Worked with clay? It won’t be controlled. Offers to give me some lessons. There seemed to be tension between you and Don? Yeah, we have never seen eye to eye; lives off my sister’s salary.

He is forty, one year younger than me and Kiki is two years younger.
 
Yes, he’s married.
 
We go on in to Cafe Oto. I have never heard of this place and yet he has booked tickets from six-thousand miles away. So hip it hurts. There are some strikingly beautiful women here; long necks. Long necks must be in this year. I remember not to speak while she is singing. She is thrilling. Very, very tight and loose at the same time; a poised, still-young skinny black girl in tight blue jeans with an amazing American band. God, who would want to talk over this? Thank you, Lee, thank you. She is actually doing a two-day residency and I am seriously tempted to return tomorrow.

He certainly knows his music; says there is a thriving jazz scene in Japan, mainly centred on Tokyo but Osaka has good clubs and gets many American stars. He saw Anthony Hamilton there in May. What a great day and what a great guy. Where have you been all my life? On the other side of the world. Is the marriage solid? Seems to be. I get the leftovers, businessmen who only want my company when they are in town.

He bends to kiss me goodbye; he will be back next month for a week, would love to meet up again.


So would I.

Buy it here

 

TRAIN THAT CARRIED THE GIRL

SYNOPSIS

This is the second novel about Kikarin. We meet her as she moves into adulthood, three years after leaving her home in the Borders,

Passionate and powerful, TRAIN THAT CARRIED THE GIRL, deals with the next twenty years or so of Kiri’s life. Still lovely and still trying to live ethically and play by the rules, she remains irreparably scarred by the events in RICCARTON JUNCTION. Her loving parents have returned to Tokyo and Keith has almost gone underground, even her Putney friends are scattered to far-flung colleges and jobs.

The book opens on the first page with her failing to achieve her honours degree which she will need if she is to become an archaeologist. She has to get a job and tries to find work first as an intern at the British Museum, then in modelling. She ends up selling industrial doors for the company next door to the modelling agency in Holborn. There she meets Mark Reeves, who will become a recurring presence in her life. Mark is bewitched by Kiri but he isn’t tall and he isn’t handsome and when the company is forced to close down, they lose touch.

Kiri follows her instincts back to the Borders where she re-unites with Chris Duncan, her lover from Riccarton Junction but things don’t quite work out. Ten years too late, she re-unites with Mark but he is married now, with a child. Then an old school friend, Michael Oxley, comes back into her life. Like Kiri he is carrying grief, in Michael’s case the recent death of his son.

She must make a choice.

A highly layered novel about the incomprehensible threads that connect our lives, TRAIN THAT CARRIED THE GIRL is a contemporary romantic thriller saturated with ideas and compassion, as it pounds to its chilling climax.

REVIEWS

‘Mystic, mythic, terrific . . . a Strindbergian study in self-torment.’- AMAZON reader

EXTRACT

The novel turns 360deg during the following scene:


 
VIRGIN ATLANTIC FLIGHT VS043 leaves at 11.20 at night and gets in at McCarran at twenty-past-two the following afternoon. So you can, if you want, try and dodge jet lag by sleeping by day and playing by night.
 
Obviously, I didn’t know anyone on the plane out. The Americans watched the films and ate about five main meals and the Brits slept. I have never been to the States before but was still shocked by the conspicuous consumption, even though I had seen it on TV every night of my life. I soon learned that no-one walked even a hundred metres and that every woman and I mean every woman young and old, had thighs like tree trunks. Slot machines in the toilets; what’s more, women were feeding coins into them. There must be a moral question about pandering to people’s addictions like that. Anxious attachment, I believe it is called, and you don’t get over it when there is a machine around every corner.


A cloudless blue sky. Palm trees lining the streets. The glare was bright and unsentimental here, lancing my eyelids. I was met by a driver who introduced himself as Cliff and he whizzed me into downtown surprisingly quickly and into the arrivals yard of the Flamingo Hotel. The punishing heat hit me when I stepped out and I practically ran for the wall of doors [not automatic, interestingly enough; why is that?]. My room was on the fifth floor, but there are 3,600 rooms so I kept a close eye on where I was at any given time, in case I got lost. Everyone in the Reeves Group package, all the telecoms people, were due to meet up at Bally’s wherever that was, for dinner and drinks at six then a show back here at the Flamingo. Six o’clock was two o’clock in the morning for us.
 
I showered, changed and then fell asleep while watching the giant television on the wall; I woke about five. I put on my thinnest, lightest dress which was in fact a mistake, everywhere was air-conditioned and I should have worn a skirt and top with maybe a light cardigan in my bag.
 
They were all English except for two American girls who were kind of couriers for Reeves. They were incredibly polite and attentive, to the point where they came across as almost docile but they couldn’t do enough for us and you never got the impression that it was because it was their jobs to be nice. I thought the telecoms people would all know each other but no, they were from all around the UK and although some had spoken to each other over the phone, or been to meetings ‘back in 2014’, I was every bit as unfamiliar as the next man [or woman]. There were fourteen of us, six women including me and eight men. From what I could gather they had self-selected themselves by coming top of company performance tables; most phones installed? Most Broadband customers recruited? Don’t know and never really found out.


Read more >>


Buy it here

RICCARTON JUNCTION

SYNOPSIS

When her dad, Nick is rushed to hospital with a smashed shoulder, he and Kikarin eavesdrop on a strange, muted conversation behind the curtains of the next bed. The patient . . . Lady Wilton . . . seems to have been saved from committing suicide by her daughter. What could have driven her into taking such desperate measures?
 
Her salvation quietly becomes an obsession for Nick.
 
This is the story of Kiri, a beautiful older-than-her-years English-Japanese teenager who moves with her family from Putney to the Scottish Borders when her father accepts a job as Forestry Manager. She is abruptly pulled out of her West London comfort zone to a world of no Broadband, no mobile phone signal and no friends.
 
Her beauty catches the attention of Chris, the landowner’s son as well as the unwelcome interest of his father and her dad’s boss, the Laird, Lord Roderick Duncan. When Lord Duncan offers to help with her research into ritual iron-age cultures she reluctantly agrees to meet him. But he lures and then traps her in the old waiting room of the disused station at Riccarton Junction. She succeeds in turning the tables on him and makes her escape home, only to discover her petty-criminal brother has arrived unexpectedly at the remote Border manse-house where they have set up home. Trailing in his wake is a procession of savage, sadistic criminal underworld types who cannot believe their good fortune when they discover he has a beautiful sister.
 
Over the course of the school year, as she struggles with simmering racism as well as her final exams, the novel weaves class, wealth and fate together in a tapestry in which Kiri and her family . . . ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances . . . fight to survive without any help from the police, weapons or guns.
 
Original, occasionally dark and sometimes disturbing the book is a slow-burning thriller as well as a compelling coming of age story.

EXTRACT

This is Chapter 1:


CHAPTER 1/prologue

I was in school when I heard that my Dad had been rushed to hospital in Melrose.

When I finally arrive at A&E I am shown into a long room, not a ward exactly, a large, bare, apparently windowless room with little of the paraphernalia of a ward; no oxygen bottles, for example. No notices; mirrors; washbasins; furniture. It is dimly lit with along the left-hand side, a row of bed spaces some of which are hidden behind heavy dark green curtains to give the patients privacy. The room is clean, fresh, well-ventilated; and empty.

I take a chair by the bed and almost immediately he is wheeled in and transferred across. He says he feels cold. They leave him lying on top of the coverlet, also dark green rather than underneath it. The efficient, competent nurse, who had met him at the door and accompanied him to the cubicle, stands by the side of the bed.

She takes his hand in hers and its warmth makes him realise just how cold he is. In the dim light it is difficult to say much about her; she seems about 40 and I think she has fair hair. Medium height; slim, an intelligent face. She has a local accent and asks him a few questions about his accident; how was his shoulder now? Could he show her the seat of the pain? Make a fist with your right hand if you can. Any other pain? I don’t see her taking any notes but she is crisp and professional, so she may do when she returns to her station. Then we are left alone.

Time passes. I remain quiet and still. He knows I am here.

I text Mum again but she still doesn’t reply.

All he can do is lie still, becoming colder and colder, staring at the ceiling and thinking. After a while, forty minutes maybe of freeform ruminations; thinking and dreading, fearing the worst, someone is wheeled in to the adjacent cubicle on a bed. Curtains are pulled shut around her. In the briefest second that Dad is able to turn his head to see whether it is a man or a woman, we can see a slim, auburn-haired woman probably around Dad’s own age, lying, like him, flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. Very soon afterwards, an extraordinarily attractive young girl, a little bit older than me, nineteen possibly twenty years of age . . . . with dark auburn hair . . . . surely her daughter . . . . . slides quietly through the drawn curtains and stands close by her side. We can’t see her clearly, the dark curtains ensure that she can’t be seen in full view but when she speaks, it is with a voice both troubled and in a strange sort of way, bullying.

‘Oh Mummy, Mummy,’ she whispers. ‘I thought you weren’t going to recover. You were so still.’ She is agitated and restless, ’I wonder how long we’ll have to wait,’ she mutters in an upper middle-class Morningside accent. Apparently addressing only herself, she continues, ‘I can’t stay in here all night. And neither can you. I thought you were over all that sleeping and dozing. You said you were still taking your pills. Are you still taking your pills? Did you take them tonight? Did you forget?’

She stumbles on in this vein for a few moments longer. Her mother . . . . . . I assume it is her mother . . . . . struggles, but not very hard, to answer her. A whispered, ‘No’ is as much as she can manage

‘Where is that nurse? Did she say she was going for a doctor. Not very warm in here is it? Glad I put my wool coat on. Are you cold? Shall I try and find you a blanket? Wonder if we’ll get a cup of tea.’

Her burbling, space-cadet vagueness only confirms that she is out on a limb. She is unused to being left to her own devices and definitely unused to the impersonal neglect of hospitals and institutions. Mute as she is, her Mum is still a source of comfort. She lowers her voice but we can’t make out what she is saying. I am sure she is unaware of the presence of a stranger just a meter away through the thickness of hospital curtain; whispering is simply an unconsidered but instinctive attempt at confidentiality.

We can’t hear the woman, the mother, at all. She seems drugged; her opaque responses such as they are come out slurred. She could have been inarticulate the way seriously ill people can be sometimes. Conserving words and strength for when it matters but my overall impression is of someone who has been woken up from a deep sleep.

The nurse reappears; she is accompanied by someone or several someones who remain outside the cubicle; they are very quiet. Relatives? Porters?

‘Do you know if Lady Wilton took her pills today?’ she asks quietly. Her voice is warm but blurred.

We are spellbound.

‘I’ve just been asking her, haven’t I Mummy?’

‘Did you see her actually taking them yourself?’

‘No. she has her routine; I think she takes them after meals . . . . ‘

‘. . . . . in the bathroom?’

‘Yes; she keeps them in the bathroom cabinet.’

‘So, she will have her breakfast, say, then go up to the bathroom . . . . ‘

‘Uh huh.’

‘And today was no different . . . ?’

Slightly capriciously she replies, ‘I think so Sister. I mean, I am not watching her every minute. Is that what’s happened; has she forgotten to take her pills?’

The nurse murmurs something I can’t quite hear but I think she is suggesting she go along to the waiting room and make herself a cup of coffee from the machine. Whatever it is she does say however the result is that the daughter is taken away by the porters, or relatives who have been silently waiting; her protests are confused rather than confrontational and we can hear her muttering to herself all the way to the door. The nurse returns to the cubicle and pulls the curtains tightly shut behind her.

Despite the agonising pain in his shoulder, Dad is mesmerised. Lady Wilton? Who can she be? Why is she here?

‘All right, love?’ The Sister says quietly.

We thought the woman had gone back to sleep but she answers. Her reply is almost inaudible but it sounds like a yes.

‘So what’s going on?’

She starts sobbing very softly.

The nurse lets her weep and then we hear her say kindly, ‘There, there.’ Still speaking in quiet, measured tones she says, ’your medication . . . . . . . ?’

Again, a barely audible reply but I think she says, ‘I have taken my pills.’

‘I know you have taken your pills, Lady Wilton. You took the lot, didn’t you?’

Another mumbled response; sounding as though she is contradicting her but it is so muffled and half-hearted, we cannot be certain. This is in the too-much-information category and suddenly, I feel deeply uncomfortable, eavesdropping on a conversation that is so private and painful.

Soon her breathing becomes deeper and I guess that she has fallen asleep.

Dad has berries, leaves, roots and flowers; silently, he resolves to find out more and help her if he can.

I stand over him and wrap the coverlet tightly around his wiry frame to stop him becoming even colder.

REVIEWS

3.5 out of 5 Books Laid Bare ****


This was a strange read, not in a bad way, more in the fact that it was unlike anything I have previously read.

Told from Kikarin’s point of view it was odd to be listening to the thoughts and events in the life of a teenage girl. After all they are a breed all to themselves at times.

Kikarin is different and that isn’t just because of her Japanese/British parentage, she was not what I anticipated.

She was as confident in her own skin in many ways, although sometimes I did end up shaking my head at her attitude, desperately trying to remember what it was like to have been a girl of her age.

I didn’t like her folks too much initially – although I will admit that by the time the story was finished I had slightly changed my opinion.

In the main I would say that I liked Kikarin, although she was deliciously complicated at times but she was an original.

I did like the way the author guided the story, the detail that was imparted and the depth of character that oozed from the page.

 
Buy it here

INTERVIEW

The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Scott Beaven


Ani enjoyed Scott Beaven's coming of age crime story about the temptations and troubles facing young people. She had quite a few questions for the author when he popped in to see us.

Bookbag: When you close your eyes and imagine your readers, what do you see?

Scott Beaven: An Architect. Could be male or female but educated, intelligent and willing to engage with something a little different.

BB: Kiri, your heroine in Riccarton Junction is half-Japanese. Her mixed parentage allows an examination of racism but is there any reason you chose Japanese in particular?

SB: Didn’t want black or Indian, or Mexican, would raise too many cultural issues that I did not want to include in the narrative. Mixed-race Japanese girls blend easily in London, less so in the Borders, so she would never have expected prejudice because she would not have much previous experience of it. Unlike say a mixed-race Pakistani girl, who would have already met a great deal of racial prejudice in London. This shock and disorientation is important because she never finds true friendship. Only Sacha, from back home in London is a genuine friend.

Ainslie is not her friend, as you will discover in the next book.

BB: Your writing has an authenticity about it; what sort of research did you do, especially for the shock-filled Young Offenders' Institute storyline?


Read more >>