Evans One Last Song

published in February 2024 to mark LGBT History month
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-912620-29-6
Verlag: Inkandescent
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 154 Seiten

When a gentleman called Joan lands up in a care home, Jim doesn't know what's hit him-everything about his new neighbour is triggering. And Joan is a colourful, combustible cocktail-ticking. Battle begins. May the best man win. But beneath antics and antique armour plating, what are both hiding? And maybe they just may be batting for the same team. An uproarious and uplifting romantic comedy about grey liberation. 'An enchanting romance - funny, touching and inspiring' - STEPHEN FRY 'It's very funny, very touching and has the absolute ring of truth about it. One can't but fall in love with these two more or less impossible people, as they fall in love with each other.' - SIMON CALLOW > 'A warm, joyful and ingenious tale of gay love from the UK's Armistead Maupin.' - JOELLE TAYLOR 'I adored this book. Touching. Heartwarming. Funny. Sad. Beautifully drawn characters I wanted to spend more time with...' - JONATHAN HARVEY 'When we forget our gay elders and the radical queer people who lived so we could fly, we forget ourselves. Nathan Evans has not just remembered these elder angels, he has painted them with humour, love, truth and glory. This is a gem of a novella with characters to cherish.' - ADAM ZMITH 'One Last Song is a beautiful, smouldering, hilarious and sparkling testament to queer intimacy and the revolutionary potency of queer creative activism. Every page filled my heart with Pride.' - DAN GLASS 'One Last Song is edgy, funny and moving. A heady mix that packs an emotional punch.' - PAUL MCVEIGH 'Touching, powerful, punchy, funny and sweet. An absolute delight.' - DAVID SHANNON 'One Last Song is a necessary love story, both profoundly moving and profoundly optimistic. It will almost inevitably infiltrate your heart.' - MARTIN SHERMAN Nathan says, 'The fight for gay rights began in the sixties; some of its original warriors are now in their seventies and eighties, facing new battles with infirmity and isolation. This story is for them. I first told it in screenplay: it attracted the attachment of Simon Callow and Richard Wilson, but insufficient investment. I then told it as stage play: it attracted Arts Council funding (and rave reviews) for a site-specific performance at the legendary RVT, for one-night-only. It's a story that's always needed a wider audience. A story that remains un(der)told. Queer love in the care home? Here it comes in novel form.'

Nathan Evans' fiction has been anthologized by Muswell Press (Queer Life, Queer Love) and published in Queerlings magazine. His poetry has been published by Dead Ink, Impossible Archetype and Manchester Metropolitan University. His collection, Threads, was long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize, his second collection CNUT is published by Inkandescent. He was long-listed for the 2020 Live Canon Poetry Competition and shortlisted for the Carlo Annoni Prize 2020. His work in theatre and film has been funded by Arts Council England, toured with the British Council, archived in the British Film Institute, broadcast on Channel 4 and presented at venues including Royal Festival Hall and Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Evans, Nathan

Leseproben

Search engine. It sounds like a machine with which one might survey a plot of land. Or send on an expedition for a lost kitten—something with a siren. When he’d heard the wailing that morning, he’d thought it was a fire engine. He’d lain there thinking something must be burning—I do hope it’s not my kitchen. And then they were there, standing over him in green uniforms. He couldn’t understand how they had got in. But as they stretchered him out the door, he saw her: the cleaner. She came on a Wednesday morning. She must have called them.

His mind has wandered off again without him; a knock at the door returns him to the book in hand. He will get on top of it soon. He marks his place, clamps it shut, squares scuffed edges to those of the bedside cabinet.

‘Come in!’

The man-in-uniform—whose name has again escaped Jim—breezes in with his usual smiles and usual pills. ‘Sorry I’m late. Been chatting to your new neighbour. He’s quite a character.’

Jim could think of other words to describe that creature. ‘So I can hear.’ All day he has been banging about next door as if to remind Jim of his presence. ‘The walls are so very thin here.’

‘You should see what he’s done to his room—really made himself at home.’ The man-in-uniform seems surprisingly taken. ‘Unlike some I might mention.’ He casts a glance to the suitcase by the door, ever-ready for Jim’s departure.

Jim takes his tablets from the man. He doesn’t like taking them, doesn’t need them, but has always found it best to keep one’s head down. Then they leave you alone. He cannot even remember what they’re meant to be for, as he swallows them, one by one; it takes a considerable volume of water and concentration. ‘Joan.’ Pausing for breath, Jim says the word as if he would prefer his teeth not to touch it. ‘Isn’t that what we’re meant to call him?’ He looks up to find his book no longer on the cabinet, but instead open in the man-in-uniform’s hand.

‘Who’s this?’ In his other hand, the man is holding up the bookmark; it is a photograph.

‘None of your business.’ Jim considers himself a private person. He does not like people going through his things. Which is perhaps why the internet has never appealed to him: he does not like the thought of being in the public domain.

The man-in-uniform rolls his eyes, returns mark to book, and book to cabinet again. ‘You know, I could always show you how to get online.’ As if to underline his technical credentials, he takes those things from his ears—what is it they call them—pods or something; Jim had thought them hearing aids when he’d first seen them. Then he’d heard the music, if that’s what one could call it. Contraptions in pocket, the man tilts his head towards one shoulder to indicate he is about to say something ironic. ‘If you ask me nicely, that is.’

Jim does not like asking for things: he was brought up to be self-sufficient. Why didn’t you ask? they always asked when he couldn’t find things in the office.

The fact that this young man has taken out his earphones can only signal there is more to follow. ‘Are you okay, Jim?’ And there it is: that question. With that look, like they pity him. Is it any wonder he avoids eye contact with everyone? Jim doesn’t need to look at the man-in-uniform—now perching on his bed, on its cheap shiny linen—to know he is doing that thing, that thing where they pretend to care about him.

‘I’m fine.’ Hoping that might put an end to it, he focusses on realigning the edges of his book to the cabinet.

‘It’s just a little bird tells me you’ve been a bad boy. Not left your room all day.’

Jim has a postgraduate qualification from one of the country’s most prestigious institutions; how dare this young man think he have any authority over him. ‘I didn’t feel like socialising.’ The thought of meeting that creature—with all those mincing affectations and unminced exclamations—had kept Jim in his room.

‘Oh, that’s a shame. Chairobics this morning.’

Jim can just imagine the horror—the mercilessly cheery instructor, that woman making a scene of herself, arms in the air.

‘And dinner was jerk chicken.’

Jim has never been one to give much away by facial expression but cannot now stop himself grimacing. He has nothing against world cuisine: he has always enjoyed sampling local delicacies, and some of his fondest gastronomic memories are from business trips to Japan. But the staff in this kitchen should be prosecuted for violating trade descriptions.

The man-in-uniform’s voice descends, from the childlike register he has been using into something altogether more commanding. ‘Perhaps we should up your dosage again.’

Jim’s hands stop fussing; he feels the clean lines of his mind are returning to view again, but whatever they were giving him when he first came in had made a pea soup of everything. Jim appreciates, above all, the sharpness in things: the cut of a suit, the slice of a lemon.

‘We’ll have to get the doctor in.’

Jim deigns, then, to look at him.

The edge in the man’s voice keeps on sharpening. ‘You don’t want us to get the doctor in?’

Jim has always understood how to play the game, dress the part, say the right thing. He says nothing, but his head is shaking.

‘We’ll see you for breakfast then.’

Jim’s head is nodding.

‘Good man.’ Sharpness sheathed again, the man-in-uniform gets up, gathers up pill cups. ‘You should try talking to Eileen.’

‘Eileen...?’

‘You know, the one whose nails I was painting yesterday afternoon.’

‘Right.’

‘I think she’s got a soft spot.’

Although Jim has long suspected this, he is quite unprepared for such a comic postscript and feels his face shows it.

‘Oh, come on. She’s not that bad looking. Decent pair. Still got all her own hair.’

The indignity of this description almost makes Jim feel sorry for the woman. ‘I don’t think it would be right to start a relationship.’

The man-in-uniform does not seem to recognise the closure in Jim’s voice. ‘And why is that?’

‘I... don’t think I shall be in this establishment long enough to sustain it.’

The man-in-uniform’s eyes rotate. ‘Right.’

‘Goodnight, then.’

‘Night.’ This time, the hint is taken and, door closed behind him, the man rattles off along the corridor, steering his trolley towards the Jamaican-Nigerian gentleman’s room next door.

How could they imagine Jim would be interested in that woman? His book must be as closed to them as the one on his nightstand. Jim does not attempt to open it again. In the morning. In the sitting room. It will be a welcome distraction from those lurid soft-furnishings.

Dust must now be blurring the hard lines of his own home furnishings. Unless the cleaner is still going in. Didn’t he set up a direct debit? He must check. When he gets his online banking up and running. He believes the book covers that in chapter six or seven.

He slips off his watch. Sets it beside the manual. Gold, simple, face somewhat small—it tells him it is early to sleep yet. But he will give it his best shot. He works through the bullet-points of his bedtime routine: one, remove dressing gown, leave hanging; two, remove teeth, leave soaking; three, remove glasses, leave where he can find them. This done, he climbs onto the plasticised mattress and prepares to climb the edifice of sleeplessness.

He must have slipped off, because they’re on a beach, possibly Scottish. He becomes aware that their paddling in the shallows is being sound-tracked by something which seems deeply inappropriate. What is that? He is sure he recognises it; its accent is more Spanish than Scottish. In trying to identify it, he rises into consciousness.

A woman warbles; an orchestra crashes through the wall. Sleep is now impossible. Jim lies, charging his fury like a battery. How dare that creature? Jim would never show such flagrant disrespect towards a neighbour, never leave his rubbish outside another’s door. He stares towards the sound a minute—as if the purity of his hatred alone might stop it—then reaches for the light switch, reaches for his stick, and raps the partition between their rooms with its rubber tip—so hard he leaves signatures on already pockmarked paintwork.

He waits for a dip in the music. But the music does not dip. Surely it cannot be so loud next door? Surely the creature must have heard? Jim can picture him just sat there, a smile upon those painted lips. He raps even harder this time and can barely believe it when the music matches this escalation, now so loud he cannot but recognise the tune. Carmen.

Jim does not enjoy asking for anything, but when he reaches for the...