Greengrass / Hall / McGregor Reverse Engineering

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7398301-1-3
Verlag: Scratch Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

Seven of the best recent short stories, disassembled by their authors. An innovative anthology revealing the inspiration, the ideals and the work involved in a great short story. Reverse Engineering brings together contemporary classic stories with their authors' discussions of how they were written.

Jon McGregor is an award-winning author and short story writer. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize for three of his novels, including his 2002 debut If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which also went on to win the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award. So Many Ways to Begin followed in 2006. His third novel, Even the Dogs (2010), earned McGregor the International Dublin Literary Award in 2012, whilst his 2017 work Reservoir 13 scooped up the Costa Book Award.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Greengrass, Jessie

Hall, Sarah

McGregor, Jon

Okojie, Irenosen

O'Neill, Joseph

Power, Chris

Sohail, Mahreen

S, Mahreen

Leseproben

The Crossing

by Chris Power

Descending from Hawkridge, Ann and Jim came to the River Barle and what was marked on their map as a ford. The path ran to the water’s edge and continued on the opposite bank some way downstream. The river wasn’t more than thirty feet wide at this point, and the tea-coloured water didn’t look deep, but it was impossible to go straight across and climb the opposite bank: a split-rail fence ran close to the water, with a barrier of alders and sedge crowded behind it. They needed to wade downstream to the continuation of the path. The river was moving rapidly, noisily sloshing over the jumbled rocks of its bed. Jim pointed out they were carrying everything they had brought with them for four days’ hiking, and they didn’t want to risk getting it soaked, did they? It was late September, and the first chill of autumn veined the air.

Ann was warmed now by a day’s walking, but she remembered how frigid it had been when they left Dulverton early that morning. They woke before dawn, clutching each other tightly in the warm centre of the bed. The storage heater they fiddled with the previous evening had proved utterly ineffective: everything beyond their bodies lay frozen. They had only met a few weeks before, and Ann giggled nervously when she slipped out of bed and trotted, naked in the blue half-light, to the bathroom. She had lifted her feet exaggeratedly high and yelped at the floor’s scathing coldness.

‘We can go around,’ she said, reading the map, ‘but it’s all the way back to that farmhouse.’

‘Where those dogs were?’

She nodded.

‘Miles back,’ Jim said. He started taking off his boots. ‘I’ll go in without my pack first. See how slippery it is.’ He stepped into the water, arms held out for balance. He sucked air through clenched teeth. ‘Freezing,’ he said.

Ann watched the river water wrinkle at his ankles, then his shins, then his knees. It darkened the folds of his trousers and pushed up to his thighs. He slipped, but recovered his balance.

‘I’m all right, I’m all right,’ he said hurriedly. He sounded irritated, Ann thought. She watched him stop to survey.

‘Looks like it gets deeper ahead,’ he said, turning; then he reeled backwards. His arms thrashed and his hands grasped the air as he went over. His hand found a rock in the water and he froze in position, one side of his torso submerged.

‘Oh!’ Ann cried.

Still frozen in place, he looked back at her. His eyes were wide with surprise. His position made Ann think of a breakdancer mid-move, and she smiled.

‘What’s funny?’ he said.

She laughed, thinking he wasn’t serious.

‘Your wounded pride.’

Back on the riverbank Jim took off his fleece and T-shirt and wrung them out.

Ann watched as he jumped up and down to warm himself, admiring the bullish curve of his chest. ‘I still think we can make it,’ he said. ‘Just need to be careful.’

She eyed the water dubiously. ‘You said it gets deeper. I’ll be in up to my waist at least.’

Rolling a cigarette, Jim shrugged agreement. He looked past her, back up the hill. ‘Maybe the cavalry’s arrived,’ he said.

Ann turned and saw a man and a woman wearing matching red fleeces and black canvas trousers moving fast, their walking poles striking the ground with every step.

They were called John and Christine, and Ann guessed they were around fifty. They had the ruddy look of people who spent every weekend exposed to the elements. Jim explained about the map and the ford.

‘Maps,’ John said, with happy derision.

‘We’re not sure about it,’ Ann said. ‘Don’t want our stuff getting drenched.’ She felt this was too flimsy a reason for people like Christine and John, and was irritated that she had been the one to voice Jim’s concern.

‘What do you think?’ Christine said to John.

‘I’m not going back up that hill,’ he said, grinning. ‘No chance.’

‘Well,’ Christine said, looking between Ann and Jim, ‘shall we all go together?’

‘Yes!’ Ann said with enthusiasm, masking the disappointment she felt that they wouldn’t be crossing the river alone: it would be a lesser achievement now. She reached for Jim’s arm. ‘Will you be all right? Your pack’s much heavier than mine.’

‘Course I will,’ said Jim, moving his arm away from her and adjusting the straps of his backpack, his eyes fixed on the ground. He jogged his pack up and down on his shoulders to straighten it.

They bagged their shoes and socks and rolled up their trouser legs. The mud of the riverbank was burningly cold against Ann’s feet. Christine and John went in, ploughing through the water at speed. Jim stepped into the water carefully. When he was about halfway across Ann followed him, the first shock of the cold leaving her frozen in place.

The water’s flow wasn’t strong enough to tug, but some of the stones on the riverbed were sharp, and others slick with moss. Ann felt her feet slide a little beneath her. It was like walking on seaweed. She waited as Jim tested his footing. ‘Bit tricky here,’ he muttered over his shoulder.

‘Move a little faster if you can, Jim,’ she said. ‘It’ll be harder when your feet get numb.’ She looked up at the grey sky. A bird call, a series of digital-sounding beeps, travelled over the water and received a reply from the opposite bank.

Up ahead, she saw Christine passing one of her poles back to Jim. John was on the far bank, fifteen feet down stream. ‘You want this?’ he called, holding a pole in the air.

‘Yes please!’ Ann said. John launched it into the air. To catch it she had to lean over so far that she almost fell. She yanked her body upright, willing herself to stay standing. Jim laughed; John and Christine clapped.

‘Nice catch,’ Jim said. Pleased with herself, Ann pumped the air with the pole. Now the crossing was simple. Beyond the river, in a field of close-cropped pasture, Ann and Jim took off their packs and sat on grass that seemed to radiate heat after the coldness of the water.

‘Where are you guys headed?’ Jim asked.

‘Nepal,’ John and Christine said, almost in unison. ‘In a few weeks, that is,’ John said. ‘Just Winsford for now.’

‘We’re getting our walking legs into shape,’ Christine said.

‘Nepal, fantastic!’ said Ann. She thought of how they had plunged into the water and saw them dropping, in matching outfits, into a crevasse.

The two couples set off in opposite directions. ‘Make sure you take those poles with you,’ Jim called after them, ‘they’re lifesavers.’

The walking that day had been all climbs and descents. It was a pleasure now to amble through flat pasture beside the chattering river. The clouds seemed to be thinning, and Ann felt warm after being immersed in the cold water. The strangled- sounding croaks of cock pheasants came from clumps of bilberry and heather edging the pasture. From time to time the birds’ plump copper bodies could be seen scurrying from one patch of cover to another.

‘Only a week till the shooting season starts,’ Jim said. ‘I didn’t know you shot,’ said Ann.

‘I don’t much,’ Jim said.

‘What do you shoot? Not animals, right?’

Jim paused and looked at her. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Would you shoot an animal?’

He looked away. ‘No,’ he said.

He was lying. She knew he was lying. Several times, in the weeks since she met him, Ann had thought Jim was telling her what she wanted to hear. Even before she agreed to this weekend away the trait had been irritating her. Now she regretted having come. She had wanted to sleep with him as soon as she saw him, leaning against the kitchen counter at a party in a big, dilapidated house in Chalk Farm. And she had slept with him, but now she wished she had left it at that.

The sky continued to lighten. Wisps of cloud blew across a moon-white sun. A walking trip had been Jim’s idea, and Ann had loved the thought of exploring a landscape, but she saw now that for him the pleasure lay in reaching a goal – twelve miles in a day, tick – while she was more interested in seeing things she might otherwise not. Earlier in the day, having established that Jim didn’t know the names of most trees and flowers, she had tried to teach him some as they walked – hazel, alder, balsam – but it soon became clear he wasn’t interested. Now she did it obstinately, pointing to a clump of clover-like leaves beside a kissing gate. ‘Wood sorrel,’ she said.

Jim barely looked where she had pointed. He pushed the gate open for her. Earlier in the day they had made an event of these gates, puckering their lips exaggeratedly. On a quiet woodland path just before the climb up to Hawkridge, their kiss had developed into something more serious as they passed through the gate – she was here anyway, she thought, and he was sexy even if he was annoying. Ann had backed against a tree, tugging Jim after her. She was gripping his erection through his trousers when she heard the clinking of camping gear, and they were still arranging themselves when a...