Ware Our Island Story

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78463-314-1
Verlag: Salt
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 0, 224 Seiten

Reihe: Salt Modern Fiction

Denis Klamm, feckless scion of two former Leaders, returns to the Island for his father's funeral, only to find it sinking. Or the sea rising - it depends what you believe. Either way, they're all going to drown - unless the young, idealistic and newly-elected Leader, Jessica King, really is the saviour long foretold by Our Island Story. But Jessica is only Leader because Ari Spencer, the special advisor's special advisor, has made it so. She wants solutions; Ari offers schemes. She wants to solve the climate crisis, house the homeless and bring justice for the victims of police brutality in a decade-old incident that Ari, for reasons of his own, would rather nobody looked at too closely. Or at all. While Denis falls under Jessica's spell and sets out to make the sort of grand romantic gesture guaranteed to attract attention, Ari hatches a plot to pit conspiracy theory against myth, unleashing a maelstrom of populism, ambition, religion, treachery, lawlessness, old wounds and new battles - along with the less familiar forces of love and grief. It won't save the Island, but it might just save his skin. The result sweeps cynical politicians and bureaucrats, corrupt policemen, ambitious clerics, former Soviet taxi drivers and would-be poets into a riotous, brutal and surprisingly touching black comedy about our refusal to face reality, even - especially - when it's about to kill us.

Guy Ware is a critically-acclaimed novelist and short story writer. His work has been listed for many awards, including the Frank O'Connor International, Edge Hill and London Short Story Prize, which he won in 2018. Our Island Story is his fifth novel. Guy was born in Northampton, grew up in the Fens and lives in southeast London.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ware, Guy

Leseproben

ONE
Denis gulped down a mixture of ozone and salt water, wrestled his diaphragm into place, and bellowed: “February’s a shitty time to die.” The woman beside him shook her head carefully, eyes closed, and shouted back, “I’m ready.” They clutched tight to the rail as the boat rolled over the swell and plunged deep into the trough ahead, leaving their stomachs somewhere up above the belching funnel. Again. The ferry crawled up – again – then paused, taunting them, at the lip of the abyss. But they weren’t dying. That wasn’t what he meant. The roaring wind was cold as pity; the spray soaking his inadequate stolen jacket colder still; the constant, thought-devouring threat of sea-sickness – despite his having long since hurled overboard the morning’s tea and bacon roll – would not let him be; but all this, this unpleas­antness, ultimately just proved he was alive, and likely to stay that way. If heavy seas had been enough to sink this tub, they’d all have drowned three hours ago. The deck disappeared from under his feet. Again. Closing his eyes made it worse. Keeping them open, though, made the lead-grey sky swipe viciously into lead-grey sea. A pair of empty bottles chased each other back and forth through splashes of vomit. “I meant my father,” he shouted, after a while. Dying, he meant. These were hardly ideal circumstances, but there was no harm in garnering a woman’s sympathy. It was practise, if nothing else. She said, “You’re Denis Klamm?” Her voice rose, but it wasn’t really a question. Had they met before? He hoped not. People who knew him were prone to outbreaks of justifiable emotion, even violence. Right now, he wasn’t strong enough for either. But before he could deny himself, she shouted, as if she were the first to ever say the words, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Maybe bellowing against the wind helped. Also, she wasn’t to know, but she was the first to say them to Denis. His mother wrote texts, when she wrote at all, as if they were telegrams, invoiced by the word. This one had read: “K’s dead. Funeral Monday. Not optional.” He’d been in the pub at the time – admittedly not something a bookie would have bothered giving odds against – and his mates had said things like: Shit, that sucks; He had a good innings; and Does that mean you’re rich? Which – the rich thing – it might. He’d honestly never thought about it. He was not short of faults, and was usually skint, but nobody would ever have called him a grave robber. He bought a round on the strength of his prospects, then had to borrow the fare for the ferry. The only one with any cash to spare was the idiot who’d said He had a good innings. Which was surely more stupid than sorry for your loss? K had never played cricket. Eighty wasn’t even a great score. Who’d want to get out on eighty? Plus K had been pretty much gaga the last few years, parked in a home, which – although Denis was no expert – didn’t sound like much of an innings for anybody. Not life’s best blessing. On the other hand: K. Leader of Leaders. Elder statesman and greasy eminence. Not bad for a chancer who washed up on the Island with nothing but a baggy tweed suit he’d won in a bet and a tall story about a job offer. Hauled up by his own bootstraps. Or the laces of his hand-made brogues. That was the story he told Denis, anyway. Like all good stories, the details varied with the telling. Still: sorry for your loss. He had to say something, so he said thank you, which she took as an introduction. “I’m Lucy.” He said nothing. She already knew his name. “Lucy Neave? I used to work for your mother?” Oh, God. If those were questions, they weren’t the ones they pretended to be. Don’t you remember me? That’s what they meant. And he didn’t. He’d only spoken to her because she was there. A woman, half drowned in a cagoule. Early forties, at a guess. Long face all nose, like a rodent. Tiny mouth, tiny teeth. Were ferrets rodents? Ears glued on like Mrs. Potato Head. Of no real interest, was what he was saying. Not saying, obviously. But still: a woman. There. At a time of trial. And then it turns out she knows him. Fuck’s sake. He hasn’t been back in seven years and the one person he talks to knows him. Knows who he is, anyway. That was the trouble with the fucking Island. But no, he doesn’t remember her. A lot of people had worked for his mother. Pointing briefly past the bow, then grabbing the rail again, Lucy said: “Is that it?” Ahead, on the plunging horizon, through the spray and the rain, he could just about make out something black against the grey. It could have been the Island. Or it could have been another boat. An oil rig. Could it? If only the horizon would sit still for a moment. Was it too big for a ship? It looked a long way ahead, but he had no real way to judge distance out here where everything was grey and black and moving up and down. He was an Islander but he’d never seen this view. He’d only ever left; he’d not come back before. It didn’t move, though. Well, it did: it swung up and down like everything else and in and out of sight, but each time they hung on the roll of a wave it was there and, each time, it got a little larger. And larger. Not just black, some white. Cliffs. Eventually, roofs, towers, above all, the Castle. The Island, then. Home.   That evening, he told his mother he’d met a woman on the boat who used to work for her. They were eating something brown she’d given him to microwave in a spotless kitchen fitted out with enough culinary gear to run a restaurant. The whole flat was spotless, everything in it gleaming like a puppy’s fur. The Election had been Thursday. She’d moved in on Friday. Today was Sunday. Three days. A lot could happen in three days. Ask Jesus. When Denis was a kid and his mother, Cora Klamm, was Leader they’d always lived in the Castle. Even when she lost to Jacob King and became Leader of the Opposition, they’d still had a grace and favour apartment, even if it wasn’t in the Central Block. Now she’d lost to Jacob’s daughter, too, and was out on her ear. Not exactly homeless, but still. Not at home. She ignored him. Which was about what his comment deserved. Still, they had to talk about something, didn’t they? If it wasn’t going to be his father? He said, “Lucy something.” Cora stopped scrolling through her phone. “Lucy Neave?” “That’s the one.” “Hah. The part-time poet. Did she tell you I sacked her?” “It didn’t come up.” Cora laughed, but didn’t sound amused. She started a long story about how, when Lucy Neave was her bag carrier, she’d gone running off to Ari Spencer about something or other that probably wasn’t worth arguing about in the first place and which Denis didn’t want to hear. Ari Spencer was a name he recognized, though. He’d been everywhere when Denis was growing up. “What was she doing on the boat?” “Same as me,” Denis said. “Coming home.” “For the funeral?” And there it was. An opening. The first time she’d mentioned the reason he was here. Now they could talk about it. His father. His father’s death. The nursing home neither of them had ever visited. The fact he hadn’t been home at all for seven years. Why he’d left. What he was going to do now. They could. They had all night. “She didn’t say,” he said. “What did you two talk about?” “Nothing, Mum. She was just a woman on a boat.” “You mean you didn’t want to fuck her.” Denis sighed. What could he say? His mother knew him better than anyone, and she always said he was an idiot. She wasn’t the only one. What they’d actually talked about, he and Lucy, once the boat rounded the headland and the wind and the swell had both calmed down enough in the lee of the cliffs that they no longer had to shout, was how much smaller the Island looked than he remembered. She’d thought he was making some pissy joke about childhood memories. How chocolate bars had shrunk. But he meant it. The place was smaller. Where on earth was the harbour? The Hope & Anchor? The Hope & Anchor had been home when he was too young to drink anywhere else. In the Castle bars they’d known exactly how old he was. If they knew in the Hope, they didn’t care. They hadn’t much cared when he walked out on the harbour bar after seven or eight pints, either. Now there was no bar, and no pub. “Full fathom five,” Lucy said. “What?” She pointed down into the water. ...