The stories:
Sofa in the Rain: why would a young woman be lying on a sofa, on a pavement, in the rain? There's an explanation for most things. This is one of them.
Blast in the Dark: sometimes you meet people and the connection is fragile. No matter how much you want it to, it doesn't work out the way you hope.
Ballantyne's Day: is an account of events during one day in the life of a music journalist who has a lot to put right.
My Brilliant Boy: a story about a single mother who has a child with special needs. She's close to despair when something clicks into place.
Someone to Buy Me Flowers: this was a hard one to write, but the background to it is all true. A young woman comes to terms with what happened to her when she was a child. Whether we like to admit it or not, these things go on.
Some Grow, Some Fail: some people succeed in life and some don't. Who is to say how or why? This story is about two such women.
Swans: she spent years thinking she wasn't up to much, then a casual affair gave her a beautiful, clever daughter who began to change her life.
Ebb and Flow: youth and age collide, memories and regrets are recollected, chance and circumstance affect the direction of events, beginnings and endings merge, the ebb and flow of life continues.
Faith and Grace: Faith is widowed and can't afford the payments on her mortgage any longer. Facing homelessness, she's offered a flat in a council estate tower block. She's befriended by Gloria and Gloria's six year old daughter Grace, becoming like a second mother to her. An incident occurs to change the direction of her life.
Swans and Other Stories
Sofa in the Rain
Blast in the Dark
Ballantyne's Day
My Brilliant Boy
Someone to Buy Me Flowers
Some Grow, Some Fail
Swans
Ebb and Flow
Looking for Emma
Faith and Grace
Summer Blues
Genre: Short Stories
Sofa in the Rain
Blast in the Dark
My Brilliant Boy
Someone to Buy Me Flowers
Swans is my second collection of short stories. It contains one early story; the rest are new and are mostly concerned with events in the lives of women. I have known women like the ones in these stories and have stayed faithful to the events in their lives and to their memory.
As with a lot of fiction, some of the events depicted are based on real life, some are composite, based on two or more people or incidents, some are re-created imaginatively. Emotion recollected in tranquillity, as the poet said.
Ebb and Flow
Looking for Emma
Faith and Grace
Contents
