First published in 2021
by Galley Beggar Press Limited
Norwich NR2 3LG

Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London

The right of Uschi Gatward to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the right that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

Of the stories in this collection:

‘Backgammon’ was first published in The Dublin Review, 2020

‘What’s for You Won’t Go by You’ was first published in Yarn, a collaboration between Structo and Otherwhere, 2019

‘Lurve’ was first published in gorse, 2017

‘Beltane’ was first published by Galley Beggar Press, 2017

‘Samhain’ was first published in Short Fiction, 2016

‘Oh Whistle and’ was first published in The White Review online, 2016

‘My Brother Is Back’ was first published in Wasafiri, 2016

‘On Margate Sands’ was first published in Flamingo Land & Other Stories, Flight Press (Spread the Word), 2015

‘The Clinic’ was first published in Structo, 2014

‘The Bird’ was first published in Southword, 2014

‘The Crèche’ (as ‘Pink Lemonade’) was first published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Vol. 6, 2013

Paperback: 978-1-913111-10-6
Limited edition: 978-1-913111-09-0
eBook: 978-1-913111-11-3

For Pearl

Contents

• The Clinic
• My Brother Is Back
• Oh Whistle and
• Beltane
• The Bird
• On Margate Sands
• The Crèche
• Lurve
• Lammas
• Samhain
• What’s for You Won’t Go by You
• Backgammon

‌The Clinic

It’s set up to look like a home, with sofas and a coffee table, but nobody’s fooled. I haven’t been here since she was a newborn. Stupid of me.

‘She’s a bit tired today,’ I say. ‘Busy day yesterday. We went to the park. She didn’t want to get up this morning.’

The clinician smiles briefly, a little wanly. Her assistant sets out cubes on a mat on the floor. At the touch of a keypad a mounted camera in the corner swivels towards us. Behind a glass screen another clinician watches.

Cara’s spotlessly dressed in her smartest clothes. I’m wearing my dumbest outfit, complete with slogan.

Dean clears his throat. ‘She might not be at her best,’ he says.

‘Put her down on the mat,’ says the clinician.

I put Cara down and she reaches immediately for the shapes. She looks at them. Starts to put them together, clumsily. She piles them up but they fall down.