Contents ( 48)
- PAST LIFE
- David Mark
- PART ONE
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- PART TWO
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
‘It’s not going to happen, is it?’ asks Roisin, softly. She shrugs, already knowing the answer. ‘It’s … I don’t know … a fantasy. It’s a dream, or something. I mean, I’ve not seen him in years. I don’t know anything about him. He’s probably married, or at least in love. And it’s not right, is it? To think that you deserve something because of the bad stuff that’s happened. I mean, we all have bad stuff in our past – it’s just mine was, well, horrible, wasn’t it? What they did. But then if it hadn’t happened I wouldn’t know somebody like him exists, which is just the worst way to think, but that doesn’t stop me thinking it. And every time I think of being with somebody, of a future with somebody, and I think about what I want – I think of him …’
Roisin drops her head. Presses her face into the rough material of the cushion. Smells stale cigarettes and Chinese food. She wonders if she should just stay like this. Wonders whether perhaps she could find a way to meld her features with the fabric. It would be an achievement, of sorts.
‘I see what comes over you when you think of him,’ says Eva-Jayne, gently. ‘It’s the real thing, or at least, it feels like it. And I’m not going to sit here and tell you it can’t happen, because sometimes miracles crop up, don’t they? I know it drives your mother up the wall. Is it true you write to him every week? That you sometimes send yourself replies?’
‘Don’t,’ says Roisin, clamping her jaw shut. She can’t stand being picked on. She can hear her younger brother, Valentine, taking the piss in his sing-song voice: snatching her journal from her hand and trying to read out her words in a fake French accent. She’s blacked his eye for it plenty of times but the lad doesn’t seem to know how to stop.
‘Roisin, it’s OK. Everybody has their fantasy man.’
‘I want to ask you …’ begins Roisin, fighting with herself. ‘Ask you to read for me – just give me something, y’know? Some idea if it’s all going to happen …’
Eva-Jayne looks conflicted. She makes a face. ‘That’s for them,’ she says, jerking her head at the door to the flat. ‘People who need to be told what they want. I’m a bloody clairvoyant and I can’t say for sure what the future holds. All I would say is that it’s no surprise that you’ve never forgotten him. I mean, after all that happened, what they did …’