Martin hadn’t driven his 4×4 since the accident. The bedroom was stifling hot. Sian had set the heating too high. He was claustrophobic. He needed fresh air. He slid open the glass partition, stepped out onto the veranda, and chilled as an invigorating blast of frigid air whipped his chest. Martin sneezed, smelling the fug […]

Evie threw her tennis racket and tube of balls on the hall carpet, trudged upstairs, and cried, ‘I’m home, darling.’ There was no reply. As usual, her fiancé had power-napped in their conjugal bed, woken fully refreshed, slung on his faded boiler suit, and scurried off to the garage. Evie decided to leave him to […]

The Hut lies beyond the auld groin. The rotting sea timbers: barnacled planks, shrivelled posts, cut a shadowy black swathe through the estuarial slime. It is dusk. The man-sucking, gooey, grey fermenting morass of ragworm-infested mud flats stretches as far as the eye can see. They are lying beyond the groin: as seen at low […]

Marion behaves strangely, sheltering only weeks after her mother died. At nightfall, she leaves her bedsit over the baker’s shop in the high street, walks to the rectory, and sleeps rough on the grass using leaves for blankets, earth for pillows. Come dawn, come sunrise, she dusts herself down, shakes herself off, and starts all […]

I am heavy with child. My breasts are swollen with milk, my abdomen fully distended. I slump on the wicker chair feeling my baby prod my stomach. My man marvels at how I push myself to the utter limits of my endurance to birth my miracle. Sure, he treasures me, and cherishes me, every single […]