The Sea

The Sea

Claire was waiting by the car, shoulders hunched, using the sleeves of her coat for a muff. ‘You should have asked me for the key,’ I said. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t give it to you?’ On the way home she insisted on taking the wheel, despite my vigorous resistance. It...
Case Study

Case Study

I walked off in the direction of Primrose Hill. Ignoring my mother’s maxim that only whores smoked outdoors, I took out my cigarettes. Ever since I took up the habit, I have loved smoking more than anything. Smoking is a veil. I adore every aspect of it: the...
The Shipping News

The Shipping News

“If he’d gone on with the others he’d likely have gone into a miserable life. You ask me, Canada was built on the slave labor of those poor Home children, worked to the bone, treated like dirt, half starved and crazed with lonesomeness. See, my father kept in touch...
The Sea, The Sea

The Sea, The Sea

‘Every persisting marriage is based on fear,’ said Peregrine. Fear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what’s at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you put the boot in or whether it makes you cower. As for marriage,...