Last week Claire Rilett was crowned winner of the First Chapter competition for 2015. You can check out this week's magazine for her story, but here are the two runners up stories by budding novelists Anna O'Donovan and Nicola Campbell for your perusing pleasure too.
The New Friend (first paragraph penned by Jojo Moyes)
Afterwards, Edie thought back to the times she had bumped into Nina, and wondered how many of them had been accidental. Suddenly, Nina just happened to be everywhere: in the supermarket or the car park of the gym, always with something nice to say – ‘Gosh, I love your hair!’ (Edie had never met anyone who used the word gosh without irony before) – so that she found herself subconsciously looking out for her, and oddly pleased when she arrived. The first time Nina had asked her to coffee, they both laughed. The slightly English embarrassment of it; like a first date.
The story continued by Anna O'Donovan, 42, a dentist from Dublin
And it was just like a first date, a good one. Initially there were machine-gun bursts of overlapping and at-odds conversation starters from both of them with slightly awkward silences in between as they sat opposite each other in a circular pleather coffee shop booth. They knew enough of each other’s history from the loose tongues of acquaintances-in-common that the normal barriers strangers feel fell down quickly and the child-free hour they’d both managed to orchestrate disappeared in a rapid bonding session. The chat flurried this way and that as they compared and contrasted the strands of their ragged lives and their feelings of alienation from the smug Mumsnet world they both once happily (and they both agreed quite ignorantly) inhabited. They carried the same disbelief that this was their new reality and shared the same sense of being forever altered by a force beyond their control. To Edie it felt like she’d finally met her kindred spirit – a totally like-minded, slightly screwed up - kindred spirit. Perfection.
There was the moment she'd wondered whether it was right or wrong to mention Nina’s cappuccino lip. She’d decided it was right and Nina laughed it off and told her that such honesty was the sign of true friendship and took that as her cue to reveal her now rather ironic theory for life. ‘Darling, people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime,’ she’d pronounced with a sudden Dalai Lama like beatitude that had drawn Edie even further in.
Now sitting alone, yet again, on her too-big sofa, Edie found it easy to see just how she much she had needed a Nina in her life on that cold November day.
At the time, on their pseudo-first date, the only thing running through Edie's brain had been, I'm hoping to tick the lifetime friend box because you might be the only person who just gets this, gets me,’ and she was relieved when Nina whispered conspiratorially, while she shoved the café’s glass door with her ringless hand and shoulder-hugged Edie back into the cold Edinburgh wind outside, ‘Ach let’s forget season. Winter’s are rubbish here anyway and I reckon us two have got enough reason for several lifetimes. And, as we both know, only too well, life is bloody short so let’s make the most of it.’ Edie had never been particularly comfortable with overly demonstrative girlfriends. The ones who love to take your arm in theirs as they walk and it had been a longtime since she’d been that physically close to anyone over three but with Nina it hadn’t felt terribly awkward. Nina had that way that those who are born attractive and never have to try hard have. ‘Charisma by the shovel load’ is how Edie’s mum would come to describe her. Anyway, she had been pleased enough to have her arm taken into Nina’s but just as pleased to loosen free from it again as she neared the bus stop. Unlike normal first dates there was of course no awkward ‘will we or won’t we kiss’ moment. Instead there was an enthusiastic bear hug from Nina before she took Edie’s hand in both of hers and said: “I am so pleased we’ve met. There are so many layers to this - to us. What a coincidence?’ The number 31 had come and Edie, who’d felt rather dumbstruck throughout the farewells, jumped on to be whisked back to her new normality of single-parentedness, rollercoaster-like grief and a mother-in-law without the buffer.
It was late and Edie was suddenly cold. The summer sun was finally setting as she stood up from the sofa to draw the curtains on the day. After a quick hunt under several mounds of cushions, discarded soft toys and shorn-headed Barbies she switched the TV to standby using the retrieved remote and as the screen went from busy to blank she realized she couldn’t even remember what she had been supposedly watching. An evening like so many others before, she said silently to herself. Readying the house for her nighttime shut down she thought again of Nina and how little she had known her really.
Had either of them even mentioned the widow word at that first meeting? She didn’t think so. But then it was unneeded and easier to leave as an unsaid. One of Nina’s disjointed conversation starters as they had first sat down was, ‘ I wonder if anyone here is wondering who we are and what we are doing here randomly on a Tuesday morning in a city cafe. I mean neither of us are dressed for work but neither of us has the usual paraphernalia of buggy, bags or babies that people like us usually have, thank God.’ People watching and creating elaborate storylines from a fleeting observation of another human being’s life was another thing it turned out they had in common. ‘See him there,’ Nina had giggled as she pointed with a head nod and a raise of the eyebrows at a man dressed in a pinstripe, ‘he’s not told his wife that he’s lost his job so he has to leave the house everyday at the same time and use the café’s Wifi to do his desperate job hunt.’ The poor man did have a broken look about him and it takes one to know one, Edie thought.
As their stolen hour had drawn to an end Nina and Edie tried to see themselves through the eyes of the few strangers they shared the tiny space of the coffee shop with. They firmly decided no one would have guessed that here were two women who’s husbands had died on the same day, in very different ways, just two years apart.
No, Edie smiled to herself as she rolled into the middle of her big double bed and pulled the duvet up to her ears, because widows were old, wore black and certainly didn’t have belly laughs on their first widow-to-widow date.
The story continued by Nicola Campbell, 45, a freelance writer from Edinburgh
It had been Nina's polite insistence on meeting her family that had led a slightly badgered Edie to extend the dinner invitation. Edie and Dan spent a harried afternoon hopelessly preparing their half renovated home to receive their guests. Realising early on that their building site could never be described even as a 'contemporary pared back space', they concentrated mostly on concealing any evidence of the fatal fire. They locked the blackened rooms, hoping to shut away the memories for the evening. So overwhelmed by the past month's events, Nina still felt she was inhaling the toxic fumes. She imagined Dan's grief for his brother to feel similar, like a pall, poisonous and heavy.
The evening had begun well. The wine flowed and the conversation was easy. Nina and George admirably ignored the builders' tools and even their odd discarded teabag. They generously complimented the meal, not for one moment hinting at the explosion that would come. Edie wondered what Dan would make of her new friends. Nina resembled a Texan cheerleader, so sparkly and shiny that Edie felt an urgent need to have a facial! She smiled to herself in anticipation of Dan's inevitably hilarious description of Nina's oh so straight husband with his pressed chinos and his boardroom short back and sides.
The conversation turned to Dan's job, how difficult it was for them to be apart for so many months at a time. Dan was an environmental photographer, involved in projects in developing countries. His last stint had been 8 months long and, as Edie had told Nina over their coffee dates, Skype was no substitute for the real thing. Nina had been particularly supportive and concerned at how she had coped alone with their 3 year old, Laurie.
'Where is Laurie this evening?' Nina asked, as Edie topped up her glass of red again. For a cheerleader, she had a surprising thirst.
'Oh, I'm sorry you won't meet her,' Edie replied. 'She's at her godmother's house. We will get a well needed sleep in!' Edie laughed. Nina didn't laugh though. And this, Edie supposed was the first sign she should have picked up on.
Instead Nina continued, 'All the times we have had coffee and you have never had her with you. I don't think I could ever be parted from my baby, I would miss her so much.'
Edie let this comment slide though it irked her. Laurie attended Montessori every morning, allowing Edie to enjoy a solitary coffee or a rare trip to the gym. With Dan away, Edie felt these mornings of freedom were important for her sanity.
'And you guys are anxious to have another baby, I hear.' Nina directed this at Dan, who was clearly uncomfortable with the intimacy. Edie instantly regretted confiding in Nina, now feeling unsure of her motives. There was a shift in the atmosphere, an unknown hand had somehow turned the pressure up.
'How is your steak cooked Nina?' Edie interrupted, moving the conversation on. Nina turned her head towards her, and slowly and deliberately took a long mouthful of wine. The room went silent, the playlist in the background coming to an end as if in anticipation of the next few minutes. 'I was at the abortion clinic because the doctors told us that our baby wouldn't survive after birth.Why were you there Edie?' There was a slur in her words, but her narrowed eyes didn't leave Edie's. Edie's face flushed hot. Her stomach hollowed out. She felt Dan's gaze burning at her temple, but couldn't turn her head. '
Of course, Nina declared, "I didn't go through with it. I left before they called me in to theatre. It was a difficult pregnancy but our baby girl lived for nearly 5 hours. It was the happiest five hours of my life.'
Edie went cold as the memory of that day flashed back. There was a waiting room from which a nurse called them into theatre. A tiny room in an old crumbling Victorian hospital. Benches lined the walls and there must have been twelve women shoulder to shoulder, clad shamefully in short hospital gowns, awaiting their abortions. All of them had reasons to be there, none of them wanted to be there. Edie had kept her eyes down,trying to avoid looking at the pairs of bare knees lined up opposite hers.
'I recognised the scar on your leg,' Nina continued, 'when you were changing in the gym. A purple mark the shape of Africa. Pretty distinctive. You weren't wearing your wedding ring at the clinic though. Nobody in that room was.'
Edie felt the urge to clamp her hand over Nina's glossy mouth. She was here to ruin her. That much was now clear. Dan was rigid next to her, his fork, loaded with food, left on his plate. 'I studied you all, wondering what could ever make you kill your babies. And then, when I met you and you told me that Dan had been away for the last 6 months....well...that timing...' Dan stood and shoved back his chair so violently they all jumped. Still, Nina didn't stop. 'What's your excuse, Edie? What is your explanation?'
'Get out,' Edie spat, barely able to summon her voice, "Get out of my house!'
And now, the remains of their dinner were left congealing on their plates, abandoned as if they had been evacuated. The sight of Dan's fork, loaded with food never to be eaten, made Edie's knees buckle and she lowered herself onto a chair. She laid her head on her arms at the edge of the table, the dread and horror of the evening filling her up and spilling over as hot tears that ran down and soaked the tablecloth. An explanation? An excuse? She had plenty of both, but that didn't make anything any easier.