Neil Randall is delighted to reveal the cover art for his upcoming
novel Three Days with Adrianna. Tentatively slated for a March 2024
release by Anxiety Press (watch this space for updates), the novel is the
darkest and most twisted of all dark and twisted revenge tales.
Inspired in by
the author’s hometown and admiration for Paul Auster’s The Music of Chance,
a young woman returns to her birthplace to find out who was responsible for her
mother’s drug-fuelled death.
Here’s another
extract from the first part of the novel:
“SO, WHERE ARE you going to take me first, then, Gary?” asked
Adrianna, as they walked along the sunny, blustery promenade.
“Well, I was thinking ’bout giving you a
little tour of the coastline. Only I’m not sure if your get-up’s, erm…suitable.
It’s a bit of a hike, see, a good coupl’a miles outt’a town.”
Adrianna
wore a thin parka, silky blouse, a pair of those spray-on jeans and
slipper-like shoes, like ballet shoes.
“Oh,
don’t worry about that,” she said, waving his words away. “I’ll manage.
Besides, it’s pretty nice today, sunny for the time of year.”
“True.
And the tide’s all the way out so we can take the scenic route, if you like,
walk on the wet sand.”
“Great.
I’ll let you lead the way, then.”
Even
though this was supposed to be the most attractive part of town, with the pier
and fishing boats, the old Victorian buildings and church tower looming in the
background, it was a pretty dismal rundown sight. Most of the little gift shops
and cafes had long since gone out of business; scaffolding and boarded-up
windows predominated. All the beach-huts had been vandalised, spray-painted,
were no more than battered, derelict shells now.
“If
we walk along here till the end of the pathway, we can get down to the beach.”
“Okay,” said Adrianna. “And what’s that up
there?” She pointed to a red-bricked building in the throes of being renovated,
half covered in one of those giant plastic bin-bags.
“That? Oh, it used to be an old toilet block.
Rumour has it that the council is gonna to do it up and sell it on as a house.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,
weird, innit? Don’t know if I’d like to live in an old shit-house, sort’a bad
karma, all the, erm…waste products that have flowed through the place over the
years, centuries of crap.”
Adrianna
threw back her head and laughed.
Encouraged,
Gary said, “Yeah, I remember this one time when me and my mate Goosey were off
our…” he trailed off; he stopped himself just in time.
“When
you and your mate were what?”
“Oh, nothing, just high jinks when we were
kids, when we didn’t know no better.”
But
hard as he tried, he couldn’t shake that particular memory from his head, a
memory that starred Adrianna’s mum, at fifteen years old, on the toilet block’s
flat roof, tripping her nuts off, him and Goosey giving her bong after bong,
how she kept getting closer and closer to the edge of the roof, kept stumbling
and tottering, and they knew how dangerous it was, how high up they were, but
still they did nothing, still they encouraged her to get more and more stoned,
to have one more hit, one more swig of cheap vodka, until the inevitable
happened, until she really did fall off that roof. How she didn’t break her
neck, let alone an arm or leg or wrist or ankle was a miracle. Maybe because
she was so off her face she didn’t tense up, and her rubbery limbs cushioned
the fall, because by the time Gary and Goosey had got over the shock, got
themselves together and peered over the edge, Ange was hauling herself back up
the drainpipe, pissing herself laughing, didn’t even know what had happened,
and it was a good twelve, fifteen-foot drop.
It
was then Gary realised that this might not have been such a good idea, after
all. He hadn’t been down here for years, hadn’t accounted on how many old
memories – good, bad, and ugly – were tied up with the place, that just being
back here could affect him so much, making him lower his guard, say something
he shouldn’t really say.
Thankfully,
Adrianna changed the subject.
“So,
what was it like growing up around here, then?”
“Pretty
grim,” he said, in all honesty. “When I left school, I didn’t have much chance
of getting a decent job. There was the crab factory or the turkey farm – that
was ’bout it. And I could never see meself slaving away on some stinking
production line for peanuts, so I just signed on, got into petty thieving, the
odd burglary, drugs.” He stopped at the bottom of a narrow slipway leading down
to the beach. “It might be a bit dodgy underfoot here, love. Take my hand.”
“Oh
right, yeah.” She took his hand and let him guide her over a bank of rocks,
stones, and shingle. “Thanks, Gary.”
“No
problem. It’s all gravy from here on out.” He pointed to a long stretch of flat
wet sand intersected by the odd breakwater. “Look. Not another soul in sight.”
“It’s
a beautiful part of the world,” she said, staring out to sea. “Did you used to
come down here a lot?”
“Yeah.
There weren’t really anywhere else to go.”
They
walked on in silence for a few minutes before coming to the exact spot where he
used to hang out with Goosey and Ange.
“Bloody hell,” he said, stopping and pointing
up ahead again. “Look, over there, scorch marks on the sand, right where we
used to make a big fuck off fire. Christ! Kids these days must have much the
same idea.” He walked up to a sandy, grassy mound directly in front of the
cliffs. “We’d plonk ourselves right here.”
“And what did you do?”
“Just played tunes, smoked a bit of weed, had
a few beers. Nothing very exciting or original, I’m afraid.”
“Sounds pretty good to me,” said Adrianna, “–
a big fire, all your friends around you, a few drinks. How many of there were
you, usually?”
“Oh, it varied,” he lied. He didn’t want her
to know that it was always just him, his mate Goosey, and an under-age girl who
just so happened to be her mum. “From week to week, and what time of the year
it was.”
“So mum was a bit of a rebel, then, yeah? Used
to bunk off school, and come down here to hang out with you cool kids?”
“Yeah,
something like that,” he said slowly, fearing that he might’ve been a bit too
frank about what they got up to. “Not that I meant to sound flippant. You know,
in light of what happened to you mum. If I came across like that I’m sorry.”
“No, no, don’t apologise, Gary. I want you to
tell me the truth. I want you to be upfront with me. I want to know what she
was like, what she got up to. That’s why I’m here. And I mean, it’s not as if she’s
the first school kid to get falling over drunk, to smoke a joint, to want to
irritate her parents and teachers, the first teenager to fall pregnant, even.”
Gary
lowered his eyes. “No, no, of course not. But she weren’t all bad, far from it.
She was dead funny and intelligent, good to be around.”
“And pretty, right? My nan said that she was a
real stunner. But she hasn’t got any photographs of mum as a teenager, they got
lost years ago, when she moved house.”
“Really?
That’s tragic. But she’s right, your gran, I mean. Ange was a gorgeous-looking
girl, stylish an’ all, had all the designer clobber. Can see where you get it
from, your fashion sense I mean.” He stole a quick, uncertain glance at her. “And
tell you what, I might have some old photos knocking ’bout me flat, of your mum
just before she had you. When I get home, I’ll have a look, see if I can’t find
’em out for you.”
“That’d
be great. Thanks ever so much, Gary. And thanks for bringing me down here.” She
looked right and left, taking everything in. “You’ve given me a real insight
into mum’s life when she was younger. Just being here makes me feel closer to
her.” She smiled, a little sadly, perhaps. “And – and what other stuff was she
into, apart from music and socialising, being around her friends?”
Gary
hesitated. He didn’t really know what to say, because he didn’t know much about
Ange’s interests, the things she was into before she started getting off her
head at every opportunity.
“I
know she was big into horses,” said Adrianna, brushing a few strands of
windswept hair from her face “– equestrian stuff, like eventing and dressage.
My nan showed me all her old trophies.”
“Oh yeah,” he lied for a second time. “I
remember her telling us ’bout all that stuff, show-jumping, yeah? I think that might’ve
been something she’d have pursued, you know, later in life.”
“That’s
what nan said, that mum would’ve had a career with horses one day. It’s
strange, though, isn’t it? – when people die young, thinking about all the
stuff they could’ve done with their lives, all the wasted talent.”
“Yeah.
Yeah, it is.”
***
“So,” said
Gary, as they started to climb a concrete pathway up from the beach, “what’s
this new job of yours all ’bout in Australia, then?”
“Well, believe it or not, I’ve always been a
bit of a science geek. At school I was really into chemistry and biology, stuff
like that. After getting pretty good A-Level results, I went on to study at the
University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology.”
“Sounds impressive,” he said, trying to mask
his heaving breaths – the climb up to town was a hell of a lot steeper than he
remembered.
“Yeah, it is. One of the top universities
around. Anyway, I was lucky enough to get a work placement at a big research
facility in the North-West, part of a team carrying out different laboratory
experiments. My dissertation was actually about the long-term effects of
substance abuse. I did a big experiment with two rats, monitoring their
behaviour when intoxicated over a long period of time.”
“No shit.” Gary chuckled and came to a halt,
leaning on the rusty metal railings, pretending that he wanted to look out to
sea, when in reality all he wanted to do was catch his breath. “I’d probably be
the ideal case study.”
A
doddery old couple passed by with two eager scampering Yorkshire terriers
straining at their leads. They smiled, said good afternoon, and made passing
reference to the pleasantness of the day.
“And
what about you, Gary?” said Adrianna, leaning on the same railings, “– running
your own record shop now, living the dream.”
Flattered,
he shrugged modestly, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to talk about
himself.
“Yeah, I’ve done all right. As a rule, small
businesses don’t tend to last too long in backwater towns like this. Didn’t
know if I’d ever be able to make a proper go of it, but the internet has really
helped. I sell over sixty per cent of me stock on-line, see? And have sort’a
built up a loyal customer base, people come from all over the county to buy
stuff from the shop. I do record fares, too. So yeah, I guess you could say I’m
living the dream, working, to a very small degree, in the music industry.”
“That’s great. I’m sure mum would’ve been
really, really proud of you; one of her besties making good.”
“Erm, yeah,” he said, smiling awkwardly. “I’m
sure she would.”
If you've liked what you've read so far, why not check out
two short stories that were recently published on Anxiety Press' sister
website: A Thin Slice of Anxiety:
My
Legendary Boyfriend
Eatin'
Pussy
And if you want to learn more about Neil Randall's published
work, head over to his Amazon
page.
