Keep Walking, Rhona Beech
Kate Tough
Publication date: April 4th 2019
Genres: Women’s Fiction
Incredibly insightful, funny and poignant’ Helen Sedgwick
‘A warm and ferociously witty story. Truth rings from every page of this assured, engrossing debut’ Zoe StrachanWhen Rhona’s story comes to an end you will miss her. Her candid, raw, messy journey will make you laugh, cry and remember. Not a typical break-up book, it’s much more profound. Nothing has turned out quite how Rhona imagined: she’s been casually swapping one job for another while getting comfy in a long relationship which ends abruptly, and her efforts to adjust to that change are thrown by some unwelcome news…
Flawed, relatable Rhona Beech narrates this beautifully written, pacey satire about female friendship, heartbreak, career change, conceiving and illness, which will appeal to fans of Fleabag. Join her on a laugh (and cry) out loud search for meaning amongst the bars, offices and clinics of Glasgow.
Will her friendships survive the changes and challenges? Will SHE survive? At once funny and tender, Keep Walking, Rhona Beech is a clear-sighted look at a generation of women that was told they could have it all.
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EXCERPT: 1
I am a patient. My job is to lie in this bed. I do my job well. Who I would be at home is less clear. And nobody would be there, beside themselves with relief that I am back.
I’d have to do things, necessary things – plus other things I would have to do just to be seen to be doing something.
Doing things makes me tired.
Doing things leads to other things, and things have a habit of changing when you’d got used to them being a certain way.
My heart broke. My body broke.
The bailiffs came for a cone-shaped piece. What exactly do you people want from me?
*
I didn’t have obsessive compulsive disorder when I came in but might well have it by the time I leave (an okay trade?). There is precious little to do but notice things and how often they occur.
Times per hour I assess how my wound site is feeling: about seven.
Times per day I remember to visualise a healthy wound site: maybe one.
Number of days with a Tupperware lid of cloud cover outside: six.
(The sheets, the walls, the sky – all the colour of bone.
Am I that colour too? I have no mirror to tell otherwise.
Maybe everyone who goes under anaesthetic wakes up in this world of bone, while their previous lives continue somewhere else.)
Minutes per day the nurses listen to a facile breakfast DJ: 120.
Minutes per day I am now able to breathe behind the radio and tune it out: 40.
Times per day I imagine being outdoors for hours on end: one, but it lasts awhile.
Times per day I notice that my left foot sits higher under the sheet than my right: about a dozen.
Times per day I speak: zero.
Times per day I make eye contact with the parent who has come to visit: on arrival only. (I will not cry in a room with a half glass wall, with a person who has to leave afterwards.)
Times per hour I remember what other people have to cope with in life: one, if I make myself.
Times per day I imagine a year from now, when things could be very different: zero, initially, now up to two or three.
Times per hour the perma-grin nurse sings out to the woman opposite, ‘Feeling okay, Nancy?’: too many. (I am waiting for Nancy to be discharged or die.)
EXCERPT: 2
Waking up, I remember what day it is. Today doesn’t have to feel a certain way, I tell myself, it’s not the law; and I must fall back asleep because when I open my eyes again time has moved on to 8.24.
Not twitching as much as a toe, I lie there calculating how much time will be used up in showering, dressing and eating breakfast. Twenty minutes for each? Which takes me to . . .9.30. An hour-and-a-half short. I’m not needed anywhere till eleven o’clock.
I won’t go to a hotel gym on Christmas morning. It’s not right. There is a line.
With a multi-course meal being eaten later, there’s no point in extending breakfast. And dressing can only take so long. The task I will have to eke out is the shower. Bathe instead. That thought engenders the closest thing to happy I’ve felt for days. A brimming container of hot water, in late dawn light, with complimentary products to test. Brain off, body on.
Heading to the bathroom, I switch on the wall lights and pick up the one-person kettle to fill at the basin. I set the bath taps going and pour in the thumb-sized bubble bath. In the bedroom again, I connect the kettle, pull on my dressing-gown and chuck myself on the bed.
I won’t watch TV alone on Christmas morning. There is a line.
The clock has a built-in radio. And I’m in Yorkshire; there could be stations I’ve never heard. Little gifts, like emptying the Christmas stocking before the main pile. I turn the tuning dial quickly to one end – no sneak previews. Gently, between thumb and forefinger, the knob revolves and my ear strains to catch every signal; a safecracker listening for the click. The bedside telephone rings. I yelp with fright. For a micro-second I think, Is it Mark?, but of course it won’t be. It could only be Reception, or one of my family. I brace picking up the receiver; Don’t wish me Merry Christmas over the phone, don’t wish me Merry Christmas over the phone.
‘You almost ready?’ asks Mum.
‘I’m not due there till eleven,’ I tell her.
‘I know but you could come along now, if you wanted. Save you sitting there on your own. Callum would love you to play with his presents, your Dad and I are exhausted already.’
‘Annie said eleven. She and David have got enough bodies under their feet. And I’ve not had my bath.’
At 11.10, I get out of the cab and arrive at my brother’s front door. Don’t hug me and wish me Merry Christmas, don’t hug me and wish me Merry Christmas.
After the main course I go to the bathroom because the dining room has no air left, and my family at the table has become a scene in a snowstorm ornament that I’m holding in my hand.
During the all-family game of Trivial Pursuit, I can’t remember which colour belongs to which category.
‘Photosynthesis,’ I offer.
‘No,’ says Annie’s aunt, sternly, and replaces the card. ‘Billiards.’
‘Time for a pot of tea?’ I ask.
‘That’s a nice idea, Rhona,’ says Mum, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
‘You’ve done more than enough today,’ I tell her.
Waiting for the water to boil, I stand in the darkened kitchen. My shoulders fall forward, my chest convulses and no sound comes out as tears smash to nothing on the Italian slate tiles.
Extract from Keep Walking, Rhona Beech Kate Tough www.katetough.com
Author Bio:
Kate Tough worked for the Scottish Parliament for six years before returning to her home city, gaining a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. She writes poetry and fiction rooted in realism, humour and sometimes difficult truths.
She creates astute observational detail in fiction, and explores painful moments, that readers could recognise as themselves or their friends.
Her novel, Keep Walking, Rhona Beech, is the revised 2nd edition of Head for the Edge, Keep Walking. Her short fiction and poetry appear in journals such as, The Brooklyn Review, The Texas Review and The Found Poetry Review. Kate’s poetry pamphlet, tilt-shift, was Runner Up in the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award, 2017.
Kate's been a literacy volunteer and creative writing tutor in many community settings.
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1 comments:
excited to start this! loved the blurb and excerpts
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