Summerwater by Sarah Moss (top 10 motivational books .txt) 📕

he didn’t make it this morning – opens the window and drops out. The ledge hurts her thigh and her ankles jar; it’s a much bigger drop outside than in but she doesn’t specially want her parents to think that she’s doing what they said and joining Alex at the pub after all and she’s certainly not going to tell them where she is going.

It’s still light, of course, as if this day will never bloody end, and still raining. She goes round the back of their cabin and picks her way over the grass behind next door, not that there’s probably anyone watching, exactly, not that there’s any reason she shouldn’t be out, but that Englishwoman with the baby has already tried to talk to her once, all patronising like a teacher. How are you finding your holidays, isn’t the weather a pain, at least with the little ones we can play in the puddles but this can’t be much fun for you. S’all right, Becky said, we’re local, see, used to it. Fuck off back to England, then, if you don’t like it here, she didn’t say. Oh, I live here too, said the woman, well, Edinburgh, but I doubt the weather’s much different, are you from Glasgow then? Aye, Becky said, frae Glesga, right enough hen. There’s a tile come off their roof and the rain running into the gap.

She’d better go round the back of the Ukrainians’ lodge too, in case Mum’s still looking out, though she’d like to see what’s going on in there, the only people having any fun between Glasgow and fucking Iceland. She was lying awake listening all night, thinking she and Alex should just put their clothes back on and go round there, sounded like an excellent party and it’s not as if anyone was getting any sleep anyway. Becky talked to the mum a bit, the first day they were here she went past and saw the woman was washing up with the kitchen window open talking to the little girl who was playing outside. It sounded a bit like Polish so Becky said ‘dzien´ dobry’ just to see if it worked. She’d learnt it at school when they had to make a big poster and say hello in the home language of everyone in her year and it turned out to be the same in basically every Eastern European country but it’s not as if she’s ever likely to have the chance to try it in any of them. The little girl stopped and stared at her and the mum was really surprised and put down her brush and leant so far out of the window her top went in the washing-up water, but of course Becky couldn’t say anything else so the woman, Alina, had to speak English after all. Turned out she’s Ukrainian, not Polish, and the first thing she said was she’s been here twenty years and pays her taxes, as if Becky would care. She didn’t invite Becky round. There are no lights on now, anyway, and Becky hasn’t seen the little girl for a couple of days, she’s maybe gone back to Glasgow with some of the visitors because it can’t be any fun for her here. Well, it’s no fun for anyone, is it? She pulls up her hood before all the serum washes out of her hair. Nothing’s changing. The clouds aren’t moving, it’s not even getting dark, and there’s no one else out. How would they know if there’s some mass-extinction event in progress, how’s that supposed to work with no phones?

She’ll go round the front of the old people’s cabin though she’s no need to go down to the shore, just so she can walk across their view, not particularly fast. No hurry, is there? They’re sitting in old-people chairs and they’ve each got one of those awful old-people dentist lights shining on books in their laps, as if they’re about to do fillings rather than turn pages. Young people nowadays, she mutters, cluttering up our landscape in their horrible clothes, shoes like fridges. It’s what her gran says, I don’t know why you don’t want to wear pretty shoes, when I was your age I was desperate for a pair of heels, I don’t know how your dad can let you leave the house wearing those tights and nothing over your rear end, I wouldn’t have stood for it. Becky stares in and yawns widely, not covering her mouth, and the old man looks up from his book and stares back. He looks as if he’s on TV, she thinks, lit up like that behind the glass, as if the next thing is for someone to creep up behind him with a blunt instrument. She goes along the side of the gravel track, not that anyone would hear her footsteps over the weather, past the cabin with the sad woman who never goes out and the two kids. They’re still having their tea, and the scene reminds her of her old Playmobil dolls’ house, the stiff-jointed figures you could arrange around a green plastic table, the tiny plastic cutlery Mum was always telling her not to lose. The rain is seeping through her leggings and Alex’s hoody is beginning to cling to her hands at the cuffs. Maybe she’ll take it off when she gets there, maybe she’ll crawl into the soldier’s tent and pull it and her T-shirt over her head in one smooth move and toss her hair – she practises tossing her hair though the hood is still up – and the soldier will seize her and they’ll kiss, though actually he’s old as well as weird and whatever they say about old men he’s not shown any sign of wanting to kiss her, but he’s mostly interested in what she says and at least it makes a change from Mum and her banging on about recycling and sustainability and why they can’t use cling film