Revelations, my latest book is coming soon.
How tragedy and a man’s search for his unknown father reveal the truth about his parents.
A short piece from the book follows. It’s taken from early in the story, when Max Langstone, a thirty-year-old journalist who’s had a rough beginning in life, finds a meeting with an ex-girlfriend to be a significant moment.
After Anna had left for Gabriella’s, I started to clear up and I wondered where our relationship was heading. Today, I’d spent the most time with Anna since we’d been a pair, back when I lived with her in Bologna, and a day I’ll remember. Like before, there seemed to be a friendship between us that ebbed and flowed but never broke, and this day it seemed in full spate, like a spring tide flooding in and up the beach, almost breaching the sea wall. Conversation came easy, our likes almost identical, both interested in the same, and both finding solace with the other.
We started seeing more and more of each other, but it was a strange sort of relationship, neither saying we loved the other but both eager to spend time together and fix our next date before we said goodbye. We kept our weekly business meetings formal, talking mainly about Italian politics and current affairs and not outwardly expressing our fondness for the other. We met after work at least once a week, and one day, most weekends. We slept together often, each staying over one night at the others, but never spending a whole weekend together. It seemed, at the time, we were both holding back, not pushing the relationship, letting it take its course, and almost as though we were frightened it might explode and we’d destroy something beautiful. For my part, and I think for Anna’s, we knew we were in love but couldn’t get round to saying it, for fear of the consequence. And so for ten months, both were part of a smouldering love affair that we tried to deny.
Coming soon.
For more: https://nickwastnage.net/a-life-turned/
Nick Wastnage 