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Nightingale Point
Luan Goldie
** THE DEBUT NOVEL FROM THE WINNER OF THE COSTA SHORT STORY AWARD **One ordinary day. One extraordinary event. Their lives changed forever.On an ordinary Saturday morning in 1996, the residents of Nightingale Point wake up to their normal lives and worries.Mary has a secret life that no one knows about, not even Malachi and Tristan, the brothers she vowed to look after.Malachi had to grow up too quickly. Between looking after Tristan and nursing a broken heart, he feels older than his twenty-one years.Tristan wishes Malachi would stop pining for Pamela. No wonder he's falling in with the wrong crowd, without Malachi to keep him straight.Elvis is trying hard to remember to the instructions his care worker gave him, but sometimes he gets confused and forgets things.Pamela wants to run back to Malachi but her overprotective father has locked her in and there's no way out.It's a day like any other, until something extraordinary happens. When the sun sets, Nightingale Point is irrevocably changed and somehow, through the darkness, the residents must find a way back to lightness, and back to each other.
LUAN GOLDIE is a primary school teacher, and formerly a business journalist. She has written several short stories and is the winner of the Costa Short Story Award 2017 for her short story ‘Two Steak Bakes and Two Chelsea Buns’. She was also shortlisted for the London Short Story Prize in 2018 and the Grazia/Orange First Chapter competition in 2012, and was chosen to take part in the Almasi League, an Arts Council-funded mentorship programme for emerging writers of colour. Nightingale Point is her debut novel.
Nightingale Point
Luan Goldie
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
Copyright (#ulink_3efc00a2-06e3-5605-9956-8295c6b6d3c8)
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Luan Goldie 2019
Alyson Rudd asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008314460
Note to Readers (#ubd41a0c9-1819-55b1-82c1-f2985e4bc529)
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008314484
For Patrick
Contents
Cover (#u120d0596-211d-5201-af87-17ae0290b976)
About the Author (#ub8d3e6db-95ac-5b2c-bcd6-f83a3f794bec)
Title Page (#udfb4a90d-f8d9-57c0-b98b-89b5adbb094e)
Copyright (#ulink_795d8fe2-81f3-523c-b346-24c0a34b6e26)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u9dd6da2e-193b-51d4-8eb6-669b67e946fa)
SATURDAY, 4 MAY 1996 (#ulink_ac0fd861-6259-5c1d-9280-0c744b951ea8)
CHAPTER ONE: Elvis (#ulink_b23bc850-a19b-5978-a2c3-c86b2bb8b042)
CHAPTER TWO: Mary (#ulink_5f60ccef-effc-5597-a786-9b2361066fc6)
CHAPTER THREE: Pamela (#ulink_31b00a79-2377-512f-89c2-993dbd3deab8)
CHAPTER FOUR: Tristan (#ulink_6fdcd4b1-9a50-540b-817b-91e0b3dc91db)
CHAPTER FIVE: Mary (#ulink_7a9e81e5-9319-5d66-90c0-81e554283935)
CHAPTER SIX: Pamela (#ulink_3f6c2683-b49a-5584-bed9-aec92d5ed8f5)
CHAPTER SEVEN: Malachi (#ulink_e3ef7457-e0b5-5ed1-9cc0-5ed8644b3b28)
CHAPTER EIGHT: Elvis (#ulink_ad149b40-e91c-5174-b41d-40a8df11ec51)
CHAPTER NINE: Tristan (#ulink_e24e2bae-6b96-5086-bcc7-7ef7cdc9a380)
CHAPTER TEN: Mary (#ulink_05505fb1-7a95-5bd8-96fc-ccbbca5577ca)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE: Pamela (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Pamela (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
AFTER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
TEN DAYS LATER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE MONTH LATER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
THREE MONTHS LATER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
SIX MONTHS LATER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
FIVE YEARS LATER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: Jay (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: Mary (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: Malachi (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: Tristan (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: Elvis (#litres_trial_promo)
AUTHOR’S NOTE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER (#litres_trial_promo)
Saturday, 4 May 1996 (#ulink_fb1a1b40-2b96-54bd-838e-c569b00c1365)
The evacuation began this morning. No sooner had the bins been collected than the hundreds of residents from the three blocks that make up Morpeth Estate began streaming away in their droves.
Bob the caretaker sat in his cubbyhole on the ground floor, telling anyone who would listen that ‘it’s only a heatwave if it goes on ten days’. But no one listened, instead they asked when the intercom was getting fixed, if he knew the lifts were out and what he was planning on doing about the woman on the third floor who kept sticking a chair out on the landing. Moan, moan, moan.
Bob stubs out his cigarette and looks up at the grey face of Nightingale Point, smiling at the way the sun illuminates each balcony, every single one a little personal gallery, showcasing lines of washing, surplus furniture, bikes, scooters, and pushchairs. Towards the top a balcony glints with CDs held by pieces of string; a few of the residents have started doing it and Bob doesn’t have a clue why. He must ask someone.
Mary is amazed at how well it works. Who would believe that hanging a few CDs on the balcony stops pigeons from shitting on your washing? She had seen the tip on GMTV and immediately rushed to the flat next door to ask Tristan for any old discs. His music was no good anyway, all that gangbanging West Coast, East Coast stuff.
Mary wraps a towel around her hair. Her husband could show up any minute and the least she can do for him, after being apart for over a year, is not smell of fried fish. She switches on the TV, but the picture bounces and fuzzes. She doesn’t even try to understand technology these days, but heads next door to get Malachi.
Malachi sits behind a pile of overdue library books and tries to think of a thesis statement for his Design and the Environment essay that is due next Friday, but instead he thinks about Pamela. If only he could talk to her, explain, apologise, grab her by the hand and run away. No, it’s over. He has to stop this.
Distraction, he needs a distraction.
