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PRAISE FOR KICKED OUT
A novel to stand up alongside Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, offering a window into the youth of today. A fantastic book expressing the cynicism and dissatisfaction of those on the edge of society
Waterstone's Recommended Read
The narrative is so strong, the characters and dialogue so real, the situation so heart-breaking. This is masterful and should win several literary prizes
Patricia J. Delois, author of Bufflehead Sisters
Hardwick’s writing has the power and humanity to make you wonder about the way you see the world, and to give voice to those whose stories usually remain untold
Laura Brewis, New Writing North
A truly compelling page-turner
Inside Time, the National Newspaper for Prisoners
Hard-hitting, at times hilarious...fantastic
The Crack
ANDALUCIA
RICHARD W HARDWICK
Lapwing Books
31 Southward
Seaton Sluice
Northumberland NE26 4DQ
ISBN 978-0-9569555-1-7
Copyright © Richard W Hardwick 2011
Published in eBook format by Lapwing Books
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
The right of Richard W Hardwick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover by Tustin Design
For Anna, Joe and Isla…
PART I
She’s on her feet before her surname echoes off the wall behind. Towards the smiling nurse she strides. I get up slower, gather my book, my empty bottle of water, shuffle after. But then I’m spotted. And the nurse takes her gaze from Anna’s slim face, her long brown hair. And her expression changes as her hand comes up.
“She’s only going for the...”
Mumbles something like she doesn’t want to say the words.
I presume Anna's going to sign her name, check details, will be back in two minutes. Surely I’ll be allowed to support her all the way through? So I wander back across the waiting room, look round at faces that fall away rather than make eye contact. And I sit back down in Anna’s chair, still warm. The door does open two minutes later but it’s the nurse that comes out. I sling her a dirty look, turn to the telly, watch history unfolding. Barrack Obama smiles back at me. Helicopter pictures of the celebrating masses. Braving the weather, that’s what the presenter says. While around me, in warm silence, sit ten or so people; waiting to hear about themselves or their loved ones.
Inauguration:
To commence officially or formally; to initiate.
The doctor had said, “It doesn’t feel like cancer,” smiled affectionately. Anna returned the smile and then the nurse smiled too. I remembered to breathe out again. Everything’s going to be alright; that’s what all the smiles meant.
“But you need to have the mammogram,” he added. “Just in case”
And I’m still here. And it’s getting on for an hour now. And I couldn’t give a toss that the world might be changing for the better. Eventually she comes out, slower than she went in, a little unsteady on her feet, says they had to test some cells. They’d squished her this way and that. It was bigger than it seemed. They have to stick a needle into it, send it to the lab. I hold her hand, still warm and inviting; grip it tighter than I normally would.
Then we’re back in the same room as before and the doctor pushes a long thin needle into her breast and the tears come rolling down her cheeks as she grits her teeth against the pain. And the nurse holds her shaking hand while I sit uselessly at the foot of the bed.
“Pretty worried,” is what the doctor says this time. “That’s why they have the mammogram, the ultrasound. It’s difficult to tell just from feeling”
And then more waiting. Except this time we’ve moved along the conveyor belt and the silence has a thickness that’s rarely challenged. Now there’s just six, the lucky ones allowed to leave, take their relief with them, return to normal lives. A woman’s legs buckle. She’s picked off the floor and taken to a private room. The doctor rushes in. An hour later a nurse pushes her out in a wheelchair, past legs that move quickly, eyes averted elsewhere. Two more go in and then come out, just a quick five minutes for both of them. And then, second from last, after two more hours of waiting, two more hours of hand holding and leg rubbing, they call out her name again...
This time we go past the room we’ve already been in three times, the room we’ve seen others go in, come out of. Two doors down is where we go. A different nurse introduces herself, says the doctor will be along in a few minutes.
And we sit there. And we look around at the leaflets on the wall. And we know...
Cancer is your name. But many call you Big C.
It’s shorter. And easier.
Thirty-six years old with cancer. A girl that people always turn to when things fall apart. A girl that always knows the right thing to do, the right thing to say.
But she can’t answer the question the nurse asks her.
“Do you have any children?”
She breaks down and I answer instead. Explain we have a five year old boy called Joe. A two year old girl called Isla.
•
She asked if she had the right group, seemed a little nervous, sat down on carpet and crossed legs, black hat perched above dyed black hair, black clothes flowing all around. After a few seconds studying carpet pattern she looked up and across at the four blondes in designer clothes lined up on the chairs. Then she glanced at my flowery shirt, my slicked back pony tail, and she felt very different. And though it wasn’t love at first sight for me either, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested.
She sat next to Pete on the aeroplane, swapped with Helen because he was terrified of flying, held his hand while we took off. Over Western and Eastern Europe we went, out over the Mediterranean, round the south of Turkey and above Cyprus until eventually Tel Aviv slipped into sight down below. There was nothing political
