Elizabeth, William... and Me , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Lynn Scott S.

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

128 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

S. Lynn Scott's debut novel is a funny, moving and very original tale that takes the reader on a rollicking adventure through modern England - accompanied by the Virgin Queen and William Shakespeare. Ally is living an ordinary life until Elizabeth and William come to stay. Exactly why Elizabeth Tudor should choose her pantry to appear in, or why the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon should show up later in her bath is a bit of a mystery, not to mention a dreadful inconvenience, but the crotchety Elizabeth has a mission and she is used to getting her own way. Ally too, needs to recover something that has been lost, and perhaps Elizabeth and William will be the means by which she will find it. Elizabeth, William... and Me takes a wry look at modern life through the eyes of two of history's most famous personalities. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heart-breaking, the trio's quest takes them from middle England to the cold streets of London, from a shelter for the homeless to the home of the very highest in the land; and from grief to acceptance.Drawing from S. Lynn Scott's knowledge of Elizabethan England and her experience of directing Shakespeare productions,Elizabeth, William... and Meis an accessible and imaginative novel that will appeal to both fans and non-fans of Shakespeare, as well as readers who enjoy humorous fiction - with unexpected twists...

Informations

Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 mai 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781788031325
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Elizabeth, William… and Me

S. Lynn Scott
Copyright © 2017 S. Lynn Scott

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Cover illustration by Ryan at Monkey Feet Illustration.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador
9 Priory Business Park,
Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
Tel: 0116 279 2299
Email: books@troubador.co.uk
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781788031325

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For Nigel, Bryony and Alessandra
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TW0
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER ONE
If this were played upon a stage now I would condemn it as an improbable fiction. As You Like It, Act III Sc iii
It was an ordinary day when Elizabeth came to stay. You would have thought that her arrival would have been heralded by the blare of sackbuts, or crumhorns at the very least, but nothing presaged the great event. Nothing out of the ordinary happened at all.
There was nothing in the post, except junk mail, and nothing on the news, except reports of misery and forecasts of more to come. Nothing in the air, no jarring telephone calls, and nothing foretold in my tea leaves. (Not that I believe in that sort of nonsense.) There was nothing unusual in the way my husband yawned like a hippopotamus, ogled the TV weather girl and left for work, falling over the cat on his way out of the door. Serve him right. Or in the way Grace stayed in bed until the last possible moment and then flung on clothes and make-up with sudden exasperated urgency whilst muttering a couple of four-letter words that she thought I didn’t hear.
Definitely nothing unusual in the way that Alex drifted through with his blonde hair tousled, ill-fitting jeans flaunting the waistband and more of his Calvin Klein underpants. Nothing at all unusual in the way he grabbed a piece of burnt toast and grunted a muffled word that might have been ‘morning’. Or might not. It was so lovely to have him home again that my anxious ‘where are you going?’ died on my lips. He had been gone such a long time that to have him with me when he wanted to be with me was enough.
There was nothing at all in this mundane morning business to indicate that something truly extraordinary was about to happen.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold with prescience or any of that paranormal stuff. I’m an atheist for Christ’s sake. Still, looking back, it did seem that something should have heralded Elizabeth’s arrival; an otherworldly glow; a hollow voice echoing from the heavens; lightning flashes accompanied by a dull, low roll of thunder, or a swift chorus of The Ride of the Valkyries bouncing off my stainless steel saucepans. But no, I just opened the pantry door and there she was.
I shut it again and drank more coffee.
Hubby’s car shot down the driveway scattering gravel and offending the cat yet again. My daughter, Grace, wearing a self-bastardised version of her school uniform that would no doubt get her into trouble at school (again), looked resentfully at me before sloping sleepily out of the front door, brightening as fellow somnambulists called to her from across the street. She always looked at me resentfully these days. I hoped that it was just a phase. I drank more coffee, thinking that we should all get up earlier so that we could have a proper family breakfast of muesli and orange juice like you are supposed to. Like all those families on the television with breakfast bars and ‘lifestyles’ do. I had been thinking that for years of course but somehow it had remained just an unattainable aspiration and none of us ate breakfast at a table unless we were on holiday and it was served up by the hotel. And the choice then was never orange juice and muesli.
I picked up my keys and left for work.
I got as far as the gate and then I came back into the house, marched up to the pantry door and flung it open fearlessly.
She was still there.
“What,” I asked, “are you doing in my pantry?”
It was not an unreasonable question you will agree. She didn’t respond, just stared at me with majestically glassy eyes. The full peculiarity of the situation hit me and I took an involuntary step backwards. I was, as my grandmother used to say, ‘struck all of a heap’. She took a step forward. I retreated another couple of steps and came into sharp contact with the sink. Unwashed plates and mugs adjusted their position noisily and the leaky tap gurgled. She lifted a small yellowed, glittering hand toward me whilst I, suddenly frightened, did my very best to climb into the sink.
“Who art thou?” She spoke in a harsh, cracked whisper but her manner was commanding.
I froze with one leg resting on a dinner plate. The fingers, thin and crabbed were reaching towards my face, the gleaming dark jewels contrasting and mesmerising with their ageless beauty. I knew who she was of course. I had known instantly. The first moment I opened the pantry door and our eyes met I knew who she was. Considering it was my pantry she had ensconced herself in I had assumed that she must know who I was but apparently not.
“Who art thou?” she repeated.
I told her, not wishing to seem rude.
“Ally,” She repeated, with heartfelt disdain. “What earthy name is this?”
“It’s short for Alessandra,” I stuttered, helpfully.
Whatever she was, this apparition from my pantry, perhaps she would be less intimidating once we had had a chat. “It’s Italian.”
“Art thou Italian?”
“Oh, no,” I was beginning to feel marginally more at ease. “My father found it in a book. It’s the name of Mussolini’s daughter. Not that he’s a fan of Mussolini,” I added hastily and then remembered that it was very unlikely that she would know who Mussolini was. “He just liked the name. Mum wanted to call me Ocean Aurora, so I suppose I got off lightly. My sister is Kate but she nearly ended up as Joyful Zephyr except that Dad said it sounded like a budget car, so…”
My companion’s eyes rolled heavenwards and she cut across me in what I felt was a very unqueenly manner.
“Thou art much above the middle height.” The little old woman was studying me with sharp eyes, bright in her white withered face. “Thou art very large indeed.”
“I’m tall,” I admitted resentfully. It was my house after all and I wasn’t that big. It was just that, by contrast, she was so tiny and shrunken. I didn’t quite have the courage to say that to her but I was becoming uncomfortably aware that a spoon laden with last night’s bolognese had smudged the seat of my trousers. I decided I had had enough of cowering. If she wanted to suck my brains out or fell me with a thunderbolt, I would just have to take the risk. I slid slowly down off the sink but did grasp the handle of a frying pan just in case. She eyed my cautious movements with contempt and then suddenly stepped out of my pantry and swept past me. She came to a halt in the middle of our small kitchen and looked around. The strange woman was tiny but her dress was huge. Her back was ramrod straight and, when you couldn’t see her face, she looked like a gorgeously dressed doll on which the clothes are intended to be the main feature and the body just the frame. I moved with relief from my perch on the sink and the cups rattled and groaned once more. I rubbed the bolognaise sauce off my trousers with a damp tea towel and glared resentfully at her. She stood still, unmoving except for her sharp eyes which roamed freely over the jumbled detritus of my life. I started to speak but was commanded into awed silence by the smallest movement of her withered hand. She certainly had a way with her.
When she had examined my kitchen to her own satisfaction she twisted slowly around to face me again and any initial impression of lack of stature fled. She was tiny and ugly but even when motionless she emanated an intensity that filled the room. Her unnaturally high forehead glowed whitely in the muted sunlight stealing in through the window. Her thin lips were little more than a cruelly defined line, her cheeks withered and without colour beneath heavy scarlet rouge and her eye sockets were shrunken and darkly shadowed. But her eyes, oh her eyes, held a whole world within them. They were bright, sharp and demanding. Power and command and…