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279 pages

English

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YESTERDAY is an epic novel of eight extraordinary months in 1968, a compelling chronicle of love and revolt that spans the turbulent backdrops of a Paris reeking of tear gas and crawling with riot police, and a Prague crushed under the tracks of Soviet tanks.

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Publié par	eBookPartnership.com
Date de parution	01 octobre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783012381
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Yesterday
Lucy Floyd
* * *
1968 - the year when the spark of rebellion bursts into flames on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In Paris the barricades are going up ... and in Prague 20 years of Stalinist winter are giving way to Spring.
Cassie, desired but disillusioned, has fled swinging London to study in Paris, where she longs, Garbo-like, to be alone. But here she will meet the fellow-misfits who will change her life: Rob, Californian peace-and-love draft dodger, Armelle, man-eating heiress and revolutionary, and Viktor, the cynical Czech exile and career pickpocket who sets out to steal her heart.
YESTERDAY is a novel about love and rebellion, when youth stormed the barricades of a new age when anything seemed possible.
For Mike, with love
Copyright Lucy Floyd 1991, 2013
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Lucy Floyd to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1991 by MACMILLAN LONDON LIMITED.
ISBN: 978-1-78301-238-1
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
eBook conversion by eBookPartnership.com
By the same author
Soon to be issued electronically during 2013 and 2014
BAPTISM OF FIRE
THE FIRST CASUALTY
MERELY PLAYERS
SISTERS AND STRANGERS
BODY LANGUAGE
About the Author
Lucy Floyd read French at King s College London and spent a year in Paris attending the Sorbonne, working as an Assistante in a Lyc e and living in a chambre de bonne, but bears no other resemblance to the heroine of this book. She has written 11 published novels, over 200 short stories, and numerous commissioned screenplays for film and television. Her work has been translated into fourteen languages. In 2008 she moved from London with her photographer husband to the rural heartland of South West France.
YESTERDAY was originally published by MacMillan and Pan.
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
ONE
Prague, December 1950
Viktor woke up to the sound of his mother crying.
He lay still for a moment, regretting his vanished dream, torn between pity and irritation, like a weary parent preparing to humour a sleepless child. The nightlight was struggling against the swirling draughts from the rotting window and ill-fitting door. It was very cold.
He took temporary refuge under the covers, breathing in sustaining gulps of his own warmth. Then he got out of bed, shivering, and crossed to where his mother lay, his socks snagging against the splintering wood of the bare floorboards. She was quiet again, curled up with her back to him, shuddering with silent sobs.
Mama? The freezing air rasped against his throat. He began coughing.
She turned to face him and wiped her eyes on the sheet. It s all right, Viktor, she murmured. It was just a bad dream. She pulled aside the bedclothes and tucked him into the crook of her arm. Go back to sleep now.
Mama s bed felt damp, which made it hard to get warm again. But as always his presence seemed to soothe her. Wide awake now, Viktor lay very still so as not to disturb her. Tomorrow was a Sunday, when they both stayed in bed all day to keep warm. Sundays were boring, but at least he didn t have to go to school.
Viktor hated school. None of the other children would play with him, on account of his father being in gaol. They would dance round him in the playground, chanting Traitor, traitor, traitor! and he averaged at least one punch or kick per day. At first he had fought back, played into their hands. But these days he pretended not to care, just to spoil their fun. The last year had taught him a lot about survival.
He didn t miss his father, although he knew he was supposed to. Already his memories of that dark, fearsome figure were fading. The sound of his key in the latch had filled Viktor with sullen dread, although luckily he was usually asleep - or pretending to be asleep - by the time his father got home. Tati had always been angry about something; Viktor had often heard him shouting at Mama in the middle of the night. He assumed that they were arguing about him, because he was such a dunce.
You re a stupid, lazy boy! his father would roar as Viktor stumbled and stuttered over his reading primer, a Sunday evening ordeal which he no longer had to endure. You must work harder!
Mama would always stick up for him and say things like Be patient and Give him time , which only made his father even angrier. He still couldn t understand why they had sent him to prison, because Mama and Babi ka said he hadn t done anything wrong. It was one of the many things he wouldn t understand till he was older, even though, to Viktor s mind, eight was a great age.
His stomach rumbled. It was difficult to sleep when you were hungry, and his evening meal of soup and bread seemed an awfully long time ago. He comforted himself with thoughts of Christmas at his grandmother s cottage in Bohemia. There would be carp and goose and a dozen different kinds of special biscuits; there would be eggs and boiled chicken and big fat dumplings, and Babi ka would say, Eat up, you two! Eat up! He would play in the snow with the children from the village, who didn t know or care about Tati, and enjoy the dry, clean cold, knowing that the woodstove burned day and night, that he could always get warm again. Babi ka had asked him once he if he would like to come and live with her, but he knew that Mama had to work in Prague, and that she would be lonely without him.
He tried again to get back behind the locked doors of his dream. He had dreamed that he was playing his grandmother s piano. He could see the polished wood reflecting the glitter of the chandelier, hear the sweet sound filling the big, bright room. Babi ka had shown him how to read music, except that it was nothing like reading, because it made perfect sense. It was like looking at a moving picture of your own fingers on the keyboard. He only had to look at those squiggles on the stave and he could hear the notes in his head. It was the first thing that had ever been easy. When Babi ka had had to give up her apartment in Prague and move to her tiny cottage in the country, Viktor had inherited her piano. But then he and his mother had been turned out of their home and had to leave it behind. There was no space for a piano here and in any case it had been confiscated , which was what happened to all your things when your father went to prison.
That s Communism for you, Babi ka would mutter. What s mine is mine, and what s yours is also mine. Viktor knew not to repeat the things his grandmother said. You never repeated anything anyone said at home, in case somebody informed on you.
The vanished keyboard tinkled in the distance, like sleigh bells, luring him into a chilly sleep.
* * *
Morning came with a tap on the door. Mama grunted in her sleep and turned over. Viktor slid out of bed.
Who is it?
Viktor? It s V ra. Let me in.
Viktor liked V ra. She was the only person who still came to see them. She was always cheerful and smiling and, more importantly, she usually brought him something. He was rather less enthusiastic about her baby, Eva, who, undaunted by his indifference, gurgled at him in delighted recognition.
What s the matter with your mama? asked V ra. Is she ill again? She lifted Eva out of her pushchair and crossed over to the bed.
Say good morning to your Auntie Milena, Eva! Say, Wake up, lazybones!
V ra! His mother sat up, and her face broke into a huge sad smile. Hello, Evi ka darling!
Viktor took advantage of the diversion to put his clothes on over his pyjamas, anxious to avoid the daily torment of washing in ice-cold water. He braced himself for a visit to the filthy privy in the yard, home to a thousand beetles, and decided he could put it off a bit longer.
Come and say hello to Eva, Viktor, called his mother. She was always urging him to play with Eva, much to Viktor s disgust. He didn t find babies remotely interesting. He had never been at all clear where this one had came from, because V ra wasn t married.
Hello, Eva, he muttered, offering her a reluctant finger, appraising the fat, rosy-faced infant with something like envy. It must be nice not to have a father. He wished his mother hadn t got married, that she d managed to have him all by herself.
His mother stood the child up on the bed, with her hands under the girl s armpits, trying to encourage her to walk. Eva squealed in delight.
I remember when Viktor was small, she said to V ra. I remember thinking we must be mad to bring a baby into such a dreadful world. Every day I was terrified that Karel would get himself arrested and shot. And now ...
I brought her with me to cheer you up, not to start you brooding! And I brought something else, too. Come here, Viktor. V ra thrust her hands deep into both pockets of her coat.
Which hand?
Left.
V ra displayed an empty palm and shook her head mournfully.
Too bad.
Right!
Too late.
Right! Right!
Relenting, she withdrew a large red apple. Viktor grabbed it, almost forgetting to say thank you, and took a huge greedy bite before retreating to a prudent nibble, anxious to make this treat last as long as possible.
How long since you two last had a decent meal? said V ra, offering his mother a cigarette. And why haven t you lit the stove? It s freezing in