Three

By Kathleen Jones

Three short stories from award-winning author Kathleen Jones, whose biographies have been published by Penguin, Constable, Time Warner, Virago and Bloomsbury. Her fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and been broadcast on radio networks in Britain, Holland, Spain and Germany. She also writes poetry, published by Templar Poetry UK. Kathleen divides her time between England and Italy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Jones
• Release date: Sep 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9780956730312

Book preview

THREE

and other Stories

by

Kathleen Jones

...

A Book Mill Publication

Published by The Book Mill at Smashwords

Copyright © Kathleen Jones 2011

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If your are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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ISBN 978-0-9567303-1-2

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The Book Mill is an imprint of Ferber Jones Ltd

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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THREE

LIVING WITH THE DEAD

GLASS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

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THREE

1

In the dawn light that sharpened the edges of things, foregrounding the mountains against infinity, Val went down to the studio, stared critically at the clay form he’d shaped the previous day and then, clenching his massive hands into fists, he flattened it. The physical action of pounding the clay back into an abstract mass raised his blood pressure, making a vein at his temple thud against his skull. He did the same thing every morning and the ritual gave him an odd, destructive satisfaction.

Once, the clay had seemed an extension of his imagination, shaped and formed by the strength of his will. Now, the material that oozed and sucked between his fingers no longer gave him that childlike feeling of delight in its endless possibilities; it was merely a recalcitrant terracotta mass that took all his strength to handle.

Afterwards, breathing hard, he went to stand in the open doorway gazing out into the courtyard, where the early light reflected in pools of rainwater on the terrazzo. In the centre, on a block of rough marble, stood the statue of Europa being carried off by Zeus disguised as a bull. It was a sculpture Val had executed when he was forty, and every day he looked at it to remind himself of what he was capable of.

‘Why did you want to depict a rape? ’ the girl had said when she first arrived. ‘And by an animal at that? Even if it is mythical.’

‘It’s not about sexual politics,’ Val had argued impatiently. ‘It’s about form. Do you know how difficult it is to get the bull like that with his hind legs reared up to lift the girl? And to make both forms work from every angle?’

‘The Greeks did three.’

‘But perhaps I will also do three before I die.’

Ursula’s eyes had expressed disbelief.

‘Of course I never sleep,’ he’d