A Clean Break

By Audrey Davis

A marriage in tatters. An affair that threatens to blow their world apart. Meet Emily and Jim and discover their lives in this funny, poignant and thought-provoking novella. (This book reads as a standalone, but is also the prequel to full-length novel A Clean Sweep).

'Witty, compelling & convincing'

'Wonderfully realistic anti-romance!'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Audrey Davis
• Release date: Jul 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386549949

Book preview

1

Jim

Half an hour before they had to leave for the airport and Jim was cleaning up the leaves on the driveway. Back and forth he went with his purpose-built contraption. He couldn't stand going away unless it looked immaculate.

From the window his wife Emily watched his progress, shrouded in a cloud of steam as she ironed two shirts he'd decided he wanted at the last minute.

Stomping into the kitchen, Jim went to the coffee capsule holder and sighed heavily. 'Em, we've run out of decaf. Did you forget to buy more?'

Emily unplugged the iron and carefully folded the second shirt. 'Sorry, it slipped my mind. Can't you just have a normal one? The gold ones are pretty mild.'

Pouring himself a glass of tap water instead, Jim picked up the shirts and headed to the bedroom. She knew he tried to avoid caffeine and dairy products were a complete no-no since his last cholesterol results. Which was a bugger as he adored cheese.

Upstairs they packed their final items side by side, Emily discarding two bikinis and grabbing another couple of summer dresses from the wardrobe. Jim checked through his wash bag which contained the bare minimum. Emily’s – on the other hand – bulged with toiletries including sun cream, insect repellent and tablets to deal with headaches, upset stomachs and allergies. As they were only going to Majorca for a week, she thought it unlikely they needed a full first aid kit, but Jim liked to prepare for any eventuality.

On the short drive to the airport, they only exchanged a handful of words. Mainly to do with the setting for the air conditioning – ‘waste of money having it cranked up to the max, Em. It just burns fuel!’ moaned Jim, and a brief panic when they argued over who had brought the Euros. They turned out to be safely tucked away in Jim’s wallet despite his assertion that he didn’t have them.

As he pulled into the long-term car park, Jim hoped that a pleasant week lay ahead. Work had been stressful recently, with talk of redundancies and downsizing. Jim was quietly confident his job was secure – he considered himself very good at what he did – but it made for an uneasy atmosphere. He’d tried to discuss it with Emily but had been met with polite indifference or, at least, that was how it came across. She spent on average four or five hours a day proofreading and editing short stories for the kind of magazines that littered GP surgeries and hairdressers. Total drivel, as far as Jim was concerned, but it did bring in some pocket money. Not that he would dare describe it as such. Emily was an intelligent and well-read woman who could easily apply her skills to something more mentally challenging. However, anytime he had hinted at this she regarded him with a glacial stare and an unspoken reminder of how her dreamed-of literary career had been derailed by the not-so-small matter of an unplanned pregnancy.

They’d married in haste not long after Emily finished university, Jim eyeing his bride with a mixture of awe and sheer terror. Five years her senior, he’d been the envy of many of his friends when they started dating. Not known for his sartorial elegance and regarded as a geek by most

Reviews for A Clean Break

[Tonya Murphy · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely zero ending here. I’m not even sure what we are supposed to extrapolate from the last few paragraphs.