All the Blood is Red (eBook)

Leone Ross (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
256 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
978-0-571-39168-4 (ISBN)

Infos

'Noisy, sexy, profusely inventive, Ross's storytelling crashes over the reader like an invigorating ocean wave.' DAILY MAIL 'Sensitive and skilful . . . deeply emotive.' PRIDE MAGAZINE Discover this powerful, provocative novel about three young women whose lives are upended by a sexual assault case. 1996, London. Nicola, tall and gorgeous, has re-birthed herself. She has landed a breakthrough role and her star is rising - she can feel herself blossoming, can see it in the melting eyes of the men, and the jealous eyes of the women. If Nicola is a flower, Alexandra is a closed bud. Crushed by heartache from a recent breakup, she just wants to succeed as a journalist. Jeanette has just landed from Manchester. She refuses to let her mother's warnings about London or her Doc Martens weigh her down: she's ready for uni - for life - to start. This is the story of three women - and the mysterious Mavis - as they reach for dreams the whole world seems to want to destroy. But when sexual assault ruptures their world view, they soon discover that those who wear the cloak of friendship - family, community, lovers, peers - often cause the greatest pain. Readers love All the Blood is Red: 'A stunning book . . . it's about victory, even when it doesn't look the way we thought it would. Ross has a powerful writer's voice.' 'I was hooked from start to finish . . . marvelling at how she wrote these four distinct women who were joined by threads of vulnerability and strength.'

Leone Ross was born in England and grew up in Jamaica. Her first novel, All the Blood Is Red, was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and her second novel, Orange Laughter,was chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour Watershed Fiction favourite. Her short fiction has been widely anthologised and her first short-story collection, the 2017 Come Let Us Sing Anyway was nominated for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards and the OCM BOCAS Prize. Ross has taught creative writing for twenty years, at University College Dublin, Cardiff University and Roehampton University in London. She is editor of the first black British anthology of speculative fiction, due out in 2022 with Peepal Tree Press. Prior to writing fiction, Ross worked as a journalist. Leone Ross lives in London but intends to retire near water.

Textauszug

4

Alexandrea smiled as she watched Nicola stride out of the customs gates towards them. She had company as usual, four of them this time, hanging on. Two of the men trying to keep up with her were passengers, clutching luggage and boarding passes. The third was an official looking gentleman with a bald head and trousers that clung, awkwardly, to his ankles, ballooning at the hips. He reminded Alexandrea of John-Luc Picard in Star Trek. Except clumsier. A baggage boy brought up the rear, admiring Nicola’s legs, goggle-eyed. Nearly every set of male eyes in the vicinity had joined his. Nikki’s magic was strange: the ability to draw people (men) like butterflies, sore with anxiety to please. Alex felt a small pang. Nobody would ever, or had ever, left Nikki. She wondered what that was like, never feeling rejection, never having to wake up to an empty bed if you didn’t want one. She chided herself. There were few people she knew who deserved love more. She supposed that her friend got it because she gave it. She was open, her scent invited acknowledgement. It was part of the natural order of things.

If she had really thought about it, she would have realised that if Nicola was open, she herself was a closed bud. Full of potential, yes. But her understanding of herself was overlaid by pragmatism. She didn’t just want to flower. She wanted to succeed. At everything.

The tall man standing beside her shifted impatiently. ‘I wonder what’s happened,’ he said. ‘That man isn’t just chatting her up. Something seems to have happened.’ They watched the Picard lookalike waving his arms around, obviously discomfited. The other three men nodded. A chorus. Nicola’s head was on one side, listening, then she stuck her hand out. Alexandrea grinned again. She could see the man pulsate in pleasure as their fingers touched.

She glanced up at Julius. His eyes were fixed on his girlfriend as if he had never seen her before.

‘Does it bother you?’ she asked.

He tore his gaze away and tried to concentrate. He knew Nicola’s body language. As a director it was one of the things he noticed first. She was pretending, but he saw the tension. He looked at Alexandrea.

‘Sorry?’

She tilted her chin in Nicola’s direction. ‘Does it bother you when other men …’

‘No.’ He was lying. Ever since he and Nicola had started their relationship he had known he was in a position that most men would envy. But he, too, was used to people looking at him. Even as they stood there he saw a woman staring from across the concourse. He hated it when people recognised him. He felt as if he owed them something, but exactly what was difficult to define. At least Nicola could guess: the glances she got were always about sex. Men wanting it and women hating her for it. When someone looked at him, their impressions were overlaid with their own personal reverie about who he was: famous director, the constant rumours regarding his sexuality because he kept his personal life out of the papers, whether they’d liked the last production or not, his insistence on solitude. He could see the question lit up, electric blue in their heads: WHO IS JULIUS FRASER? It offended him that they should presume anything, having never met him. The woman yanked at the arm of her partner and whispered, pointing. Mercifully, her husband was not as interested in star spotting. They passed on. Julius glanced around him. His publicist had wanted to come to the airport with them, but he had put her off. At least let me walk as a normal man, he had grumbled.

‘He-llo …’ Alexandrea tugged at him.

‘At least I know what they want from her,’ he answered.

She looked at him quizzically. ‘And you don’t know what they want from you?’

He shook his head.

‘They want to be acknowledged,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand.’ He watched the woman glance back at him. ‘Does she just want me to say hello, smile, give her an autograph?’

Alexandrea laughed. ‘That as well. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. She becomes somebody because she’s seen you. Watch her at bingo tonight, or talking to her children. It’ll be “I saw Julius Fraser today in the airport. He was standing with a black woman. He wore a green tie and jeans. He was waiting for someone.” And then they’ll try to guess who it was, who I was, how you were feeling, whether you looked like a nice man.’ She paused. ‘It’s a guessing game. Celebrities are our gods now. We look to them for something we lack. You have the power to make them feel every time they see one of your plays. And that makes them wonder. It fascinates them. They want to know you and how you do it.’

Julius raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s that complex?’

‘Aw, c’mon, Julie. Didn’t you ever admire someone? Don’t you admire any celebrity now, even though you are one?’

‘I can’t say I do. Oh, sure, I’ve admired people in my time. But never to the point of hunger. And I’ve met most of them now, anyway. So have you. You’ve probably met more famous people than I have.’

‘That’s why I know,’ she said. ‘One thing that continually fascinates “stars” is how they’re perceived. And they’ll talk about it, if you press them.’ She grinned. ‘Like you are now. Oh, look – here she comes!’ She stepped forward to greet Nicola, who was walking towards them. ‘Girl, you get a tan!’

Nicola tripped and fell forward slightly. The men gazing after her looked bleakly on as Julius steadied her. She flung her arms around him and put her face in his shoulder. Despite himself, he glanced around. No-one was looking.

‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’ He kissed her quickly.

‘Oh my god, there was this man and he was jerking off beside me on the plane and I just totally freaked—’

‘WHAT?’ Alexandrea bristled. ‘Did he hurt you? Did he touch you? Are you alright?’ She plucked at her friend’s long, toffee-brown dreads. Nicola turned to her, bending for a hug.

‘I’m alright. You should see de bloodclaaht ugly bwoy! Me nearly bawl. Woke up the whole rass plane.’

It constantly amused Julius that even though she was a foot shorter than Nicola, Alexandrea often took on the role of her protector.

‘—then they took him into another part of the plane and handed him over to the police as soon as we landed. That man I was just talking to apologised and said that next time I flew they’d bump me up to first class—’

She was getting more animated. He pushed aside his anxieties and pulled her into his arms again. She looked at him. Her eyes were too bright. ‘Calm down,’ he said softly. ‘Calm down. You’re okay …’

He felt her relax slightly. Alexandrea looked away.

‘Am I?’ Her eyes were large, pupils expanded.

‘Yes.’ He soothed her with the word.

‘Yes.’ She shivered. ‘Damn you. You always make me acknowledge what I’m feeling.’ She tried to smile. ‘As for firs’ class, dem mussee t’ink seh idyat don’ travel in style too. Like I’m safe from the wankers of the world just because there’ll be personal TVs and champagne, to rass.’

‘You’ve got the accent back,’ Alexandrea observed.

‘Weh you ah try say, gyal? Me is a Jamdowner, born an’ bred!’

‘Yeah, but you get Cockney when you tryin’ to chat up British men though!’

Nicola drew herself up to her full height. ‘It’s hard being me, innit?’

The two women broke into laughter, clinging to each other. Julius took a firm grip on the baggage trolley and watched them giggle. Nicola was a long drink of water. The skirt hugged a tender waist and legs that looked a mile long, stretched flames of muscle and gold. Once they had been on a train and a black American man had leaned forward to him as they had stepped on to the platform. Throw that ass into the air and it’d turn into sunshine, he had joked, leering. Julius had spent moments imagining how good it would have been to throw the Yank’s head into the air and watch that turn into sunshine, but he had controlled himself. Nikki had smiled.

Alex was neat. Tiny ears set back against a small, well-formed skull. Hair a silken helmet that forced you into the depths of her eyes. A body cut from a single, dark-hearted stone. Nothing superfluous. She skirted five feet tall and was tougher than she looked, antiseptic where Nicola was redolent. And quick. Sometimes he felt as if she could see inside his heart. He was glad that she had never interviewed him, and could understand why she was good at her job, why she specialised in celebrity profiles. Once she turned her searching gaze on you you were hard pressed to lie. Or insult her...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.11.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-571-39168-0 / 0571391680
• ISBN-13: 978-0-571-39168-4 / 9780571391684