‘Theirs was the most important relationship of their life…‘
The Days of Our Birth by Charlie Laidlaw publishes with Rampart Books June 27th. It is a contemporary fictional tale and is described as ‘a humorous novel celebrating the birthdays of two people over twenty years’. I am delighted to share an extract with you all today, alongside details about the novel and the all-important pre-order/purchase details.
Praise for The Days of Our Birth
‘Bittersweet and romantic, I loved every minute of this tale of two people who are meant to be together but have to overcome the expectations of others and find themselves.’
Jennifer Macaire, author of best-selling The Time for Alexander series…
‘I loved it… full of poignancy. Peter and Sarah are beautiful characters who come alive on the page.’
Colette McCormick, author of Ribbons In Her Hair…
‘Intriguing characters make this a great read. Enjoyed it immensely.’
RJ Gould, author of Nothing Man…
‘A poignant and beautifully written coming of age novel’
Carol McGrath, author of The Stolen Crown…
[ About The Days of Our Birth ]
Peter and Sarah grow up living next door to one another in a small town in the east of Scotland. They also share the same birthday. He’s not so bright, but she’s formidably intelligent. She’s also autistic, and can’t understand why nobody except Peter likes her.
The days of our birth follows Peter and Sarah over twenty years from their sixth birthday onwards. His journey into adulthood is fairly effortless; hers, more complex. It explores how two very different people can grow up as best friends, but never quite understand why they’re best friends and what they really feel about one another.
The book, filled with humour and poignancy, is an exploration of how people change, the things we could have said and done and, sometimes, how we can make things right again.
Peter and Sarah are finally forced to confront what they really feel, about themselves and about each other. For them, it is also about realising that love and friendship mean more than the sum of their differences.
[ Extract ]
Later
The train was late of course—it always was when she had important meetings to attend, or so it seemed to her. Rattling arthritically from Clapham Junction, she looked at the drab houses, with her mouth a thin line, as the train gathered pace whining towards Waterloo. In her mind were all sorts of jumbled thoughts, some good, some bad. Usually her thoughts were carefully ordered, sorted by priority so that nothing was forgotten. Today, though, like a pile of unwashed laundry, she had simply allowed her thoughts to gather in a heap. It was the same on this one day every year.
An angular woman, past forty and past caring, sat grimly by the window opposite. A small girl, perhaps no more than six or seven, sat alongside and watched her mother with wide eyes. The woman was trying to read a newspaper, but the intermittent crawl and stutter of the train was distracting her and she soon folded the newspaper on her lap, drumming the fingers of one hand on its front-page headline.
“Nearly there, lovey,” she remarked to the girl and patted her absently on the head. She caught the other woman’s eye and smiled, finally turning her mind to the day ahead and its various meetings – some important, others less so – and interminable paperwork, although today would be different, with a jokey card on her desk, signed by all her colleagues and a Curly the Caterpillar cake for their mid-afternoon break. It was part of her office’s culture, disguising bad salaries and poor working conditions behind the egalitarian inclusion of false bonhomie and cheap birthday cake.
The older woman registered her smile by nervously returning it, then blushed. “I’m late,” she confided. “Geoffrey will kill me. My husband. I’m supposed to have met him, let’s see, ten minutes ago. Imagine!”
She thought about this for a few moments before concluding that the older woman wasn’t being serious about being murdered and leaned forward politely. “We’re all late.”
“Well, it’s not fair—is it, pet?” She was holding tight to her little girl’s hand, the skin on her knuckles showing up white. “What on earth is daddy going to say, that’s what I’d like to know.”
“It’s often late,” she said to the older woman, offering reassurance. “Too many trains, too few platforms. Something like that.” She glanced at the window: a smudge of clouds had darkened the sky and raindrops now smeared the glass. The train jolted and rocked over points, transporting her towards her morning meetings.
The woman opposite was regarding her quizzically, as if their brief exchange had made them allies. “Then I’m glad I don’t have to make this journey every day, that’s what I say.” She sighed at her daughter, if it was her daughter, and clasped her hand tight.
“Look,” she said. “We’re there.”
Suddenly, the other woman was all common sense and animation. “Get your things together, lovey,” she ordered, and heaved a battered suitcase from the rack. Grand Hotel, Majorca, she read on one label; and another, almost completely faded, Bella Vista, Clacton. It was an old suitcase and the labels must have come from a bygone age. She momentarily wondered who those travellers had been, not this family certainly, boldly venturing to Majorca and Clacton; how excited they would have been, thinking about her own travels, such as they were. She liked it that the older woman still used a battered suitcase and hadn’t peeled the old labels away. It proclaimed the special places that the suitcase had been to, and of the people who packed it; and we’re all a little bit moulded by the special places we’ve visited, she thought, not that she’d really gone anywhere. A couple of trips to Spain when she’d been little, kicking and screaming all the way to the airport. She momentarily tried to guess at the older woman’s life: why she was on this train with her daughter, and why her husband would be so angry. The woman gave only conflicting clues: expensive trouser suit and immaculate makeup but carrying an old suitcase with fading labels. She then saw for the first time that one of the child’s eyes was glazed, and cobweb lines had bleached it a marbled white.
The girl was looking at her as if she was a kindly aunt whose name she had temporarily forgotten, then scrambled for her mother’s hand before jumping to the platform. The woman hesitated for a moment, her body angled towards the barrier, anxious to be off.
“Thanks,” the woman said, and shrugged.
“For what?” She was genuinely mystified.
But the crowd had enfolded them, as a station announcer apologised with practised familiarity for the late arrival of their service. She hurried towards the barrier, and as she did so, caught sight again of the small girl who had stopped and was looking back along the platform, her good eye wincing at the sudden sound; her dead eye serene: a thunderclap, sharp and unexpected, loud enough to set the pigeons wheeling and diving from the station canopy.
She hurried through the crowd and emerged from the station just as her mobile phone pinged.
Happy birthday!!! she read, and her heart skipped a beat, before realising that the text came from Maggie, an old school friend who she hadn’t quite managed to shake off. She’d been half-expecting a birthday message from someone else, and she frowned and stopped and for a few moments watched the pigeons flutter back to their roosts in the station canopy. Then she took a deep breath, looked at the sky, and decided that the rain had stopped. She pocketed her phone and hurried on.
The Days of Our Birth – Pre-Order/Purchase Link
[ Bio ]
Charlie Laidlaw is the author of six published novels; The Days of our Birth, The Time Between Space, Everyday Magic, Being Alert!, The Things We Learn When We’re Dead and Love Potions and Other Calamities. He was born and brought up in the west of Scotland and graduated from the University of Edinburgh. Working as a journalist led him to becoming a PR consultant. He is married with two grown-up children and live in East Lothian.
X ~ @claidlawauthor
