: Hazel Manuel
: Undressing Stone
: Cinnamon Press
: 9781788640329
: 1
: CHF 5.50
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 260
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Introverted and emotionally aloof, Sian can't remember what her ex-husband had been talking about, but not wanting to do as he said, she did exactly what he'd cautioned against instead. From Cardiff to Saint Vay - a four-house hamlet tucked away in a forgotten corner of ancient France - Sian gives up her stable home and job in Wales to begin a new life in a borrowed cottage, because the internet told her to. Undressing Stone is a mysterious tale flirting with the gothic as it interweaves Sian's conversations with her psychiatrist with her newly reclusive life in France. There she meets Clotilde - a strange and enigmatic sculptor who likes to work in the nude. And Sian takes with her a secret she has told no-one - not even her psychiatrist. Will her encounters with Clotilde encourage her to admit a truth she has avoided for years? And what are the consequences for Sian if she does? In a narrative that moves between caustic observation and the richly sensual, this is a novel that challenges many of our assumptions about modern life and celebrates the unconventional. A beautifully paced, told with literary skill, but always compelling novel from Hazel Manuel, author of Kanyakumari and The Geranium Woman.

Hazel Manuel is a UK born novelist who began writing after a career in education, first as a teacher/lecturer and, later, as a business leader within the education sector. She now lives and writes in Paris where she hosts 'Paris Writers Working Lunches'. Hazel's first novel, Kanyakumari was written over three trips to India and was the winner of the 2013 Cinnamon Press Novel award. Her second novel The Geranium Woman was published in 2016 by Cinnamon Press. She is currently working on a psychological thriller, Cliff. You can find out more about Hazel and her work at www.hazelmanuel.net. It is important to Hazel to discover and explore that which she finds authentic in herself, in other people and in the ideas which inform the ways in which we live our lives and it is this search for authenticity that characterises her novels. What Hazel hopes to achieve through themes of uncertainty, loss, obsession, power, change, fear, and of questioning life and the self, is that the reader travels with her characters through an archetypical inner journey that is fundamentally satisfying because it could equally be their own.







Chapter 1




‘So this is it then, you’re going.’

There’s nothing like Welsh rain, it’s cold, its grey and, I swear, it’s the wettest rain in the world. It was late spring and in spite of my half-hearted protests Arwel had insisted on driving me the twenty minutes through the deluge to the coach stop to wave me off. And to my surprise, considering we’d been divorced for years, we’d both got a bit tearful. 

‘I’m going, Arwel,’ I’d replied swallowing hard and clutching my small leather backpack in front of me.

I glanced around at the huddle of teenagers in skinny-jeans, swarthy-looking men, elderly couples saying their good byes amid the diesel fumes of the already-running engine. No one was interested in me. I pulled my coat round me in the chilly morning air. Despite the hot tears which threatened to defy my fortitude, I’d thought I’d feel more. Here it was. I was moving to France. Arwel turned back to me and I pinned a bright smile on my face.

‘It feels like I’m just going on holiday,’ I said over the pounding of the rain on the bus-stand roof.

‘Maybe you are, Sian.’ He wasn’t smiling.

‘Arwel…’

I had no idea what I wanted to say to him, so maybe it was good that he cut in, his gloved hands clasping my shoulders.

‘You’ve got nothing to prove, love. If it doesn’t work out, come home.’

Arwel, I’m not your ‘love’, I felt like saying. But I didn’t. And what did he mean by ‘home’?

‘That’s very sweet of you, Arwel,’ I said, hoping my sincerity outweighed the sarcasm. 

After all, that’s not what he’d said to our son at the start ofhis adventure, but then, everyone knows middle-aged women don’t have adventures. I was gracious and let Arwel hug me tightly, his stubble grazing my cheek, before helping me onto the coach where I shuffled along the aisle behind two pony-tailed French boys. Once installed in a window-seat, my coat folded on the seat next to mine so that no one could join me, I sat looking back at Arwel, the collar of his coat turned up, miming a telephone call and mouthing the words ‘stay in touch.’ The engine shuddered, the coach lurched forward and I watched him through the rain-streaked glass as we left our stand to join the morning traffic, his dark form growing smaller and smaller, waving at me until we rounded a corner.Effinghell,this really is it! Did he feel the same sense of sudden panic? I shoved the thought away and turned to face the road ahead.‘I’m going to live in France,’ I repeated over and over in my mind.‘I’m going to live in France.’


In the weeks before I’d left, Arwel had tried everything to make me change my mind. He’d invoked the gods of common sense, financial ruin, mental-breakdown, the wrath of my psychiatrist, maternal abandonment (that was the least plausible), even giving our marriage a second go (actually,that was the least plausible). Finally, for lack of any other options, he’d asked me out for a goodbye dinner.

Arwel and I had one of those rare divorces that ends in friendship. Of sorts. ‘No reason not to keep things pleasant,’ he’d said at the time. ‘For Nate’s sake at least.’ I’d agreed. The divorce had been complicated, but not in the traditional sense—our house, our finances, our son—already a man, all were easily divided or incorporated into a new reality. It was complicated because I had no grounds for divorce.

‘You’re going to have to give me something to work with here, Sian,’ my solicitor had said.

‘But he’s been a good husband and father,’ I’d replied. ‘I’m not going to lie and ci