Excerpt from Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'Better or worse?' the optician asked.

'Better.' Another lens inserted.

'Better or worse?'

'Worse.'

No matter what, it would be another hundred and twenty quid.

'If you could rest your chin here . . .'

'On the chin rest?'

'Yes.'

The stare into this woman's eyes, the fear that she would smell his old man's breath, being only inches away. Glimpsing his own retinal veins like blood-red winter trees. Déjà vu the confessional – the lowered light level, the proximity of the listening face. How long has it been since your last eye appointment, my child? Alone or with others? Better or worse?

The optician dismissed his worries about the chandeliers – everybody gets them at your age, she said. It's when you stand too quickly.


He still needed the bathroom. Rising from the bed, slowly this time – no fireworks to speak of – shuffling forward, finding the door. He knows how to walk his home in the pitch-dark. Turning the handle in such a way it would not click and waken Stella. He walked along the hallway avoiding the packed and ready cases. The air in the bathroom was so cold it stung. The heating was normally set to come on at eight. But her ladyship would have turned it off because they were going away. No sense in heating the place just to leave it pleasant for the burglars. Breakfast in your overcoat with the fog rolling off your tea. As he drained into the bowl he closed his eyes and continued as far as possible to remain asleep. Maybe his doctor would have a different story to tell. 'Yes, light spiders are inevitably precursors of a stroke. Hypochondriacs die too, y'know.'

He pressed the flush and headed back along the hallway. A faint glow came from behind the study door. The place was dark except for the winking coloured lights of the router and the various add-ons and extensions. Like a fairground. Their mobiles charging side by side. Stella must have been up earlier when he was in his first sleep. He sat in front of the screen. She had been online checking something and had not closed down properly. Very bad, she was, at covering her tracks. There was an unpronounceable name on the screen superimposed on a lawn surrounded by trees and houses in sunlight. In the middle of the lawn was a religious statue. Looked a bit like the Sacred Heart. Beneath it the words, 'It can be difficult sometimes to find the gate but when you do, walk through and you will find yourself in another world. '

Because they were going away he shut down the computer. Then all was cold and dark. He shivered and rose from the chair.


In the bedroom the breathing was long and slow. He walked around to his own side. In his absence she had moved to the middle. The warm cave, with the person lying soft at its centre. His pillows seemed to fall naturally into the gap between his cheek and shoulder. The cave was redolent with cotton smell. He aligned himself to her. Her heel to his instep, knee to back of knee, bum to lap. They were as soft, stacked chairs. Momentarily the steady breathing stopped. She was aware of his arrival and softly ground herself backwards against him. In response he put his arm over her. Her pyjama jacket had ridden up and his now cool fingers accidentally touched the scar on her stomach. Hollow like another navel, a skin pucker. With another one behind her to match. Marked fore and aft, she was.

'Move over,' she said.


Both of them paced the flat in their coats looking out for a taxi. It was a large Victorian tenement with stuccoed ceiling roses and egg-and-dart cornices. When they first moved in Gerry had said the ceilings were high enough to keep giraffes. It had been built on a corner so that it overlooked two streets. There was a small narrow garden with bushes and green ground-cover around the perimeter. Stella had brought back plants from her walks in the woods – she thought nothing of carrying a soup spoon and a plastic bag with her. A bunch of her snowdrops had just come out. Later there would be imported bluebells and daffodils.

Excerpted from Midwinter Breakby Bernard MacLaverty. Copyright © 2017 Bernard MacLaverty. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.