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

'Thank you.' Gerry put the phone back on its cradle. 'What are you doing?'

'There was just a black bit of I-don't-know-what there.' She nodded to the carpet. 'They say that every time.'

'What?'

'It's on its way, sir.'

'So you want to have it nice for anybody breaking in?'

Stella switched off the whine and wound up the lead. She went into the front room and came out with a black plastic bag in one hand, a bunch of stargazer lilies in the other. She thrust them into the bag and tied the neck.

'Put them out,' she said. Gerry did as he was told. He went once again to look out the window.


The taxi dropped them miles from the main terminal. When they asked the driver why there, he said, 'Regulations. Since the airport was car-bombed.'

He lifted their large suitcase out of the boot and set it in front of Gerry. Stella retrieved her own and they extended handles simultaneously. Both set off, their cases growling behind them. The strap of Gerry's shoulder bag cut into him like cheese wire. They approached the main terminal, protected behind stainless-steel bollards.

'This must have cost millions,' Gerry shouted above the noise of their cases. 'What's to stop a motorbike bomber going between the bollards?'

By the main entrance three or four people were smoking behind a plastic hedge. Excluded, like lepers. Inside the doors Stella checked the monitors and they joined the correct queue. Each time the line progressed they shoved their luggage for- ward with their feet.

'It'll not go without us,' Stella told him.

'Don't you bet on it. Everybody here's got more luggage than sense.'


They eventually got through security – after the security guy had thrown away Gerry's shampoo and conditioner. Liquid in open vessels was not allowed, he said. They had coffee to calm themselves.

'Was any comment made about your digging spoon?'

'I don't carry it all the time. Only on walks.'

She minded their stuff and Gerry went for a wander in duty-free. Nothing but perfume. And adverts for perfume. The place reeked of the stuff. Slim sales girls dressed in black offered to spray samples onto upturned wrists. Gerry refused.

He came to the spirits section. Stella had warned him not to buy anything. A bottle of his favourite Irish whiskey would be cheaper in Amsterdam, she said. The Traveller's Friend, he called it. Because it helped a man get over to sleep. But there were too many imponderables about buying drink in Amsterdam. Did they sell it in supermarkets? Was there an off-licence system? Maybe it was like Norway or Canada and you had to go to a Government Liquor Store which, if he remembered correctly, stayed open only during office hours. Best to get it here and now when it was available. He tried to buy a bottle of Jameson but the girl asked him for his boarding card. He reneged on the deal and stomped off back to where Stella was sitting.

'What is it?' she said.

'They want my boarding card.' 'Who does?'

'I don't know what her name is. Deirdre from Airdrie.' 'Get me some Werther's – if you can remember.'

He got his boarding card and took his passport, just in case. The girl slid the bottle into a white foam lattice before putting it into a plastic bag.

'Why did you need to see my boarding pass?'

The girl smiled. She rang up the purchase and handed the bag over.

'Regulations.'


Standing with other men at the urinals unnerved him – he preferred a cubicle. He set down his bottle of whiskey to wash his hands. Even in its plastic bag it chinked on the marble surface. The dryer was of a new design and was amazingly powerful – a roaring, supersonic noise which startled him. The skin on the back of his hands rippled.

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