Authors: Owen Marshall
Carnival Sky (32 page)
What did it matter that he had no neat plan for the future, and no greater ambition than to be at peace with himself and at ease with others? Here was a place to get himself together, and he could be with his mother when she needed him. And after his visit to the school, he doubted Pamela Rudge would do for him with a staple gun, or stifle him in his sleep. He’d have Jessica’s affection in whatever form she was comfortable with, and accept that. There were people with worse prospects. Millions and millions, no doubt. It was days since he’d experienced a nosebleed, there was no click or discomfort when he turned his neck a long way around, and although there was the faint cicada chorus of tinnitus in his ears, surely that was just because the world was so quiet.
So often little seems to happen, but things are changing all the
same. Sheff was okay with that. He would cut himself loose from the tyranny of the past, be open to opportunity and optimism. He would hold no one accountable for the loss of his daughter and father, not even himself. Things were all right, he decided, better than they had been for a long time, and that was enough to be going on with.
I AM GRATEFUL TO the Henderson Arts Trust for the opportunity to be the artist in residence at Henderson House, Alexandra, in 2013, during which time much of this novel was written.
All the people and events in this novel are fictitious, as are some aspects of setting.
Drybread
Living as a Moon
Owen Marshall Selected Stories
The Larnachs
Watch of Gryphons
When Gravity Snaps
AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS
Drybread
Harlequin Rex
Living as a Moon
Owen Marshall Selected Stories
Sojourn in Arles
The Larnachs
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‘I’m an admirer of Owen Marshall’s literature, with my favourite stories, chapters, etc’ – Janet Frame
‘I find myself exclaiming over and again with delight at the precision, the beauty, the near perfection of his writing’ – Fiona Kidman
‘Owen Marshall … charts those loves and griefs and brief encounters with an eye so sane and honest that it takes your breath away’ – Justin Paton
OWEN MARSHALL has written, or edited, over twenty-five books. He has held fellowships at the Universities of Canterbury and Otago, and in Menton, France. In 2000, he received the Officer of the Order of New Zealand Merit (ONZM), and in the same year his novel
Harlequin Rex
won the Montana New Zealand Book Awards Deutz Medal for Fiction. Marshall is an adjunct professor at the University of Canterbury, which awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in 2002. He was awarded the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) in 2012 for services to literature, and in 2013 received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.
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First published 2014
© 2014 Owen Marshall
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 77553 582 9
eISBN 978 1 77553 583 6
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Design: Megan van Staden
Cover illustration: Scott Williams/Getty Images
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This publication is printed on paper sourced from sustainably grown and managed forests.