Nikki Gemmell - With My Body

Title Page

Prologue

I

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

Lesson 6

Lesson 7

Lesson 8

Lesson 9

Lesson 10

Lesson 11

Lesson 12

Lesson 13

Lesson 14

Lesson 15

Lesson 16

Lesson 17

Lesson 18

II

Lesson 19

Lesson 20

Lesson 21

Lesson 22

Lesson 23

Lesson 24

Lesson 25

Lesson 26

Lesson 27

Lesson 28

Lesson 29

Lesson 30

Lesson 31

Lesson 32

Lesson 33

Lesson 34

III

Lesson 35

Lesson 36

Lesson 37

Lesson 38

Lesson 39

Lesson 40

Lesson 41

Lesson 42

Lesson 43

Lesson 44

IV

Lesson 45

Lesson 46

Lesson 47

Lesson 48

Lesson 49

Lesson 50

Lesson 51

Lesson 52

Lesson 53

Lesson 54

Lesson 55

Lesson 56

Lesson 57

Lesson 58

Lesson 59

Lesson 60

Lesson 61

Lesson 62

Lesson 63

Lesson 64

Lesson 65

Lesson 66

Lesson 67

Lesson 68

Lesson 69

V

Lesson 70

Lesson 71

Lesson 72

Lesson 73

Lesson 74

Lesson 75

Lesson 76

Lesson 77

Lesson 78

Lesson 79

Lesson 80

Lesson 81

Lesson 82

Lesson 83

Lesson 84

Lesson 85

Lesson 86

Lesson 87

Lesson 88

Lesson 89

Lesson 90

Lesson 91

VI

Lesson 92

Lesson 93

Lesson 94

Lesson 95

Lesson 96

Lesson 97

Lesson 98

Lesson 99

Lesson 100

Lesson 101

Lesson 102

Lesson 103

Lesson 104

Lesson 105

Lesson 106

Lesson 107

Lesson 108

Lesson 109

Lesson 110

Lesson 111

Lesson 112

Lesson 113

Lesson 114

Lesson 115

Lesson 116

Lesson 117

Lesson 118

Lesson 119

VII

Lesson 120

Lesson 121

Lesson 122

Lesson 123

Lesson 124

Lesson 125

Lesson 126

Lesson 127

Lesson 128

Lesson 129

Lesson 130

Lesson 131

Lesson 132

Lesson 133

Lesson 134

Lesson 135

Lesson 136

Lesson 137

Lesson 138

Lesson 139

Lesson 140

Lesson 141

Lesson 142

Lesson 143

Lesson 144

Lesson 145

Lesson 146

Lesson 147

Lesson 148

Lesson 149

Lesson 150

Lesson 151

VIII

Lesson 152

Lesson 153

Lesson 154

Lesson 155

Lesson 156

Lesson 157

Lesson 158

Lesson 159

Lesson 160

Lesson 161

Lesson 162

Lesson 163

Lesson 164

Lesson 165

Lesson 166

Lesson 167

Lesson 168

IX

Lesson 169

Lesson 170

Lesson 171

Lesson 172

Lesson 173

Lesson 174

Lesson 175

Lesson 176

Lesson 177

Lesson 178

Lesson 179

Lesson 180

Lesson 181

Lesson 182

Lesson 183

Lesson 184

Lesson 185

Lesson 186

Lesson 187

Lesson 188

Lesson 189

Lesson 190

Lesson 191

Lesson 192

Lesson 193

Lesson 194

Lesson 195

Lesson 196

Lesson 197

Lesson 198

Lesson 199

Lesson 200

Lesson 201

X

Lesson 202

Lesson 203

Lesson 204

Lesson 205

Lesson 206

Lesson 207

Lesson 208

Lesson 209

Lesson 210

Lesson 211

Lesson 212

Lesson 213

Lesson 214

Lesson 215

Lesson 216

Lesson 217

Lesson 218

Lesson 219

Lesson 220

Lesson 221

Lesson 222

Lesson 223

Lesson 224

Lesson 225 – The Last

Other Books by Nikki Gemmell

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

You begin.

It feels right. At his desk. On his chair. His typewriter is the only thing left of him in the room. The ink ribbon is fresh – the metal letters cut firm and deep – as if he has placed it for this moment, just for you. You start slow, clunking, getting used to the heft of the old way. Working laboriously on the beautiful, antique machine for if you make a mistake you can’t go back and you need these pages methodical, neat. You type with his old Victorian volume by your side, that he gave you once – A Woman’s Thoughts About Women – that logged within its folds all that happened in this place, that breathed life, once. You relive the dialogue of his handwriting and yours jotted in the margins and the back, don’t quite know what you’re going to do with all the work; at this stage you’re just collating, filching everything that’s needed from this notebook whose pages are bruised with age and grubbiness and life, luminous life: sweat and ink and rain spots; sap and dirt and ash; the grease from a bicycle and a silvery snail’s trail and a cicada wing, its fragile, leadlit tracery. You reap his words and yours and then the Victorian housewife’s, her lessons about life, her guiding voice. She will lead you through this. Tell the truth and don’t be afraid of it, she soothes. Yes.

Writing to understand.

And as you work you feel a presence, a hand in the small of your back, willing you on. Every person who’s ever loved and lost, every person who’s ever entered that exclusive club – heartbreak. Your little volume always beside you, the book you came here to bury, to have the earth of this valley receive as one day it will receive your own flesh, you are sure – lovingly, gratefully, because it is so, right, you are part of it.

But first this book must serve another purpose.

You feel strong, lit.

Whole.

Writing to work it all out.

You have never told anyone this. No one knows what you really think. It has always been extremely important to never let them know; to never show them the ugliness, brutality, magnificence, selfishness, glory; never give them a way in. It has always been important to maintain your equilibrium, your smile, your carapace at all times. You could not bear for anyone to see who you really are.

But now, finally, it is time. With knowing has come release. It has taken years to get to this point.

‘Even in sleep I know no respite’

Heloise d’Argenteuil

Let everything be plain, open and above-board.

Tell the truth and don’t be afraid of it.

You think about sleeping with every man you meet. You do not want to sleep with any of them. Couldn’t be bothered anymore. You are too tired, too cold. The cold has curled up in your bones like mould and you feel, in deepest winter, in this place that has cemented around you, that it will never be gouged out. You live in Gloucestershire. In a converted farmhouse with a ceiling made of coffin lids resting on thatchers’ ladders. It is never quite warm enough. There are snowdrops in February and bluebells in May and the wet black leaves of autumn then the naked branches of winter clawing at the sky, all around you, months and months of them with their wheeling birds lifting in alarm when you walk through the fields not paddocks; in this land of heaths and commons and moors, all the language that is not your language for you were not born in this place.