The Eggy Stone, by Tessa Hadley

 

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

This is a story about two girls who are spending a week in a camp school. The first afternoon, boys and girls go to the beach looking for treasures, like old shells or curious stones. At a certain moment, one of them pick up an eggy stone, just at the same moment that another girl, Madeleine, does too. This fortuitous fact creates a special relationship with them. During the week, they invented different games and challengers to possess the stone, and they took turns to hold it at night in their sleeping bags (they slept in different tends), because whoever possessed the stone felt privileged and safe.

The narrator feels happy, because she thinks that she doesn’t deserve a friend like Madeleine, a girl who, the very first day, has been directed to sit on the table where the charming girls sat. In addition, Madeleine’s usual friends included her tolerantly in her circle.

When the week is over, the narrator wonders what they will do with the stone from that moment: keep the stone for a week each other, and dividing up the holidays, perhaps?  But before she could speak, Madeleine turned and threw the Eggy Stone hard and far. The sound of the stone falling among the pebbles made our protagonist feel that she will never be able to find a stone like that again.

PERSONAL OPINION

I think the author uses the stone as a symbol of the feelings that the protagonist has when, through it, she makes friends with Madeleine.
She is surely a girl who goes unnoticed, she is not in the popular group of girls, and that is why she admires Madeleine. «I’m smart but she’s blonde», she says at one point, feeling adoration for her.
She admires too how Madeleine dances, sings, and even how she cheats her, stealing the Eggy Stone from her pocket. Surely he also admires her courage when she goes out at night to the boys’ tents to kiss them, when she is incapable of doing such a thing. Being friends with Madeleine makes her feel special, deserving of being in the group of the lovely girls.
That is why, when he sees Madeleine throwing the Eggy Stone, his plans to keep their friendship go up in smoke. When she says she’ll never be able to find a stone like that, what she really means is that she’ll never feel again like the special girl that she has been for that one week.

TESSA HADLEY

She was born in 1956 in Bristol, on the East Coast of England.

Her father was a teacher and an amateur jazz trumpeter, and her mother, an amateur artist.

She studied to be a teacher and worked as a teacher until she decided to form a family. Then she had three children.

When she was 37 she decided to study for a Master of Arts at the Bath Spa University, where she dedicated her time specially to the works of Katherine Mansfield, Elisabeth Bowen and Jean Rhys. Then, at 41, she started to teach creative writing at the same university.

Her first novel, Accidents in the Home, written while she was bringing up a family, was published when she was 46.

As a part of her studies, he wrote a book about Henry James. So, James, together with the authoress mentioned above, are her principal influences.

From the issue of her first novel, she has gone on publishing novels and short stories collections. Her last novel is Free Love.

Her stories are usually realistic, situated away from London, and her characters belong to the middle classes. She tends to focus the plots on the family relationships and on women. It’s remarkable her psychological insight.

She has won several awards and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

QUESTIONS

What do you remember of your camps / holiday homes?

The boys began throwing pebbles in the sea; the girls looked for treasures. Is there something biological in our constitutions that make boys to do different things from girls? Or is it sociological?

They touched fingers: Is physical contact always a prelude of something?

Situations can change friendships: do you have a literary or personal example?

When you were at school, where did you use to sit down? Were the ranks in alphabetical order or the teacher gave you your places, or you could choose your desk?

When can an object be a special thing (souvenir, memory, idol, talisman…)?

Do you remember any curious / invented rhyme from your childhood?

What do you know about Gargantua and Pantagruel?

Why do you thing Madeline wouldn’t go on with the narrator’s friendship?

 

VOCABULARY

rim, seaweed, sealed, daintily, felts, plantains, by rote, skipping rhymes, yearned, filching, bond, trailing, tepid, foam, publicity, constipation, netball

As Much Love as Possible, by Graham Swift

As Much Love as Possible, by Nora Carranza

“As Much Love as Possible” explains an apparently eventless evening when two old friends, Alec and Bill, spend a few hours drinking whisky.

Alec invites Bill to come home and share a bottle of an old and appreciated Macallan, considering that his wife Sue would be out with her friends. Bill was also alone, his wife being away with her parents.

When Bill arrives, Sue is about to leave, and looks fantastic, it seems she has a kind of shine in herself. She welcomes Bill with a generous hug.

Years ago, Bill didn’t try to make any move to approach Sue, he considered she was the right girl for Alec, and gave the precedence to his good friend.  It was a good decision and, in a short time, he met Sophie, they got married and had two kids.

Alec and Sue took some years before they had twins, probably they enjoyed that time just for them together. By now, the twins were 4 or 5 years old, Bill wasn’t sure, although he was their godfather.

Alec had forgotten to call the taxi for Sue, but Bill offered himself for a ride to the restaurant.

But when Bill drove to the restaurant, he felt as if he and Sue were a couple having a date. Sue was grateful to Bill, explained about her two friends, they all had gone to the same hair academy, and now each one had her own salon, financed by Alec.

Bill asked himself when he and Sue will be together in such an intimacy and exclaimed, “I love you, Sue. I love Sophie, but I love you. Don’t you think there could be as much love as possible”? As an answer to that, Sue approached and gave Bill a soft kiss.

They say formal goodbyes, but Bill remarked, “I can see down your top when you lean”.

Later, Bill and Alec spent the informal evening drinking the Macallan and eating the pie Sue left for them.

Bill knew he had to stop drinking alcohol, he wanted to go back home driving his car, and avoiding having to sleep in the spare bedroom in that house.

Nothing notorious seems to have occurred during the facts described in the story.

Finally, Sue returned home at about half past eleven, not very late in Alec’s opinion. She looked as before, with her natural inner light, after the “girls” night out.

When Bill asked Sue about her evening, she replied she had the “most wonderful evening”.

 

I think that, as in many other stories of this author, we can imagine different motives for the actions of the characters. Perhaps Bill was moved by old feelings, hidden in his heart, that reappeared at that moment of unexpected proximity with warm Sue.

Bill was moved when he saw the twins sleeping, remembering his own children. Was he resenting his words to Sue? Was he thinking about his friend Alec, who ignored what had happened?

And Sue, why was she so happy, because of her time with the girls, or because the feelings she provoked in her husband's friend?

QUESTIONS

-There is a word repeated several times, “decent”. What does this word mean for you?

-“Girls night”, “boys night”: what do people do in these nights? Why are they different?

-Alec says that the bottle of whiskey fell off the back of a lorry. Do you think it’s true? If not, why does he say that?

-Do women tend to dress more carefully than men (they are only wearing “woollens”), more “decorated”? In this sense, do you think women use more icons than men on the whatsapp conversations?

-Why didn’t Bill marry Sue? Don’t you think he excused his decision with poor arguments? So, why does he feel something for her now?

-Usually, people get less attractive when they grow old (they say). How can they reverse it? Or is it the way we see people?

-What made you suspect that that night she had tender feelings for Bill?

-Bill felt attracted by Sue’s attire (she shimmered). But there was also something in her personality that seduced Bill: what was it?

-We’re having again a question we’ve debated before: is it possible to love two girlfriends / boyfriends… at the same time?

-Why do you think she kissed him when he told her he loved her? Was his love for Sue platonic? Was it a loving kiss, or a compassionate kiss?

Why wouldn’t Bill like to spend the night in their spare room?

What do you know about the film Un rencontre (“Reencontrar el amor”, in Spanish), starring François Creuzet and Sophie Marceau?

Why do you think she wasn’t awkward in any moment?

Do you think she came earlier from her dinner because she wanted to see him?

In your opinion, her wonderful evening was because of the girls’ night or because what Bill said to her?

 

VOCABULARY

ushered, soldiered, yersel, cardiganed hug, shepherd's pie, dastardly, woollens, ditzy, shrewd, best man, hitched, shimmer, puffa, tumblers, quandary, breast-beating, sparko, buster, contritely, scoffed at, bogus, rueful, bubble, sloshed, cane, mop it up, waxing, Caledonian, haggis, mon, schoolmasterly, slobs, garbled, wee, smarting, blunder

The Best Days, by Graham Swift

The Best Days, by Dora Sarrión

Sean and Andy are two friends who attend the funeral of Daffy, their former headmaster of Holmgate School, where they had studied six years ago.
It was a grey afternoon and there’d been a solemn and silent moment when the hearse departed, but then, someone had called out “Bye Daffy!!!” and the atmosphere was broken, it was almost like joyful liveliness. People started waving to each other, hand shaking, smiling, speaking. Everyone was freshly aware of being alive in the world and not dead in it.
The two friends spotted in the crowd who assisted to the funeral an old school friend, Karen, whom they both were in love with when they were students.
Karen turned up with her father, who was clearly a bit drunk, and her mother, who was wearing an outfit that was almost identical like his daughter, both were dressed in a vulgar and inappropriate way for a funeral, almost like whores. In Andy’s opinion, the mother “looks a right old baggage”.
These words bothered Sean, because, although deep down he agreed with Andy, he had an experience in the past that brought back him memories about Karen's mother, which were themselves embarrassing, but also pleasant, even exciting.
Sean remembered that, one day, while he was travelling on the bus where Karen was also, he noticed that she had forgotten her bag on the seat when she got off the bus. So he picked it up and decided to deliver it to her house, hoping to see her.
But she wasn't there, Sean found only her mother, who invited him to "come in and wait for her". Sean hesitated for a moment, but in the end he came in.
Suddenly, he found himself in Karen's mother arms and, without being able to avoid it, he lived his first sexual experience with her.
The author mixes several topics in his story:
Death: The atmosphere that usually surrounds funerals is contradictory, on the one hand people usually show sadness and pain for the deceased person but on the other hand, when the coffin is no longer present, they feel relieved and a great joy for the fact of being alive.
The loss of youth, reflected in Karen's mother: Sometimes, it's difficult to recognize the deterioration that the pass of time produces in our physique, and we insist on not accepting that reality, although we know that we cannot hide it even if we disguise ourselves as young people.
Memories: Over the years, when we think back to experiences that we lived in the past, many times they appear in our memory in a blurred way, in a form of sensations, smells, colours, music or phrases. Sometimes, we don't recall the events as they happened, but we can remember the emotions they produced in us. Sean keeps in his mind his first sexual experience, summarized in a sentence, which would stay with him until the day he dies.

QUESTIONS

Talk about the characters

Sean

Andy

Clive Davenport

Karen Shield

Do you have fond memories of your primary or secondary school? Have your opinions changed, positively or negatively, in the course of time?

Do you think unemployed people spend their time doing things that when they were employed couldn’t do?

Graham Swift like to emphasize situations talking about the weather. Did you find an instance of this in this story?

Why do you think a funeral is a good occasion for gathering people?

What kind/class of people attended the funeral? How do you know?

Why does the narrator describe their suits as “interview suits”?

Do you think she had left her bag in the bus on purpose?

Why do you imagine Karen and her friend did at Cheryl Hudson’s?

When the narrator says the “TV was on”, did he want to mean something else?

There are some details to show us that Mrs Shield isn't drunk. What are these? Why does the writer insist on this?

“Had she done this before?” What’s your opinion?

Mrs Shield is very practical: how does the writer show this?

What do you know about In Praise of Older Women, by Stephen Vizinczey, or Elogio de la madrastra, by Vargas Llosa, or about the film Ce que le jour doit à la nuit?

Would you have another point of view of the situation in which the boy was involved, if instead of a boy it had been a girl, and instead of a woman, a man?

After making love, he tried to work out his bearings. Does this feeling have any relation to the saying “Post coitum omne animal triste est, sive gallus et mulier”?

Was Sean a bit in love with Karen’s mother? How do you know?

Can you imagine how the life would be going on for the mother, the daughter, Sean and Andy?

Were those days for Sean the best days?

What is Sean’s moral lesson?

 

VOCABULARY

hearse, spillage, turnout, blustery, daffy, milling, makeshift, grim, barn, craned, drag, stance, abuse, rebuke, outbreaks, drab, flouncy, headpiece, tarty, fetching, sight, smothered, cutely, perky, unredeemed, scruff, blunt, cocky, old baggage, curb, the big V, tugged, goody-goody, delve, primness, sternly, fluffy, deed, ducking, cluttered, glow, bearings, peck, daubed, slab, goggling, prat, lovey-dovey, preening, big-time, jump, get the hots