At the start of this story, struggling artist Vivien is robbed at knifepoint where she works, in a gift shop. This brush with death affects her profoundly – though at first, she doesn’t know how quite to express it. Eventually, she is compelled to respond to an advertisement listed in a magazine by a couple who are looking for a “conscious female” to join them. This is an elegant, moving story about loneliness and the fantasies we make up to get ourselves through difficult times.
First published in Things to Make and Break, CB Editions, 2014. New edition from Sceptre, 2018
A Personal Anthology 