I was lucky enough to be mentored by Ross Raisin on the Jerwood/Arvon scheme. I learned an enormous amount from him. His writing is always pure, his phrasings imaginative and his stories give voices to those who need them.
The protagonist of ‘Ghost Kitchen’, Sean, is a delivery cyclist, his job, in some ways, the 2020s equivalent of Harry’s post round in ‘The Fishing-boat Picture’. Sean’s precarious freelance status contrasts with Harry’s twenty-eight contracted years. They both avoid prolonged human contact as a result of loss.
Sean takes a few shifts in a dark kitchen on an industrial estate, where he encounters Ebdo, an immigrant, who, unlike Agata in ‘Dancing In The Grass’, is in the UK illegally. “[F]ar as anyone else is concerned, they don’t exist. Just ghosts.” With no access to protection, Ebdo is bullied by the managers in increasingly violent ways.
“How easy it was, to do nothing; to let it become normal. But every night, when Sean pedalled away down the lane and through the dark industrial shapes of the buildings, a rekindled feeling of guilt would cling to him, as he replayed each incident, and imagined all the ways that he could have stopped them.”
This reminds him of the incident he is trying to hide from, and eventually leads him to befriend Ebdo. By the end of the story this has subtly changed his life.
Anthologised in The BBC National Short Story Award 2024, Comma Press. A reading by Ashley Margolis is available here and the text of the story is available here
A Personal Anthology 