Paula Hillman, author

I’m reviewing the first of my unpublished novels at the moment. It’s called The Silver Road and it’s set in a beachside community (locals know it as The Black Huts). I have no idea why the novel was rejected…it’s hilarious and poignant and rather spicy in places. I’ve included this extract, as I was writing it as my sister turned 60 and was out on a pub crawl in Bowness with her friends and colleagues. They were desperate to read the novel, especially as they were in it. They might still read it one day, but in the meantime, here you are, Pennington School Ladies…

Before he’s ready to unclamp his jaw and release his tension, Jude reaches Bowness. It’s a haven for tourists who want genteel lakeside views accompanied by ice-creams, fish-and-chips, and slot machines. Every other shop is a bar. It’s tea time, and the pavements overflow with families and tourist groups. There’s not a hill walker in sight. Another hour, and the holiday crowd will be joined by a less traditional bunch, what his colleague Dek calls the occasions brigade: the hen parties; stag weekenders; boys-night-outers; birthday girlies. Bowness caters for them all, and Jude is just about to add to the list: stupid-idiots-on-the-rebound.

           There’s a huge car and coach park at the side of the lake, next to a communal green space. It is designed to allow as many people into the town as want to be there. You can park and picnic with views of Windermere, without having to walk more than half a mile. Jude leaves his car, buys a six-hour ticket, then heads along the promenade in search of something more anaesthetising than a £2 Mr Softee.

           Opposite the cruiser terminus is Lake View Gardens. It has a bar that stretches along the road, customers mingling with pedestrians. Jude pushes through the crowds to the counter and orders a bottle of beer, with a side shot of sambuca, which he downs before payment has gone through. By the time he’s found a table, alcoholic shutdown has started. Fay and Willow can go to hell; Peg can join them there. He’d rather spend time with the well-oiled Bowness day-trippers than three buttoned-up off-grid hypocrites. Pretending peace-and-love then flapping because a guy with orbital piercings looks at them wrong.

           Two more sambucas see him swaying up the hill to BAHA. It’s an élite cocktail bar that’s not so élite, as long as there’s money to be had. Jude has been twice before, to watch live bands. It’s not yet six o’clock, but the place is buzzing. While he’s leaning on the counter, trying to focus on the vast drinks menu, there’s a commotion at the front door. It’s a group of women, dressed for a party and trying to out-shout each other. One of them, a blonde, has a plastic tiara with diamanté and a silver 60. They’ve a table booked but can’t see it. The barman gives Jude a wink, then slinks out to guide them.

           Two vodka martinis in, Jude decides to join their party. The women welcome him with good-natured guffaws about his tattoos and covert glances at his bare thighs. They top up his martini glass with whatever is in their shared jug: something fruity with a low note of white wine. It’s too late for him to be worrying about mixing his drinks; he’s already struggling to remember where he parked the car.

           The women are way past the point of conversation. When they discover his name, Hey Jude is belted out at a variety of pitches, complete with arm swaying and the extended chorus. It reminds him of the episode in Tweedies bar, when he’d met lovely, uncomplicated Phoebe. She was the kind of girl he could kiss without requiring the navigation skills of a deck officer in the merchant navy. Unlike Fay. He leans closer to the birthday girl -woman really- and asks her name. She can’t remember.

           The women are hell-bent on fun. They are trying to have conversations about things that seem random, but will hold meaning for them. Jude hears words like INSET and half-term. There’s a way with them, a barking out of orders and a level of intelligence that makes him think they are teachers. When he asks, they give a round of applause so loud it draws looks from people walking past outside the bar.

           ‘Not teachers,’ the blonde says at the top of her voice. ‘Teaching assistants.’ The others whoop out their support.

           Jude puts his mouth close to her ear. ‘I should have known. You’re all too good looking to be teachers.’ She bellows his words to the others. They yell back. One asks what he does for a living. They turn it into a game. Jude is happy to oblige. He climbs onto the table, sits cross-legged in the middle.

           ‘Guess wrong, I get a drink.’ He pulls his best eyebrow wriggling frown. ‘Guess right, and you get me.’ The whooping increases.

The suggestions range from a policeman and train driver to footballer and brain surgeon. When he hears this one, he gives a tantalising rendition of it being right, then says nope. The guesses become more personal. Divorcee, fiancé, husband, boyfriend. The last guess brings him up short. Is he a boyfriend? Is he Fay’s boyfriend? Bringing her to the front of his thoughts is a bad idea. He can’t unsee her sun-bleached pony-tail and warm smile, her bare feet, and intense expression when he wowed her with astronomy. She liked him; he hadn’t misjudged. Probably not enough to upend her life, but there was something. His leave ends in a few days. He will see Fay at Billy’s funeral, talk to her perhaps, once the rising emotions of today have ebbed away. Finding his mother once consumed Jude’s thoughts. Finding a way through with Fay has become more important.

           Jude jumps down from the table. The women mistake his exuberance for a new party trick, begin clapping and chanting his name. He apologises and flees the bar, head spinning.

           Outside, it is twilight. The sky has darkened to a shade of metallic blue, and the first stars are visible. The pavements are choked with people, some party-goers, some weary families carrying children on their shoulders. Jude takes deep breaths. The night air is cool and clears his head enough that he can remember the way back to his car. He has no intention of driving anywhere, but he does have his telescope and an urge to find a high point, to lose himself in the universe. He could take photos and send them to Fay. Anything to recreate what they had found in each other’s company on the beach.

           Brant Fell looms at the back of Bowness. By the time Jude has reached his car and retrieved the telescope, he has recovered his equilibrium. The sharp alcohol-induced eye-pain is still there, but he is thinking straight enough to climb the lower slopes of the fell. A full moon lights his way. There’s a view down to the town and across the lake, backlit with pub fairy-lights and the shimmer of moon-on-water. The silver road, once again. Jude points the telescope skywards. The Milky Way is already visible, a hazy band of white light arcing up in front of him. Somewhere in its centre, the sun will be burning away, consuming itself. That fact can usually make Jude thumb his nose at the minutiae of the world. Now, he just wants to share it with Fay.