One Hundred Views of NW3 by Pat Jourdan (read an extract)

Greetings to you all! Today I am delighted to share a book extract from One Hundred Views of NW3 by Pat Jourdan.
Before you can enjoy a sample of writing from One Hundred Views, check out the details of this new book!

One Hundred Views of NW3

Arriving in London with £5, Stella rapidly begins hopping from one disastrous job, bedsit and boyfriend to another. All the time she is trying to paint pictures and write poetry. At last she gets a place in Hampstead but various men distract her from reaching the goal of holding an exhibition. An ever-changing group of friends moves her along from place to place. After each drawback Stela moves on, disaster after disaster, while the tally of of pictures shrinks to 36. Set in the heady days of 1960s Swinging London, this novel vividly charts one girl's track through the untidy years at its height.


Purchase Links

Amazon UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Hundred-Views-NW3-Jourdan-ebook/dp/B08CCH7W3R

Amazon US - https://www.amazon.com/One-Hundred-Views-NW3-Jourdan-ebook/dp/B08CCH7W3R

Author Bio

Pat Jourdan trained as a painter at Liverpool College of Art -some of her paintings can be seen on Saatchi.com. Always balancing writing with painting, she has won the Molly Keane Short Story Award, second in the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award, and various other prizes. One Hundred Views of NW3 is her fourth novel.

“ I am used to producing a painting from start to finish and self-publishing gives the same creative possibility. It has the same excitement, the change from private to public.”

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/pat.jourdan

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6585232.Pat_Jourdan?from_search=true&from_srp=true
https://patjourdan.wordpress.com/ 

Thank you to Pat Jourdan for sharing an extract from the book!


(Andy has told Stella that he is married, with a baby. As a way of making it even more brutally clear, he has suggested she comes along to his flat for a late supper. Stella will have to pretend she is the girlfriend of Ralph, their unappealing lodger.)

 “I’ve got an idea, I know, what about we go back to the flat and I cook you all something?” Stella realised that this was going to be their funeral service but was intrigued at how it would all end. “You’ll have to pretend to be Ralph’s girlfriend and we all met by accident,” he encouraged.  At last she would see what was behind the scenes and find out the real address. Truth sometimes came out too late to be of use.

By now Stella was sleepwalking into the situation but did not want to go back to her room alone yet. Any distraction, however brutal, was welcome. The tears would come later, about Tuesday or Wednesday. Nature had always given her this delay, an animal instinct giving enough time to get away from the danger area before being able to let the real grief out of its Pandora’s box. The one word that had not been said was the main one – Marjorie. The two women would be meeting at last, barrier to barrier, with Andy in the middle and Ralph hovering like an unnecessary midwife. They walked down the hill together and crossed the road by the Classic Hampstead Playhouse on the corner.

And here they were at last. It was that near. It had been, all along. The secret flat turned out to be over the newsagents at the end of South End Green. No wonder Andy had never wanted her to walk down the street with him – the bay window above the shop had a wide-span view of all approaches. Marjorie, perhaps up early with the baby, would have easily been able to see them. The side door was discreetly hidden round a corner and up the stairs they went.  The wardrobe they had chosen together on St Valentine’s Day stood on the landing like a reproach. Dark landlord’s type of forlorn furniture, the exact kind Stella had seen in that warehouse with Andy, made the living room depressed. The brown cupboard that he had chosen stood on the landing, an orphan with a new home.

And sitting at the dining table, surrounded by piles of paper, was Marjorie. She was listening to the radio, some music station on low, because of the baby. Red hair that could have been flaming and luscious hung lank and greasy round her shoulders. No lipstick, mascara, earrings, no jewellery except a wedding ring. No stockings, white bare legs, flowered cotton dress and navy cardigan.

There were traces of who she must have been once, but Stella remembered Andy’s only bitter comment, that Marjorie had never recovered from the loss of the café and their eighty pounds a week. He never said what had caused the café to close down. She had resented their come-down in life. Anyone who had to live with Ralph in their spare room had massive grounds for grievance, Stella thought, giving as genuine a smile as she could while being introduced as Ralph’s new girlfriend.

They sat at the table, Stella feeling overdressed with black silk gloves and clutch handbag, new grey coat and navy suede shoes, perfume, earrings and full make-up. She felt tarty in these circumstances and even more so when Marjorie asked would she like to see the baby. She could hardly say no. Going into the small bedroom, she was extremely aware of the double bed cramped beside the cot. It was all so downtrodden and featureless.

  As it was, Stella felt as near to a tart as she had ever done, confronted with plain motherhood and a sleeping child versus her own Saturday night dressed-up persona. She had stuffed the new black silk gloves into her handbag but kept her coat on.

In the meanwhile Andy had enthusiastically begun to fry rice, for reasons of his own, a party trick perhaps. Or perhaps he had promised it because there was nothing else to offer in the flat. He stood at the gas stove set in the corner of the kitchen-living room like a magician ready to produce a rabbit out of a hat. Swish and swirl and now there were four plates of fried golden rice.

I am not drunk, I am not seeing things, Stella thought, but this is surreal. She also had to talk to Ralph as though they knew each other well, which was difficult, as this was their first real conversation ever. Chatting was out of the question. He could not do it naturally. Ralph sat even nearer now, moving his chair, as Stella tried to think of something to say that did not sound too false. He, in turn looked as though he could eat her, but had to put up with a plate of fried rice instead. She spoke about a party at Rita Rave’s and the other one where the grand piano took up most of the space. He looked deeply into her eyes in his best Rasputin imitation and managed a word or two. He still looked like a rapist even here indoors at home eating a plate of fried rice at midnight with his flat-mates.

How on earth did Marjorie cope with this set-up on a daily basis? Andy continued to pirouette at the stove, producing more fried rice. There was nothing else in the room except furniture and the pile of papers that Marjorie was listlessly working on.

 “It’s market research on mayonnaise” she explained.