Feedback on opening of my Northumbrian Noir novel, please

Critique partners are worth their weight in gold. So (checking financial page) like $20,000 a pound.
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AmandaE
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Feedback on opening of my Northumbrian Noir novel, please

Post by AmandaE » April 22nd, 2023, 12:43 pm

Here it is - also, I don't have a title yet.

Prologue
Her husband took the dog for a walk one night and never came back.
The night was a cold one. And dark, it being late November. Only the thrashing echoes of the sea disturbed the quiet of the night.
Had he stumbled down the cliff-face as he navigated the sea-front path? The path he took every night, and knew so well? Even with the rolling sea-fret challenging his vision? Unlikely. Where was the body? And where was Holly, that most loyal of loyal Labradors? She would surely have hastened home, or noisily raised the alarm of her master’s peril. But no dog-walker reported seeing or hearing a dog in distress that evening.
Did he have money worries? Now, there was a possibility. The notion of a sensible, cautious loss adjuster for an insurance firm being tempted into economic recklessness was appealing in its irony. Had he found himself cornered in a financial cul-de-sac and run off to reinvent himself? No evidence.
Another woman. It had to be. The oldest story in the world. And he had – she said - been having some furtive late-night telephone conversations of late. And what is it they say? That’s it: ‘It’s always the quiet ones.’ Yes, that makes sense. He left the house one night, took his dog – why not his wretched cat, too? – and ran off with a lady friend.
At least, that’s what she suggested to the police.






Chapter 1: December 2022
Hilda Hightower-Hardy didn’t recall ever making a conscious decision to leave her husband. She simply made her way to the caravan at the rear of the back garden one day - and never spent another night in the marital home after that.
The tree-canopied carapace became her womb. She would, one day, have to make an appearance in the world. The real world, that is. Bawling and blood-soaked, no doubt. But not yet.
And the strange thing was, Max just got used to it. As if he expected such behaviour from her. Perhaps they were just too alike for it to be an issue: asocial, asexual, a-whatever. If asked, she’d say they were still great friends, if friends is the right word. But their situation was the proverbial elephant in the room. For now, her bolt-hole in the garden offered peace and security. It would not stay that way. The uneasy stasis would intensify, and something would have to give.
But not yet.
Chapter 2: December 2022
Not unusually, Vivienne Sullivan – on this day, confettied with rapidly defrosting snowflakes - was the last to arrive at the pokey mid-terrace office that passed as a newsroom. Dead on nine o’clock. Not late, she would argue, if she had to. Not that she ever would have to, of course. She’d been an immediate hit with the boss, an amicable if rather unimaginative chap by the name of George Wolff.
And, let’s be honest, Vivienne was a half-decent journalist. As if that warranted her being allocated the juiciest stories (such as they were in this oftentimes sluggish stretch of South East Northumberland) ahead of her more experienced colleagues. Like most free local newspapers, the weekly Cramlington Oracle was on life support; every employee had to wrestle to prove their worth.
She’d struck up a friendship with Lily ‘Quirky’ Grimes too: Lily, the bespectacled, dungaree-wearing newest recruit - sweet and guileless despite having a previous career in publishing behind her. At thirty-six, the ‘young ‘un’ – George’s attribution – could easily pass for ten years younger. Whether due to appearance or demeanour, no one could give a definitive answer. But, without doubt, the young woman seemed stupefied by Vivienne’s loud bloviations and confident assertions.
Launching into the seat opposite, Vivienne and her line manager exchanged glacial smiles above their desktop parapets. Uttered their perfunctory good mornings. Why, thought Hilda, just why doesn’t anyone see what I see? The naked self-celebration? The unearned entitlement? Perhaps she was being unfair; maybe her gut was wrong. There’s a first time for everything. It’s not like she could put her finger on anything tangible. And even the cynical-from-birth Max, who popped in occasionally with some of his freelance pieces, treated Vivienne as a sacred cow.
And so, she was left to graze.
Chapter 3: December 2022
Max Hardy always found falling snow heartening. It reminded him of his years spent in St Petersburg, working as a lecturer at the university there. Russia had suited Hilda too. They were both ‘winter people’, she had once said. When she still viewed them as a package.
When had things gone wrong? Their return to England, to Northumberland, had not at the time seemed monumental. Max had taken early retirement and spent his time teaching Beginners’ Russian one evening a week at the local high school, and writing freelance articles for a number of small publications – including the local paper where Hilda occupied the position of sub-editor. A keen history buff, Max would occasionally have pieces of local interest commissioned by the paper. Right now, Max was looking directly at the windows of the upstairs news office. They ran perpendicular to his own bedroom window, from which he now savoured the rare snowfall. The space between the two buildings was occupied by the darkly gothic St Nicholas’ and its surrounding churchyard, dotted with ancient oaks and drunken headstones in various stages of decay.
Max wrapped his long choppy fingers around his coffee mug and wandered down to the kitchen. Sploshing the remainder of his coffee down the sink, it was impossible not to be confronted by his new reality: Hilda’s hermitage, straight in his line of vision, challenging him, taunting him as a new young lover would a cuckolded husband. There was no other man, that he knew. And that, in Max’s eyes, is what made her abandonment all the harder to stomach. What terrible transgression, on his part, had led to this? What defect in his character rendered his proximity intolerable? Max wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And Hilda, self-contained and opaque, would never openly offer up an explanation – even if she had one. What Max did know was that he missed the no-nonsense, irreverent Hilda. He missed her fruity – if rare – vintage chuckle. But declarations of devotion did not sit well with his cool intellectualism and patrician demeanour. Checkmate reigned.
Chapter 4: December 2022
It was a slow news day. Another one. George shuffled around the office, a facsimile of busyness. Hilda sighed to herself. Botox injections were top of the conversational list today. Vivienne had an appointment for her latest fix after work. And Lily, who had previously worked for a publisher that banned word in scientific literature, waxed lyrical on the potential of the toxins to spread beyond the treatment area, resulting in botulism-like symptoms.
‘Look at my forehead, though,’ said Vivienne. ‘This time last year it looked like corrugated iron.’
‘It does look amazing,’ Lily agreed.
Jesus, there was only so much banal prattle one person could take.
Chapter 5: December 2022
Hilda had always wanted an Irish Wolfhound. Instead, she got Hildegaard. A feisty, knowing feline with shrewd green eyes and a clear case of superiority complex.
Perhaps it was their shared name that made Hilda leave the animal shelter as Hildegaard’s new owner that day. This alarmingly angry black cat had spent years – quite literally – in and out of this shelter. New homes never lasted long enough to earn the epithet ‘home’. Originally bestowed by a young widow, the unceremonious dumping had scarred Hildegaard. Trust did not come easily.
But, a year in, the two were still operating as a pair. Now I know why people keep animals, thought Hilda, her heart giving a small fillip on seeing Hildegaard’s silhouette guarding the caravan door as she entered. She knows me.
‘Let’s get some light in here, Hildegaard,’ said Hilda.
Within minutes the cramped space became infused with the cleansing aroma of burning beeswax and the flickering flames bathed the scene in a warm saffron glow. She’d completed the first step in the crutch of her daily routine on her return home:
1. Light candles
2. Feed Hildegaard
3. Brew strong coffee
4. Fill pipe with tobacco
5. Lounge on bed with said coffee and pipe (and Hildegaard) – all the more enjoyable for the absence of Max’s hectoring health warnings
6. Fantasise about potential MOs for dispensing with Vivienne Sullivan, or indeed any of the other twits who seemed to hold sway in the world right now
7. Text Tom
Tom. So unlike either Max or Hilda, in choice of occupation at least. Hilda always described her son’s job in Vancouver as ‘something techy’ or ‘dabbling with iThings’. She had no real idea what he did.
Hilda loved Tom. And he’d been very attentive-from-afar since Hilda’s car accident two years ago. Was it this, he had asked, that had triggered her ‘unusual’ behaviour? Yes, Tom worried about her. But, to be frank, Hildegaard knew her rather better.
Chapter 6: December 2022
‘Woman in Cramlington about to get married for the seventh time on Christmas Eve,’ announced George, fresh from a telephone call. ‘Sounds like a feature we could run with. Here’s the details, Viv. Let’s get an interview set up.’
‘Seven!’ repeated Lily. ‘That sound’s exhausting. Top marks for not giving up, though.’
‘Yeah, once was enough for me,’ said Vivienne.
Lily responded: ‘Oh, I’d forgotten you’d been married! What happened there?’
‘Least said, soonest mended,’ said Vivienne.
Uncharacteristically mysterious, thought Hilda.
‘Well, at least Hilda seems to know the secret of a long, happy marriage!’ Lily quipped, pushing her clear-framed spectacles up her nose. Followed by her habitual tucking of wayward auburn waves behind her ear.
Silly child, thought Hilda. Unkindly, she knew.
‘So, what is the secret then, Hilda?’ Vivienne turned her attention to the older woman.
‘Exactly that: a secret,’ said Hilda.
Then mentally crafted a candid letter of resignation.
March 2010
They were the perfect couple. Everyone said so. Just ask the neighbours.
She, so young and pretty. Of Danish origin. Well, a Danish mother; English father. Came here to study. Clever. And perfect English, having spent time at an English school when her father took up post at a prestigious pharmaceutical company here. Flighty and ambitious, perhaps – until she met him. Her husband, that is.
The sensible loss adjuster. But handsome too. Just handsome enough. Glorious Irish accent. A secure, well-paid job. A large sea-facing house. Owned outright, courtesy of his deceased parents.
A dog.
A cat.
No children yet – but give it time.
A perfect family unit.
Idyllic. He thought.
***

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