Sands of Time

PREFACE

This third collection of short stories has allowed me to fulfil, at least in part, my ambition to write a sequel to Whispers in the Sand. One of the hardest stages in the writing of a novel is finishing it. For weeks, perhaps months, I will have been looking forward to writing those two magic words, The End - words that mean a conclusion to obsession, to long hours, to RSI at the keyboard and to saying no to invitations I would so much love to accept. When the moment finally comes, however, saying goodbye to the characters, reconciling the urge to give them a happy ending with the temptation to leave the reader on a knife edge – after all, real life doesn’t provide neat endings – and parting with the characters, people who have become closer in many ways than family or friends, and whom I will miss enormously, is the most difficult and painful time. The close of a book leads to a few hours of euphoria and relief, then to intense post-natal depression! One way of getting over that feeling is to consider, if only for a short time, the possibility of resurrecting the story by writing a sequel – something I have actually gone on to think about seriously with only two of my novels, Midnight is a Lonely Place and Whispers in the Sand.

The result of these thoughts as far as Whispers is concerned is presented in this short story collection. There are two long stories, one of which picks up Louisa Shelley’s life some seven years after we leave her at the end of Whispers. The second continues the tale of Anna and Toby, in this case only days after the end of the novel. It has been a fascinating exercise and not nearly as easy as I thought. I had the novel sewn up pretty well and it was quite hard to unpick a loose end to carry on the narrative. I hope you find that the resultant unravelling and re-ravelling fulfils your expectations and leaves you – well, wait and see…

To be putting together another collection of short stories is an indulgence, an enormous pleasure. Reading through the stories that I have written over the past five years I see the mood has changed. The themes move on, reflecting my own preoccupations and those of the world around me and many of my contemporaries. Almost inevitably most of the stories involve ghosts – partly because they interest me, partly because once one has a reputation for writing about a particular kind of subject that is what magazines ask one to write! In case this is seen as something of an obsession I should point out that many months separated most of them in the writing! And I see I have been travelling by train more than I used to – I have always loved writing on trains; that womblike abstraction from the world is the perfect place to lose oneself in the narrative of the imagination. Although the silence and isolation have alas been spoiled by the advent of the mobile phone, even so the strange hypnotic quality of train travel continues to fascinate. And most of these train stories are based on events that have actually happened to me on my travels. Trains lead to adventures.

In this collection I have for the first time included one or two short poems. I have written poetry since I was at school and have occasionally over the years published individual poems, but on the whole I have always felt poetry too intensely personal a medium to show to people. It is time, I felt, that I came out of the closet.

I hope you enjoy Sands of Time.