Penelope Lively, one of the authors who featured in the 2013 selection, has produced a ghoulish short story, published in The Observer.
The eerie tale relates the story of a young couple who move into a South London property which has a hidden and dark past. The female protagonist, Laura, supports her partner Tim in the re-furbishment of the suspiciously inexpensive flat, its cold and dank interior is initially suspected at being a result of abandonment but it soon comes to loom over both their lives.
Here’s a brief snippet of the short story:
She left the room, slamming the door. Ran down the stairs.
Halfway down, she felt it. A hand on her back. Between the shoulder blades. Pushing. A sharp push. Then it was gone. She had clutched the banister.
She looked back up the stairs. The door she had slammed was still shut, Tim inside that room. It had been cold, the hand. Cold through her sweater.
Lively’s book, Moon Tiger, earned the 1987 Booker Prize and also sits in our 2013 library. The book, which tells the tale of a strong, independent woman and her cruelly truncated affair with a British tank commander in Egypt during World War II, enjoyed strong regard from the group but finished a disappointing seventh in the annual member survey.