Attend

By West Camel

SHORTLISTED for The Polari First Book Prize
LONGLISTED for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize

A beautifully written, darkly funny, mesmerisingly emotive and deliciously told debut novel with echoes of Armistead Maupin...

'From its opening gambit to its final line, Attend demands and rewards attention' Foreword Reviews

'With its blend of dark, gritty themes and gorgeous imagery, this is a book to make you believe there's still magic in the world' Heat Magazine

'I've fallen in love with this absolutely glorious, spell-binding tale' LoveReading

As the threads of their lives unravel ... they find magic under their feet...

When Sam falls in love with South London thug Derek, and Anne's best friend Kathleen takes her own life, they discover they are linked not just by a world of drugs and revenge; they also share the friendship of the uncanny and enigmatic Deborah.

Seamstress, sailor, story-teller and self-proclaimed centenarian immortal, Deborah slowly reveals to Anne and Sam her improbable, fantastical life, the mysterious world that lies beneath their feet and, ultimately, the solution to their crises.

With echoes of Armistead Maupin and a hint of magic realism, Attend is a beautifully written, darkly funny, mesmerisingly emotive and deliciously told debut novel, rich in finely wrought characters that you will never forget.

'It's a genuinely pleasurable experience to encounter something couched in such alert and transparent language as West Camel's Attend ... In three hundred finely judged pages, West Camel leaves the reader eager for more from his pen' Barry Forshaw, CrimeTime

'Lyrical and intense, the spellbinding prose is full of carefully chosen words which create an emotive and flowing' Crime Review

'Rich, lively and intelligent, Attend is a novel of mystery, morality and meaning, but so delicately sewn together, you never notice the seams...' Rosie Goldsmith

'There is such a joy to the language. West Camel is a truly gifted wordsmith, and a beautiful storyteller' Louise Beech

'Skilfully weaves a tapestry of multi-layered threads ... delicate, evocative prose tells an intriguing story with contemporary relevance, insight and compassion' Live & Deadly

'A book of past and present, grief and tragedy, forgiveness and redemption, and hopes and dreams ... a great debut novel' Off-the-Shelf Books

'A singular and distinctive read ... Within the city grime and gritty plotlines, glitters an arresting tale' Books, Life and Everything

'Precision language and beautifully interwoven storytelling ... I couldn't put it down' Liz Loves Books

'Filled with a magic that is unique and uplifting. Attend is adventurous, charming and utterly compelling' Random Things through My Letterbox

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orenda Books
• Release date: Nov 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781495629891

West Camel

Born and bred in south London – and not the Somerset village with which he shares a name – West Camel worked as an editor in higher education and business before turning his attention to the arts and publishing. He has worked as a book and arts journalist, and was editor at Dalkey Archive Press, where he edited the Best European Fiction 2015 anthology, before moving to new press Orenda Books just after its launch. He currently combines his work as editor at Orenda with writing and editing a wide range of material for various arts organisations, including ghost-writing a New-Adult novel and editing The Riveter magazine for the European Literature Network. He has also written several short scripts, which have been produced in London’s fringe theatres, and was longlisted for the Old Vic’s 12 playwrights project. Attend, his first novel was shortlisted for the Polari prize.

Book preview

Chapter 1: Anne

Anne pulled at the door, but it resisted; it clung to the jambs. She hoped no one was passing on the balcony outside, seeing that she couldn’t even get out of her own home.

She tugged again and recalled struggling like this once before. When Mel had locked her in.

He’d grabbed her as she’d made a dash for the front door of their flat. Held her against the wall, his heavy forearm at her throat; searched her pockets for her keys and the money she’d stolen from his wallet to buy herself a hit.

‘Now look after your fucking kid,’ he’d shouted as he locked the door from the outside, his face a dirty blur in the frosted glass.

Julie had wailed in the next room – the insistent keen of a six-week-old. What was it – eighteen years ago? The sound still rasped.

Anne’s hand slipped and she grazed a layer of skin off the knuckle of her thumb. She took a breath and looked down at the key in her palm, its grooves and notches clean and new. Mel was long gone, she was alone and this door was just a bad fit. She tried pushing her toe under its bottom lip and pulling the handle upward. With a bit of a twist it opened.

She stepped out into sunlight and the smell of roasting meat. Sunday. Her mother would be busy with the dinner right now – hot, banging pots. Perhaps she should walk over there – have something to eat, help with the washing-up. But Julie would be home with the baby. They wouldn’t want Anne there, spoiling things.

As she descended the three floors to the courtyard, she heard booming voices and shrieking kids. The Nigerian family on the ground floor had just arrived back from church. Anne nodded to them as she passed – the children in neat suits and dresses, the men smart, and the women tall in their hot-coloured wrappers and stiff headscarves.

‘Hello, how are you settling in?’ asked the mother, her children swinging at the ends of her long arms.

‘Not bad, thank you. Getting there, you know.’ But Anne kept moving, conscious of her mousey, messy hair, her drab jeans and scuffed trainers.

She hurried on out of the courtyard, not sure now whether she would call her mother. But waiting at the crossing on Church Street, she reminded herself why she had come back, clean, to Deptford. She pulled out her mobile phone; no credit. There was a phone box on the other side of the road – she would call from there and invite herself to dinner. She would make herself sound cheery and relaxed.

Rita answered loudly, but seemed to lower her voice when she realised it was Anne.

‘Oh, hello, love. What’s up?’

‘Nothing, just settling in, you know.’

‘Need anything doing?’

‘I’m OK, I’m doing everything myself.’

‘Oh yes? Well, don’t be knocking back help when it’s offered; you don’t know when you might need it.’

Anne gripped the phone’s stiff metal cord. ‘How’s everything there?’

‘Alright. We’re sitting down to dinner in a minute.’

‘Oh right. I was thinking I could come over, if you don’t mind. I just fancy a roast.’

Rita paused for a moment. ‘I’d like to say yes to you, love, but…’

‘Don’t worry, not enough to go round?’

‘Well, that, and, well, Mel’s here.’

Anne dug her nail into the graze on her thumb. ‘Come for his lunch most Sundays, does he?’ She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words were out.

Rita was quick to react. ‘No, but he’s been to see his daughter and grandson a lot more than you have.’

‘I want to come now, don’t I?’

‘Well, I didn’t know that. You wouldn’t want to be here with him anyway, would you?’

‘No, I fucking wouldn’t.’

‘Well there you are, then. What can I do?’

‘You just think he’s some fucking saint and I’m the only one that fucked up.’ Anne heard her voice scudding away from her. ‘And Julie thinks the sun shines out of his fucking hole. If she knew what it was like when she was little—’

Her mother interrupted, hard and quiet. ‘She don’t, Anne. But I do. And I also know that it was me that looked after her when you was off sticking yourself full of that shit. So don’t start.’

Anne was silent. She heard her own breath in the handset. A train rumbled along the viaduct above her.

‘Go on then, got any more?’ said Rita. The baby cried in the background.

‘No, Mum.’

‘Right, then.’

‘Bye.’

Anne thumped the wall of the phone box. Everything was clenched, her throat was tight. She tried to slam the door as she left the box, but the spring insisted on closing it slowly. Mel must be sitting down at her mother’s table now, his fists tight around a knife and fork, a napkin tucked into his shirt, his heavy jaw steadily chewing through the meat. While she stood here alone, under the railway arch, not sure where to go. The noise of a massive, empty lorry drove her out, fiercely picking at the hem of her coat.

She wanted a fix, and had to shake her head and mutter ‘no’ out loud – she was beyond that now. She turned into Crossfield Street, her gaze lowered to the patches of old cobbles appearing where the tarmac was wearing away.

She slowed down; there was a bench ahead – she could sit down there and calm herself. It was on the edge of a green space that was criss-crossed oddly by humps and half-walls – left over from before the war, she always supposed. Beyond it was the white church where she had been married to Mel. Kathleen – Mel’s sister, and her oldest friend – had been bridesmaid. That had been the best part: her and Kathleen in their dresses.

She looked up at the church tower, its columns and scrolls rising above the uglier buildings around into an almost irresistibly sharp needle. The intricate gold clock below it always surprised her by telling the right time. And, as she looked, the bell began to chime.

When she looked down, she saw someone else was sitting on the bench: an old woman in a dark-grey woollen skirt and shawl, a grey bag placed beside her. She was bent over slightly and what looked like a white sheet was spread across her lap. Anne’s step faltered – she could not work out where this person had appeared from. The woman glanced up as she passed, and Anne, attracted by the clean, open face and wave of white hair, allowed herself to smile and nod. But rather than returning her smile, the woman’s face tightened in shock and she clutched at the edges of her shawl. Anne saw something drop from her hand and bounce onto the ground, leaving a twisting trail behind it. Turning her head back, Anne saw that it was a reel of white thread. The woman made no effort to pick it up, but stared open-mouthed as Anne walked away. Anne shook her head again, wondering why she had bothered coming back to Deptford.

She reached the junction with the High Street and turned back into the churchyard, where there were more benches among the graves and rose bushes. She had always found a little peace here. When she had rowed with her mother, or Mel or Kathleen, she would come and sit on the stone caskets or, most often, on the curved steps under the church’s semicircular porch.

Now, as she lowered herself onto the top step, she heard the swell of voices from the service on the other side of the doors. The hymn’s tune was familiar, but the words escaped her for the moment, and she couldn’t resist a growing feeling that, after the long, meandering journey to get herself clean, she was back where she had started. She leaned against the pillar behind her and tried to tell herself that things were different now: she hadn’t taken smack in two years; Julie was grown up and had her own baby; she and Mel had divorced long ago. But she still hadn’t seen Kathleen; and he was at her mother’s table while she was stewing on these same cold steps.

The voices had been quiet for several minutes when the old woman who had been sitting on the bench in Crossfield Street came in through the churchyard gate. She strolled slowly down the path, making a show of looking at the graves on either side, but all the time sneaking glances up at Anne. Her clothes and her bag were the same colour as the rain-stained stones. When she was just a few yards away, she seemed to realise that Anne was watching her, drew her short figure up a little and looked Anne full in the face, her lips parted and her blue eyes wide. There was something slightly desperate about her expression that made Anne move around on the step, but she held the woman’s gaze and, at this, the woman approached more purposefully until she stood nearly at Anne’s feet.

‘Good morning.’ She held her hands neatly over her belly. ‘I think I might have taken your seat over there.’

‘Don’t worry about it, I’m alright here now.’

‘Lovely spot, isn’t it?’

Anne nodded, wondering whether she didn’t want the woman to go away.

‘It’s one of the few bits of the old Deptford left.’

‘Well, it’s changed a lot over the years.’ But Anne wasn’t sure this was really true.

‘You know Deptford, then?’ The woman stared intently at her now.

‘I grew up around here. But I’ve been away for a few years; just moved back a couple of weeks ago, actually.’

The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ve lived here most of my life.’ She glanced around her, then back at Anne. ‘Have you…’ she began, and her face flicked between a smile and an interested frown, as if she wasn’t sure which to use. She stopped, smoothed her shawl and spoke again, ‘Have you seen me before?’

Anne didn’t know how to answer. If the woman had said ‘Don’t you remember me?’ she could have said ‘no’ and apologised. She wriggled out a reply: ‘I may have done, but it’s been years since I lived here.’

The woman shook her head, ‘I didn’t think you had. Doesn’t matter. May I sit?’

Anne nodded, and the woman climbed up and sat close beside her with a satisfied sigh. It would be difficult to leave now, Anne thought, even if she had something to leave for. But the woman seemed harmless enough; she didn’t smell bad, and there was something about her – about her clothes, her voice, her grey cloth bag. I can have a chat with a lonely old woman, Anne told herself.

‘Were you going inside?’ Anne asked. ‘Only I think the service has already started.’

‘No, I’m far too old for all that. I was christened in here, a long, long time ago. But it’s just a distraction now.’

‘I remember my nan saying that the older she got, the more she thought she should go to church, read the Bible and all that. Make an impression for him upstairs, she used to say.’

‘Well, that’s another way of looking at it.’ The woman’s clear eyes scanned the graves. Her skin was surprisingly smooth. ‘Don’t get you there any quicker, though,’ she said, and looked back at Anne with her mouth a little open, so that Anne could see the tip of her tongue. The step began to feel uncomfortable again.

‘Perhaps you knew my nan; she lived here all her life too.’

‘Is she dead?’

‘Oh yeah.’ Anne frowned – she thought that had been clear. ‘She died years ago.’ She felt her face droop – recalling her nan brought her swiftly to her mother, and so to Julie and then to Tom, the baby: a smooth chain in which she was the snag. She fell to stewing again.

After a moment, the woman shuffled slightly and announced in quite a different voice, giving encouraging smiles between each phrase: ‘From here, you can see where I was born.’ She pointed towards Crossfield Street. ‘The old house I lived in when I was a child – just through there, you see it? Number thirty-six.’ Anne looked the other way and saw the backs of the ancient houses of Albury Street. ‘Where I lodged as a young woman, above one of the shops,’ she indicated the High Street ahead of them; ‘and where I would very much like to end up!’ She presented the graves to Anne with a prompt little movement of her hand and let loose a trill of laughter. For a second, Anne expected her to try to link arms, as her grandmother had liked to. She forced herself to laugh too, and the tickling in her throat seemed to pluck her out of her slump.

‘Where do you live now?’

‘Over by the creek,’ the woman flapped her hand behind them.

‘That’s where I live – the estate. You too?’

‘No, but near there. Perhaps we could pay each other a visit some time.’ And she touched Anne’s hand with her own – a combination of silky-skinned fingers and hardened tips.

As Anne tried to work out a response, the doors behind them swung open and the congregation emerged, shaking each other’s hands as they spread across the steps. They wove around Anne, giving her sideways looks, but the old woman had to stand up quickly to avoid being trodden on.

The priest moved from person to person, nodding and smiling, and caressing his embroidered stole. And before Anne had a chance to get away, he was standing over her, displaying his yellow teeth. ‘Were you wanting to come in for the service? There’s another one this evening if you can wait.’

Anne rose awkwardly. ‘Oh no, I was just sitting here.’

‘Well, feel free to attend – we always welcome newcomers.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ she managed, and then, not sure what else to say to his long grin, she turned to draw the old woman in. But he had already gone back into the church, without a word or a glance at her.

‘He didn’t even say hello to you,’ Anne said. ‘That was a bit rude.’

‘He didn’t see me.’ The woman beamed. ‘Very few people do.’ She picked up her bag, the white cloth swelling out of it like rising dough. ‘But you do – so I’ll tell you my name: Deborah.’ She put her hand out.

Anne looked down at it and, now they were standing on the same step, she was struck by how small the woman was – almost the size of a child. And then she realised what the hand meant. She gave it a gentle shake. ‘I’m Anne.’

‘Very pleased to meet you, Anne.’

Anne began to turn away, thinking it was time to go home now, but Deborah held on to her. ‘Would you like to take a turn around the church with me?’ Her grip was surprisingly strong – Anne would have to pull sharply to get her hand back.

She hesitated before replying; but the sunshine was warm on her back and at home there was just TV and cups of tea. ‘Go on, then,’ she said.

Deborah dropped Anne’s hand and drew her bag up to her chest. ‘I might just tell you a story too. If you’re interested.’

‘Why not.’

They descended the steps and ambled along the path that encircled the church, passing into its shadow then back into the spring sunlight. By the time they returned to the porch, the church doors were closed and the graveyard was empty. Deborah slung her bag on a large stone casket, placed a foot on the base and, with a small, certain effort, pushed herself up onto it.

‘Come and sit.’ She patted the lid and began to pull the white sheet out of the bag.

Anne perched on the opposite end and watched while Deborah opened the sheet out and floated it onto the casket like a tablecloth. She saw now that it was embroidered all over with tiny white stitches, which were nearly invisible against the white of the sheet itself.

‘It’s beautiful. Did you do it all yourself?’ A needle was neatly pushed into the far end and a loop of thread hung down into the grass at their feet.

‘I did.’ Deborah smiled, then looked down into the pattern, her shawl falling back off her head. She inhaled and spoke at the same time, ‘Many, many years of work.’

Anne put a hand on her end of the sheet and felt the tickling texture of the stitches. ‘So tell me this story, then.’

Deborah settled her shoulders; then, pulling a section of the sheet onto her lap and circling her fingertips over it, she began.

Chapter 2: Deborah, 1913

‘That day in 1913, the day I found the strip of cloth with the motif stitched onto it – the day she gave it to me, I should say – no one seemed to be paying me the slightest bit of attention. I thought it was because they wanted to be rid of me. I was seven – far too old for the Hospital for Infants in Albury Street. I’d heard Mrs Clyffe say as much to Sally when we were walking back from church the previous evening.

‘I shall have to be thinking of where to send Deborah, you know. I’ll have the Institute Ladies on my back otherwise. We’re not really supported for the grown ones.

‘She hadn’t meant for me to hear her, but I did; and that entire evening, while she read aloud from the Illustrated London News, I thought about what I’d heard her say.

‘Mrs Clyffe took the Illustrated London all the years I knew her, and after supper on Sundays, she would read out parts she thought suitable to the other staff at the hospital. Being older than the other children, I was allowed to stay up and listen too.

‘Anyone can tell I was born on the Surrey Side, just by hearing me speak, she used to say. And years later, when I read and reread that article by Jacob Mellor, searching for any mention of my name, or a record that he’d even met me, it was her voice that I heard. And I remembered how I’d lain awake that night, thinking about what she’d said to Sally.

‘Looking back, it was more likely they ignored me because they were all so busy. Three sick babies had come in that morning. One was born just the night before. I saw the doctor bringing him in first thing and saying to Mrs Clyffe, in the flat voice he used when someone had died, that the mother hadn’t survived the labour.

‘Mrs Clyffe saw me hanging over the banister, and sent me upstairs to sew. My own mother had died giving birth to me. Mrs Clyffe had been there, and held me when I was just seconds old.

‘The other two babies came in later with nasty coughs, Sally wrapped them up and put them in the line of cradles by the kitchen fire. I offered to help, but Sally said, I can’t see as there’s much help for these two. I’ve heard their mother’s a drunk, and who’s to say who their fathers are. Mrs Clyffe said, Will you hold that tongue of yours, Sally. I shan’t tell you again, and popped sugared butter in one of the babies’ mouths. I knew what she was thinking: who’s to say who my father was?

‘Sally stomped off. And I’m not sure why I thought to do it just then, but while Mrs Clyffe was bent over a cradle, I pocketed a bit of candle and a match from the dresser and sloped off downstairs.

‘Mrs Clyffe didn’t mind the children going into the back basement, where there was the scullery with the big sink, the tallboy for the wash jugs and a narrow window into the yard, which she was careful to lock ever since she found a man sleeping down there. But she didn’t like us in the front basement, which was more like a cellar – dark, with a heap of coal and dirty boxes everywhere. What she was proper rough about, though, was the door to the tunnel. It was set in the front wall, right under the pavement, and was bolted top and bottom. She used to say if we ever got in there it would be the last she’d see of us.

‘I knew I was making a racket – dragging a box over so I could reach the top bolt, shooting the bottom one with a bang and then pulling the heavy door open – but I was sure they were all so busy with the babies, they wouldn’t notice. I was a good child generally – always if Mrs Clyffe was near – but now I knew she planned to get rid of me, I thought I could do what I liked. I could disappear and she wouldn’t pay any attention; none of them would.

‘I stepped through the open door. Inside, it smelled damp and chilled, like the church crypt. I took the stub of candle and the match out of my pocket and pulled the door closed behind me. It was so dark then, I could have been in a cavern or a cramped hole, and I wouldn’t have known the difference. I felt for the wall and struck the match, then brought it to the wick. The candle sputtered, but then the flame grew tall and I was able to look about.

‘Mrs Clyffe had told us the tunnel was dug for ships’ captains, to keep them safe off the streets when they were carrying the gold from their travels. After that it was used by smugglers, she said. Sally said that Lord Nelson used the tunnel to meet Lady Hamilton when they lived in Deptford more than a hundred years back, but Mrs Clyffe had told her not to be so soft and that, in any case, the tunnel was no place for children: it was dirty, dark and unsafe, a maze we’d never get out of.

‘I’d always taken her at her word; but now I saw it was just boxes, like in the cellar. And I thought: is this it?

‘Some of the boxes had her writing on them. I knew her hand – big white-chalk loops spelling the names of children who’d been in the hospital. Some of them had gone back to their families; some of them had gone on to other places. And I knew that others had died. Most people thought Mrs Clyffe was fierce, but I’d seen her cry, holding a cold baby to her nightdress first thing in the morning.

‘I walked down the line of boxes, looking for my name, but I didn’t really expect to see it. There was nothing of mine to put in a box and store away. Where the boxes stopped, a set of bars ran from floor to ceiling. I held the candle out between them. There were brick arches for a few feet, and then the tunnel turned a corner.

‘On my side of the bars, the boxes within reach and the door just a few steps behind me, I was still at home really, with my bed upstairs, dinner already cooking, my sewing to do and the Institute Ladies coming in to teach us our letters that afternoon. And, of course, Mrs Clyffe. If I went any further, I risked not being seen again. But in the candlelight, I thought of the edge of a silk dress disappearing around the corner.

‘I turned sideways and pushed through the bars.

‘A few steps and I was at the corner. I looked back. A line of light slipped under the bottom of the door. A sound came from the cellar – the scrape of the shovel. Someone had come to fetch coal. I could’ve gone back then, but my white apron front was already filthy. I turned the corner.

‘There was nothing for a long while, just earth walls and wooden beams holding them up. The floor was wet in places, and water dropped on my head, making me shudder. Every now and then, I passed a doorway in the wall, but each was bricked up. I thought of the bricklayer who’d fixed the yard wall, and imagined him coming down right now and bricking up our doorway, with Mrs Clyffe watching and saying, There now. That’s settled that. I’d truly never get out then. And in the dark, my mind ran wild. Perhaps Mrs Clyffe had been waiting for me to find my way down here so she could shut me in. I heard her laughing as the last brick was placed, saying, That’s settled her. The problem of Deborah solved. It was a silly thought, but it stopped me dead.

‘I was at a junction; the tunnel went three different ways. To the left and right I didn’t know what I’d find. Behind me was the way back. If I took that, I thought, I’d have to make up something to tell the others; I couldn’t say I’d come down here and got scared and come back. I’d have to sneak my apron into the wash pile. And I’d have to sit up that night and do the sewing I’d been set for this morning. And then?

‘One girl, a little younger than me, now that her chest had improved, was to go to live with her sister. There was a boy who said he was going to his uncle in the countryside, and Mrs Clyffe didn’t contradict him. But me, I’d only ever had Mrs Clyffe, the hospital, the Institute Ladies and the sewing they set me to do. I was too young for service, and anyway, Sally said they only took girls from good families. I had no family, good or bad.

‘I took the right fork. I should have been scared, I suppose, I was still just a child. But at least the tunnel was empty and silent; just my own footsteps, the dripping, and the hiss of the candle flame. It only lit up the space a few feet about me. I walked on in my own small globe of light, almost in a trance.

‘And then I had to stop again.

‘There was a large pile of earth and rubble blocking the tunnel ahead of me. To keep going I would have to climb over it. I held the candle up and saw that part of the wall and ceiling had fallen in. Water was running in streams through the cracks and I was standing in a puddle, my stockings and skirt wet.

‘I wavered in the blocked passageway. My head was still filled with all the babies I had seen come and go: the ones who had died and the ones who had left; the ones who had come in that morning; the one whose birth had killed his mother. I thought of my own mother – Mrs Clyffe’s fingers on her eyelids – and of my father, whoever he was. And a big thought came into my little head: I was never to have a child of my own. It made perfect sense to me right then. No one knew where I was. I had no mother, no father, no relatives. And now Mrs Clyffe was to throw me off. How could I ever have a baby?

‘And I suppose that could have been the end of my adventure.

‘But while I’m dithering, deciding what to do, the candle flame stirs; there’s a breeze coming from somewhere. The shadows move about, the light changes, and from beyond the pile of mud I hear a low moan. I step back, but I don’t run. The moan comes again – louder, longer, rasping. I wait. Then, beyond the heaped earth, I see a hand making circles in the air. It’s dark, caked in mud. And then the moan again – almost a shout now. I’m drawn forwards, climbing over the pile, my boots sinking into it. I grab at the wet earth, and see my hand covered in dirt too. I’m at the top. The candle gutters. I trip and slide down the other side, nearly falling onto the woman who’s lying there.

‘She’s half trapped where the wall has come down on her. I can’t see her legs or one arm, and her face is squashed sideways so she can’t close her mouth. When she moans again, the water flows in and she has to spit it out. Only one eye is open, a white rolling ball in the candlelight. She’s waving her free arm, trying to shout. And all around her, spread across the floor and sticking out of the mud, are pieces of cloth: short strips, balled-up sheets, folds and layers, all soaking and filthy, their patterns and designs unclear.

‘I must’ve left all my fear back in the cellar or in the hospital, because I put the candle down and take her arm to try to pull her out. But she shouts, and points further down the passage. She’s angry and desperate, so I go where she points and, a few paces away, I see there’s a chest. I’m sure that at the sight of it I take an excited breath in. There is treasure in these places – a pile of gold that will set me up properly. But taking a few splashing steps towards it, I find the long box bust open, with cloths and carpets and tapestries pulled out of it in a silted mess. The woman moans, pointing at it and beckoning me. I grab a great armful and stagger back to her.

‘I pile it all in front of her and go back for more, while she nods and grabs at the pieces, casting her wild eye over each one, then flinging it aside with a wet slap. At last she lets out a roar, which turns into a foul coughing and retching fit, and a gush of rank water erupts from her twisted mouth.

‘Recovering herself, she holds a small brown strip of cloth out to me, stretching her arm as far as she can. Her hand is shaking, as if the scrap is too heavy. Her one eye bulges, and she’s suddenly silent. The sound of the water is loud; there’s a splash near by – something falling. I understand, and take the material. Her arm drops, her eye closes, and I’m gone, scrambling over the mud, running and stumbling.

‘Eventually, I had to slow down. My chest hurt, there were tears on my face and I was covered with mud and slime. But soon, I recognised the bricked-up doorways and realised I must be close to home. So I kept going, gripping the piece of cloth and trying to decide what I should tell; what story would best explain the state I was in?

‘The candle was down to almost nothing – it should never have lasted as long as it did. But the flame burned all the way back to the cellar door.’

Chapter 3: Sam

Sam’s bus home stopped outside the shopping centre to change drivers. The tremble of the engine died, and in the quiet gap, gazing out of the top-deck window, he saw two sails.

The boats sped away together across the dock, then flapped at the far end and turned back towards him. He could feel their rhythmic sliding and slapping, the hiss and ripple below their bellies. They weren’t racing; when one overtook the other, stealing its wind, he could almost hear the playful shouts between the sailors. They pulled level and skimmed the surface of the water in tandem.

The bus shook into life again and pulled away,

Reviews for Attend

[klburnside · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Short, simply illustrated, sad little graphic novel.

[shadowwhisp · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I don't get the ending.

[atticusfinch1048 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Attend – An excellent debut.It is clear from reading Attend that the author West Camel (person not the place in Somerset) has taken to heart the Stephen King idiom of read, read and read some more, and then when you think you know how to write, read some more. West Camel, besides editing many novels, and magazines is the epitome of the King idiom. Which is a good thing when you are writing your debut novel.When I read the blurb, I thought I would be getting a literary crime novel, but what I got was something better. A multi-layered, multi-person novel where there is a crossover with one friend, Deborah. Who knows how old Deborah really is, but she is an enigmatic character that is a kind of seamstress, story-teller and seeming immortal. One thing she is, she is the mortar that binds the novel and the stories together. Anne has moved back to Deptford having cleaned herself up, from her previous drug induced life, and in need of a friend. Sam, a gay man, has just moved to Deptford, and in need of a friend. Life is not very easy for Anne or Sam Anne’s former best friend commits suicide and Sam falls in love with local thug Derek. It Deborah that holds the friends together with her stories of a long-forgotten Deptford.The story takes you on a journey of discovery, interconnected stories and as much as we like to think of ourselves as separate, we all have a connection somewhere. That as smooth as we would like life to be it really is a messy thing that we have to deal with.An interesting and absorbing debut, that deeper you get in to the book the better it seems to get. This is a book that will leave a deep mark long after I have finished.