A World of Other People (17 page)

‘Yes. I am. I’m all right. Thank you for asking.’

And with that he nods and departs, books and a folder of notes under his arm.

She leaves the park and returns the way she came. A little later, strolling through Soho, she passes the pub they always went to but don’t any more. And she sees it and hears it all again: the piano, the shouts, the rush for the chairs. The girl in the ARP coat. A voice in her ear saying this is
it
. How can so short a time remain so strong? Just a few weeks and one night. But she knows already those images will never go and never fade. You won’t forget me, you won’t forget … A flaming object breaks the air, the extraordinary falls upon the ordinary.

She crosses into St James’s Park. The sun has stayed strong. I’m back, it says. I’m back. Are you all right? And she looks up into the glaring light and nods. She continues over the fresh, green lawns towards her
flat, gradually merging with the people around her, pausing and breathing in the spring air then gazing up to the broad, open sky above. There is a plane out there, a speck in the distance. And she picks up her pace as she eyes it, a speck in the distance hovering between earth and sky.

Many thanks to the following for their help during the writing of this novel.

Stanley Rother, Flight Sergeant, Bomber Command 1944–45, No 462 Squadron, shot down over Dortmund, Germany, on his 30th operation; POW March–May 1945 (‘In hindsight a wonderful twenty-first birthday present, I was alive!’). Born in Sussex, England, he is now resident in Adelaide.

Seamus Heaney, for kindly allowing the use of the
Queen Mary
image from his poem ‘Stern’, published in
District and Circle
, Faber and Faber, 2006
.

To Shona Martyn, Jo Butler and Amanda O’Connell at HarperCollins, and my agent Sonia Land (and all the gang at Sheil Land) for their support and enthusiasm.

Finally, my special thanks to my partner, Fiona Capp, for her constant support, suggestions and advice, not just in the writing of this novel, but all of them. And to Leo — the lion-hearted boy.

Steven Carroll was born in Melbourne. His first novel,
Remember Me, Jimmy James
, was published in 1992. This was followed by
Momoko
(1994),
The Love Song of Lucy McBride
(1998) and then
The Art of the Engine Driver
(2001), which was shortlisted for both the Miles Franklin Award in 2002 and France’s Prix Femina literary award for the Best Foreign Novel in 2005,
The Gift of Speed
(2004), which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2005,
The Time We Have Taken
(2007), which won both the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the South-East Asia and South Pacific Region and the Miles Franklin Award 2008,
The Lost Life
(2009), which was shortlisted for both the 2010 Barbara Jefferis Award and the ALS Gold Medal 2010, and
Spirit of Progress
(2011), which was longlisted for the 2012 Miles Franklin Award.

Steven Carroll lives in Melbourne with his partner and son.

Remember Me, Jimmy James

Momoko

The Love Song of Lucy McBride

The Art of the Engine Driver

The Gift of Speed

The Time We Have Taken

The Lost Life

Spirit of Progress

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in Australia in 2013

This edition published in 2013

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Steven Carroll 2013

The right of Steven Carroll to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Carroll, Steven, 1949–

A world of other people / Steven Carroll.

978 0 7322 9120 4 (pbk.)

978 1 7430 9973 5 (epub)

A823.4

Cover design by Matt Stanton, HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover images: Woman © A. Greg Raymond/LuckyPix/Corbis; Curtains by Lesley Aggar/Trevillion Images; background image by Getty Images
Author photograph by Paul Rovere/Fairfax Syndication