Let's Get Lost - excerpt

I'm behind schedule on my writing, which means I've had to cancel all my plans for the weekend. So instead of a post telling you all of my thrilling adventures in typing, I thought I'd let you read this extract that was cut from the final version of Let's Get Lost. It came in at 20,000 words over, so a lot had to go.

This was a scene with Isabel and her clueless guidance consellor. Hope you enjoy it, even if you haven't read the book yet!



Only two things got me through Friday: Smith's unfeigned delight when I told him that I'd engineered a whole weekend together and the holdall I had stuffed in my locker which contained everything I needed to maintain his delight.

It even got me through another session with Claire who kept prodding and prodding at me as if I was a sleeping dog she was trying to wake up.

Thankfully she'd abandoned her little scheme to have me spilling my guts and copious tears all over her kilim rug and decided to talk about what a mean, old bully I was.

"You seem to have quite a fierce reputation among your peers, why do you think that is," she asked, gimlet eyes fixed steadily on me. I made a mental note to find out if Lily was seeing her too. "Sometimes when people are in pain, they transfer it on to those around them, don't they, Isabel?"

I crossed my legs and tried to decide whether I should wear my vintage little black dress or my other vintage little black dress when we went up to London tomorrow. It was such a tough decision that I could almost tune out the sound of Claire's voice buzzing vaguely around the periphery of my senses.

"… and you wrote such a beautiful essay about The Great Gatsby. Mrs Phillips told me that you have a very advanced understanding of the themes of the novel for your age. You're not immature, Isabel, quite the contrary, so I'd really like to know your thoughts on your behaviour over the last year. What do you think are the underlying reasons for your problems with socialisation?"

I blinked at her. Maybe the silent thing was getting old. And maybe I could befuddle her with some dense psychobabble. Because one thing was for sure, she didn't want to know the truth.

"I guess…" I began uncertainly and she leaned forward with an obscenely eager expression.

"Yes, Isabel?"

"Well, it's like in The Great Gatsby when Nick idealises Daisy as this perfect woman and she isn't. And she didn't ask for it, but she takes advantage of his love all the same. Nobody ever knows what someone else is like. Not really. They just end up projecting all this crap onto the other person, you know?"

Claire was staring at me blankly and it was pretty obvious that she didn't know. She was the Grand Pooba of cluelessness.

"I see," she said, nodding frantically and I stared at the box of tissues and wondered if I could get her to cry. It would be my greatest triumph.

"I don't mean to be rude, but have you actually read The Great Gatsby?"

That stopped her in her tracks. She fingered her spectacles chain and licked her thin lips nervously. "Well, many years ago. Or was that The Fountainhead?"

"The Fountainhead is by Ayn Rand, F Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby," I told her kindly. "They're two completely different books. Gatsby's about the death of the American dream and The Fountainhead is about the theory of objectivism and the strength of the individual. They couldn't be more different," I finished scathingly and I'd missed this.

Before, Dad would pick out novels for me to read, then he'd take me out to Mrs Hudson's on Sydney Street for apple pie and we'd discuss each book in detail. But it had stopped, after Mrs Cohen got all antsy that I was developing too far ahead of the curriculum because God forbid that I should actually be bored in class because I'd read the set text three times before and debated it with a Professor of Literature. And Mrs Hudson's had the best apple pie.

"Goodness, Isabel, you can be quite strident," Claire breathed. "Are you this forceful with your friends? Maybe if you were a little gentler with your opinions, then people would be less intimidated by you."

I think it was that patronising little speech that made me swear a solemn vow that I'd have her crying like a little baby before the end of term.

"Really? Do I come across as intimidating? How weird. Am I intimidating you, Claire? 'Cause if I am, I'm very sorry."

She gave a nervous laugh. "No, of course not. It's lovely to have you participating in the session."

"Why?"

"Why what, Isabel?"

"Why is it lovely to have me participating in the session?" It was a fair question because it wasn't lovely for me. It ranked somewhere below rectal surgery.

It was a totally moot point, which one of us was more relieved when the final bell sounded.

"4 o'clock already?" Claire cried, scooping up her papers and almost falling over her Earth shoes in her haste to put as much distance between us as possible. "Have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you next Friday."

I stayed sitting down long enough for her to start getting this haunted look at the possibility that I might want to stay and chat, before I slowly uncoiled myself out of the chair. Then I sauntered towards the door, taking my sweet time about it and it wasn't until I closed the door behind me that I let myself break into a mad sprint so I could throw my books into my locker, grab my bag and get the hell out of Dodge before The Trio Of Doom caught up with me.


Cross-posted to http://blog.myspace.com/sarramanning