Zaph Mann : Writer

Excerpt #3 from The Come Back a complete novel from the trilogy A Free Man

Either way it was tragic, but June was having none of it. She went from overachiever to super-power inhuman. Nothing was beyond her. She was madly determined and blindly efficient at work. But with Justin she became increasingly irascible; her damage and his lack of depth would undermine their marriage inside a year.

Once June was up for coming out, she sat with the group in the pub but remained distant and emotionless, out of the conversation. Unless a deep subject came up; then she’d challenge hard.
Everyone talked to her about how good her mum was, about how it ‘could’ve been a good thing’ that Pam went quickly, the ‘no suffering’ line, you know; about how June’s life was full of potential; about how her mum ‘would want her to go on; do her best.’ June barely listened. She sat with a masked expression staring fiercely out at an unspecific thing that she was trying to get at. She was off somewhere else, trying to work it out.
Justin was clueless. He’d put his arm around her shoulder and shake her clumsily. ‘Come on Ju, I love you,’ he’d say, and she’d pull away with an elbow and go off to the toilets, then Justin would sit hopeless, like a scolded young dog waiting to be accepted back in favour.

Our Man had seen the struggle in June and recognised it. He knew it well, the state of confusion with isolation, but he avoided her eyes when the crowd was all out together, and they never met otherwise (under normal circumstances). She caught it though. She’d spotted that look and she meant to confront him, but he kept out of her way; sitting away from them or leaving quickly whenever June turned up without Justin (a thing she never did previously).
Friends began to make something of it, knowing that Justin-n-June were falling apart like fish–n-chip paper soaked by the rain. June showing up everywhere was bound to lead to someone putting two and two together to make five.
‘You got something going on with June? This was Sharon, one of June’s friends. He told her no, but evidently, she wasn’t convinced. After a few pints, her boyfriend Tony, set up by Sharon to find out if June and Our Man were and item, cornered him in the bog.
‘So, we’ve got a little thing going with the despairing one, have we?’