Author: veewalkerwrites

Vee Walker

This short story won the Fiction Prize for the Hugh Miller Writing Competition 2019 and was first published on the Scottish Geology website, which no longer seems to exist. I have added a few pictures for local colour! Recipe for Cinder Toffee available on request…

‘Well, he is not going to be happy with us, John.’ The speaker, a broad-faced, tweed-clad and generously-rumped male, did not for some reason sound altogether sorry.

The wall clock in the echoing stone hall outside the Edinburgh University office chimed the hour of their appointment. The friends sat awkwardly on a pair of wooden chairs rather too small for their bulk. Both had removed their deerstalker hats and were kneading them between their hardened and scarred palms, tattooed with grit from a lifetime’s work. Their draft report, all 800-odd pages of it, and the precious box of samples, took up a third spindly chair between them.

Although neither realised the other was imitating his own actions, each would reach out and lay a hand on the substantial mound of their findings, seeking reassurance as the moments to their ordeal ticked down.

Their mission had been quite plainly set before them several months before, in the very office of the British Geological Society (Edinburgh Branch) which they were about to re-enter. Professor Archibald Geikie, no less, had requested their presence. There he had sat, peering at them over gold-rimmed spectacles from behind his vast rosewood desk. He proceeded to fulminate at the upstarts who had dared to question the clear and the logical and indeed, to his mind, the natural order of things geological.

‘Geology is formed of layers, gentlemen!’ he had spat. ‘Immense layers which form over the course of aeons, but which must, logic dictates, follow the chronological settlement of all creation. What is geology save one sedimentary layer formed on top of another since the time of the Flood, as Murchison has pointed out so often.’

The younger of the two listeners unwisely cleared his throat to interject, ‘But… Lapworth?’

‘All his nonsense about those uppermost rocks in some dismal corner of the Highlands proving otherwise? Pah! Young Lapworth is merely spouting the heretical writings of his false idol Nicol. It is all bunkum, d’y hear me? Utter bunkum!’ John had found himself agreeing, more out of awkward politeness and the sheer force of The Great Man’s presence than assent.

His friend instead chose to hold his tongue.

‘You do not share The Great Man’s views then, Ben?’ John asked him, as they traipsed with relief down the staircase towards the damp, grey Edinburgh air.

Ben had smiled at John’s use of their ironic nickname for a crusty superior and shrugged. ‘Not that long ago, all Old Red’s theorising about fish growing paws and clawing their way out of the mud was portrayed as the ravings of a lunatic, remember? Now Darwin and everyone else seem to be in agreement.’

John nodded, thoughtfully. Hugh Miller – nicknamed Old Red for his beloved sandstone – had been a favourite of all their circle until his sad demise; a blend of gentle Highland rustic and touchingly devout self-taught academic. Ben shook out his black umbrella at the foot of the stairs, looking down and prodding the last step with the toe of his boot. ‘See, he would have liked that. Hugh’s sandstone used for the fine new university. He wondered whether we are becoming too greedy for the treasures of the earth. We take them without thought.’

John nodded again. ‘Greedy for knowledge too?’

‘Sometimes only insofar as it accords with one’s own views,’ Ben chuckled.

Once out on the Caithness flag pavement, he grinned at John from under his umbrella. ‘If I have learned one thing from my life in science thus far, it is that utter certainty of any scientific fact can be a dangerous thing,’ was all he chose to add.

John understood his friend perfectly. For upstairs, Professor Geikie, puce-faced with professional ire by the end of their interview, had been very clear in his instructions; all but ordering the two geologists to go and prove that he and his mentor Roderick Murchison were in the right.

˜

Six months had passed since their last encounter with The Great Man. He had penned several increasingly terse letters enquiring as to their progress, which they had felt it best to ignore. Now here they were once more.

They sat in silence until the younger of the two snorted, ‘How I should prefer to be back up on the road to Ullapool instead, eh Ben?’ The other nodded. Neither was in his natural habitat, there in that cold and echoing vestibule. They belonged instead among the rough heather and steep hillsides of the North-Western Highlands with only each other, and an occasional golden eagle, for companionship.

‘D’ye recall that day?’ Ben continued. ‘We’d paused to catch our breath after that steep section. Eyeing our meat-paste sandwiches made by the landlady in Cròic a Chnocain.’

‘Ah yes. The damp little croft overlooking the burial ground.’

‘Very poor sandwiches,’ reflected his companion, shifting his considerable weight from one buttock to the other, making his chair groan. ‘The same every day, too. The only lodgings to be had that near to the Crag, though.’

‘Certainly closer than that rather grand hotel. And she was a kindly enough old thing.’

‘No English, only the Gaelic.’

‘Fìor fhìor! No packed lunch on the Sabbath, remember?’

‘Ah, but that extraordinary sweet confection she made…’

‘Wrapped in brown paper.’

‘Quite delicious, wasn’t it? Made up for everything else.’

‘Indeed.’

Transported by their shared memory, the friends allowed themselves to recall that extraordinary day: again they felt the clean air and rain on their faces, again they heard the rattle of a ptarmigan from high on the slopes above the crag. They had been glad to pause for a while and rest, even if it meant consuming their forlorn meat-paste sandwiches. Lochan an Ais lay spread below them, its grey, rain-pitted surface broken only by a lone great northern diver, its plumage sleek and oily in the downpour. Cul Mor soared beyond, her face veiled in heavy mist.

‘A bitty dreich, as they say in these parts.’ John could feel the canvas bags which would contain their specimens for the day were growing heavy with rain already.

‘Indeed. But see how the wet brings out the fine pattern in the rocks, John.’ The younger man glanced at the speaker with considerable affection. How many times had he heard Ben bring out this phrase as mitigation for the most atrocious West Highland weather? He knew the debt he owed his old friend. He, John, had the technical skills: could sketch accurately, write plentiful notes and find a perfect turn of phrase to describe a specimen, but he was the first to acknowledge that it was Ben who had the eye. It showed in his paintings of the hills.

That morning the crag had shimmered in the bright light, every available rock surface wet. As he stared upwards, Ben’s head had inclined slightly to one side in a thoughtful manner which John had come both to anticipate and, occasionally, dread. ‘Up yonder today, I reckon, laddie. Perhaps we may reach the base of the cliff before we drown, eh?’ John was no longer a laddie by two decades or more; but Ben had been gently teasing him about his comparative youth for as long as he could recall.

They worked methodically as usual, measuring, pacing, at times with the whole drenched hillside between them; at others, hunched head-to-head over a specimen, magnifying glass in hand. They spoke only in geological labels at such times:

‘Pipe rock. Perfectly clear, look there, and more here. Durness limestone too.’

‘Fucoid beds, Salterella Grits. Only what one might expect. The correct sequence. And yet…’ John searched for words which would capture the nature of these oddly compressed sediments.

They had spent months now working slowly around several other crumbling cliffs in the area. In fair weather and foul, they were up and out just after dawn, providing a generous food source for midges and the occasional tick, nourished daily by hip flasks of whisky, dubious sandwiches, and sublime confectionery. In pencil, in dozens of notebooks, they meticulously recorded their still-inconclusive findings. What they had found was a curious mix. Perhaps it was due to glaciation, this odd jumble of layers, they had thought at first. Freezing and thawing can crack and shatter rock. And yet each of them knew in the depths of his soul that the answer did not lie in a glacial event of mere thousands of years ago.

They paused to eat their dismal ‘pieces’, rendered even less palatable than usual by the steady rainfall. ‘John, I must be getting old,’ said Ben, rising even as he chewed from an area of limestone where he had crouched and been prodding. ‘I am feeling the damp in my bones today.’ For a fleeting moment John wondered if his colleague were suggesting they call a halt and retreat, but no such thing. ‘Come, a little treat. Let us warm ourselves by ascending fast to the foot of the crag instead. We might find shelter from the rain in its lee, too.’ He was up and off like the proverbial mountain goat, leaving John to pack the morning’s specimens and plod up the zig-zagging cragside deer track in his wake.

Ben’s cry rent the still air asunder. ‘Here! John, hurry! This is it!’

John had no need to ask what it meant. It was their Holy Grail, the conclusive proof – or disproof – they had been instructed to seek. 

John dropped the bags and began to scramble recklessly straight up, the flaky scree slipping beneath his feet. Ben was on his knees at the foot of the crag, as though at prayer. ‘At last, John. See? Clearly Pre-Cambrian, yes? Schists, great sparkling layers of them. And all so… so altered.’

John joined him in worship at the shrine, impervious to the wet now soaking through the tweed of his plus-fours.  He touched the pale gold outcrop with disbelieving fingertips. ‘None of this should be visible! It is surely millions of years more ancient than the Cambrian layers we recorded below?’

‘Yes, as though something has thrust the very burning bowels of the earth upwards, to raise them to the surface. Ye Gods, what mighty force can have brought this about?’ demanded Ben. He was pale now, shaking. John was at once more concerned about his friend’s wellbeing than their momentous discovery. He rummaged in his pocket and drew out the small packet of brown paper. ‘Here you are, old fellow,’ he said. ‘It’s a shock. Eat some.’

Instead Ben held a piece of toffee up against the hot-yellow, cold-bubbled rock before them. ‘John,’ he said unsteadily. ‘How do you think she makes this stuff?’

Puzzled, John replied, ‘Well. Sugar, clearly. Then…’ Light dawned. ‘Then, she must superheat it. Mixes in something else to change its nature, as it boils?’

Ben nodded, still staring. ‘I watched her once. Bicarbonate of soda. The mixture surges upwards in the great iron pot as a scalding, foaming mass, quite altered. Then she pulls it from the fire and tips it out on to a buttered tin tray to cool.’

‘And when it is hard,’ said John softly, ‘She borrows one of our hammers.’

‘Yes! Bang! Bang! Bang! Elemental powers, John. Pressure, heat. We have been seeing the rocks as too fixed.’

‘Exactly. Given sufficient force they can be changed, turned topsy-turvy. This proves it. Wonderful!’ said John, already pulling out his notebook. Then he paused. ‘I say, Ben. The Great Man. Lapworth…’

‘Yes,’ said Ben. ‘Quite. But we tell no-one. Not yet.’

They then fell on the rain-sticky cinder toffee with the appetites of men half-starved.

˜

At last they were summoned. John cradled the report to his chest as Ben hefted the box, its small yet irrefutable samples from Knockan Crag cushioned within.

Archibald Geikie’s voice boomed out of his office as they approached the door. ‘Ah, good-day to you both, gentlemen.’ There was no apology for having kept them waiting. ‘So, what have you brought me, eh?’

It was then that Ben Peach caught the widened eye of John Horne and, albeit fleetingly, winked.

Copyright Vee Walker 2019.

If you enjoyed this short story why not read Vee’s prizewinning epic novel Major Tom’s War, available as a paperback or e-reader edition from her publisher Kashi House 👇

https://www.kashihouse.com/books/major-toms-war-paperback

˜

I am an author – and of course I want everyone in the entire world to buy my books. Over the past weeks and months, though, I have come to realise there is such a thing as book poverty.

I currently want people to buy children’s books instead of my own because I am angry that any child today should not have access to lovely new books in school for financial reasons.

Teachers are striking for better pay and conditions but also for more resources for the kids they teach. There just isn’t enough money for books in schools.

As an author I undertake many school visits. Recently I visited a Highland primary school (which will remain anonymous – no school deserves to be stigmatised for not having enough funds for new books) and was shown around by a delightful but exhausted teacher who took me into the school library.

The content wasn’t great. Very few new titles. Some books were old school prizes from the 1950s. Some were passed-on school stock from elsewhere. Several had teachers’ names in them: teachers buying new books for their school libraries out of their meagre wages because it’s the only way they can replenish the library! One was the same ‘My Learn to Cookbook’ recipe book I was given myself aged about nine. It’s a fun cookbook, if a bit sugar and fat heavy, but I am now 61!

The amazing school staff doggedly wipe and sanitise and stick back together these poor old books as much as they can but some will vanish home, never to be seen again and there’s little to no budget to replace them. Books which have been in a library for years get to look like they have, too – slightly dingy, slightly battered, slightly forlorn. Let’s be frank: old and shabby books are boring.

As the teacher said to me, the kids deserve better.

If you don’t hook a child on books early in life they will never catch up educationally or emotionally. Fact.

I cannot be the only person to lie awake and worry that society is destabilising to such a degree that some schools will soon close entirely through staff sickness and shortages, just as it is becoming nigh-on impossible to find a medical practice in certain areas. If we dare envision a future where children no longer attend a school at all but roam the streets, and where those of us who are sick may not be able to rely on medical care, we are looking into the abyss next door.

I am not a celebrity, nor am I a super wealthy person and I certainly have no political influence, but I thought: there has to be something I can do that is positive in this hideous mess that we are in. And I racked my brains for a small thing I could try, and I thought of the school library and its old, battered, uninspiring books.

If you see a poster soon in a bookshop which says #justonebook it means you can buy a child a primary school level book there – anything from early years to P7, fiction or non-fiction – and leave it at the bookshop. It will soon be collected, giftwrapped and delivered to a Highland primary school in desperate need of books. All the school will know is that it comes from ‘the magic book fairy’.

A very simple transaction in which you get to feel virtuous, a child gets to feel excited as they undo the parcel, a teacher gets a sense that other people care as much as they do – and I get to sleep just a wee bit better at night.

If you would like to know more about giving #justonebook to a Highland primary school then please get in touch by commenting below. Thanks for reading this 🙏🌹😊

Un récit d’amour de Saint-Raphaël écrit après un séjour magnifique dans la ville cet hiver. Merci aux Raphaëlois qui nous ont si bien accueillis 🙏🌹

Il y a des jours, vous savez, pas comme les autres. Des jours que le vent se lêve et met du désordre dans les cheveux. Des jours qu’un petit chihuahua blanc arrive pour vous pisser sur la chaussure.

Commencer avec le jour de la pisse n’est pas commencer au début. Au début je ne voyais que des couleurs flous à travers du gros papier bulle. Des fois des couleurs qui se bougeaient. Des couleurs qui, au début, n’avaient même pas de nom.

Je me trouva débalée après un certain temps dans une vitrine intérieure d’un grand magasin à Nice, en face du rayon mâquillage. Là, je ne pouvais pas comprendre grande chose. Certains objets, comme moi, restèrent fixe. Des autres, tout le contraire.

Je parvins lentement à comprendre que les objets qui bougaient marchaient à deux pattes mais aussi, des fois, à quatre.

Pour passer le temps je me décida à apprendre à lire et à identifier les couleurs.

Chris-ti-an Di-or. Gi-ven-chy. Bleu-blanc-rouge-vert-jaune.

Et, des fois, un deux-pattes passa qui portait son quatre-pattes dans une boîte à main Lou-is Vuit-ton.

Je n’avais pas de nom dans ce grand magasin de Nice. Je n’étais qu’un mannequin parmi maints. On ne se parlait même pas entre nous.

Après un certain temps on me brisa un peu le front: une étagère fut tombée. Je m’attendai à être soignée, mâquillée, parce que le mâquillage, ça doit exister pour couvrir les bleus et les blessures, non? Hélas, je me retrouva mal emballée de nouveau dans du gros papier bulle, et renvoyée.

Après un grand voyage dans le noir on me déballa encore. Je voyais un joli deux-pattes aux cheveux marrons qui portait beaucoup de mâquillage (la Roche-Posay, je crois bien) devant moi.

Je me trouvai immédiatement avec un nom grâce à ce gentil deux-pattes, bien que je ne comprenne pas encore tout ce qu’elle me disait: ‘Mais Keska elle est lourde, Keska elle est maladroite, Keska il m’a pris à acheter celle-ci aux enchères…’

Am-an-di-ne sur son badge devait être son nom à elle. Son petit magasin s’appella Préf-Modes de Saint Raphaël.

Amandine venda des robes des écharpes des chaussures. Je fus là pour l’aider. Je faisais mon mieux de les rendre bien quand elle m’habillait. Amandine m’installait, d’habitude, sur une chaise dans la rue, de façon détendue. Des fois elle me tournait vers les magasins en face (il y a le Driv-ing Hotel, Co-co-ri-ri, Les Bou-quets de la Côte d’Az-ure, et quelques autres). Je préfèrais quand Amandine m’orientait un petit peu plus en direction du grand bleu mysterieux au fond de la rue.

Il y avait aussi des messages sécrets écrits au trottoir de temps en temps, et j’en aggrandissais mon vocabulaire.

Ca fait du bien à moi, Keska, de me retrouver dehors pour la première fois de mon existence. Je pus ainsi regarder passer de près les deux-pattes et les quatre-pattes de Saint-Raphaël: bien différent des deux-pattes Niçois et beaucoup moins de boîtes à main Lou-is Vuit-ton. Mais il y avait des quatre-pattes un peu partout.

Ils étaient tous les deux, deux-pattes et quatre-pattes, assez bruyants et de couleurs variés. Je préfèrais les quatre-pattes, qui me regardaient dans les yeux et qui des fois me parlaient, en disant ouah ouah ouah.

J’étais quasiment sûre que ce fut les quatres-pattes qui faisaient les sculptures qui apparaissent quelquefois de nuit au trottoir. Je supposais que un deux-pattes dut s’emparer de son quatre-pattes pour lui serrer tres fort le ventre afin de créer un de ces petits miracles luisants en spiral.

Amandine était très bruyant, surtout quand elle hurla un jour: ‘adieu pour toujours espèce de connard’ à son rectangle et le jète sur son bureau en sanglotant. Ensuite en me sortant pour la journée elle marcha dans un grand miracle au trottoir et me fit ‘mais Keska, c’est que cette salété mais enfin…’ avec une voix pleine de chagrin.

A part les deux-pattes et les quatre-pattes il y avait des autres objets qui bougeaient à Saint-Raphaël, surtout ces objets carrés-roulants multicolores qui bougaient beaucoup plus quand il faisait froid l’hiver. Quand il faisait chaud et le soleil brillait ils n’allèrent nulle part, il y en avait autant.

Quand il pleuvait, Amandine se précipita pour me rentrer dans le magasin au cas ou mon plâtre ne fonde ‘comme le coeur de son ancien mari.’ Moi, Keska, je ne vieillis pas beaucoup au fil des années mais j’entendais souvent Amandine dire à voix basse que hélas, elle n’était plus bien jeune.

Pas loin de la boutique il y eut un autre magasin magnifique, Les Atouts à Toutou. Je voyais passer des jolis sacs en papier imprimés de son nom et d’un image d’un quatre-pattes. J’ai cru comprendre que les quatre-pattes s’appellaient donc des ‘tou-tous’. Après un certain temps, moi, Keska, je me rendais compte que je voulais un toutou à moi, un tout petit toutou dans un petit manteau écossais avec une laisse rouge et un collier diamanté tout beau.

Pour cette raison j’étais bien contente quand le chihuahua blanc arriva pour me pisser sur la chaussure. Amandine courrait bien vite en criant ‘non mais, Keska…’ mais j’y étais pour rien, enfin! Le gentil deux-pattes rêveur qui tenait la laisse (rouge, je notais bien) gronda son toutou en disant ‘Pas encore! Bad dog! Mais non, Pélé, non!’ Le toutou, qui portait un beau chapeau d’hiver (achété chez Les Atouts à Toutou j’en étais sûre) me regardait de travers et se marrait.

Je connaissais donc maintenant deux personnes nommées: Amandine – et Pélé le toutou.

Le deux-pattes s’en alla vite fait, mais Pélé m’inclina polîment sa tête en passant. On allait sûrement se revoir.

Le lendemain je voyais le même grand deux-pattes sur le trottoir en face avec un beau bouquet de fleurs-jaunes-mimosa de chez la fleuriste à la main. Il n’osait pas traverser mais il me regarda, fixement et pendant longtemps, avant de repartir.

Le lendemain, Amandine me sorta sur ma chaise et alors rentra au magasin comme toujours pour boire un expresso et regarder son rectangle. Peu après un grand carré-roulant sans-plafond arriva et tout changea très vite. Je me retrouvais deséquilibrée et ensuite soulevée brusquement par des mains puissantes apartenant à un deux-pattes qui portait une masque COVID. Et me voilà qui pouvait regarder enfin autre chose que la rue: le ciel bleu et le soleil et les nuages qui flottèrent tout en haut! Il y avait aussi des pins-parasol et je pouvais enfin, si de justesse, voir que le grand bleu mysterieux fut encore plus bleu et plus mysterieux de près.

Le deux-pattes masqué me bouscula pour me faire sortir du carré-roulant, et il me semblait qu’il dût me connaître déjà parce qu’il me disait ‘mon Dieu, Keska, j’ai fait.’ En franchissant une porte étroite avec difficulté et après une escalade d’escalier encore pire, me voilà dans une petite piece foncée avec un balcon minuscule. Là se trouvait un deux-pattes aux cheveux gris, assis sur une chaise en métale.

‘Papa, voila, maman est de retour,’ disait le premier deux-pattes, en train de hôter sa masque. Je savais déjà son identité en tout cas, parce que Pele le chihuahua m’a accueilli avec un ouah ouah ouah enthousiaste qui ne faisait pas du tout chien de garde.

Le deux-pattes gris au balcon se tourna et poussa un grand cri. Il vint s’installer à coté de moi dans son fauteuil à roulettes et me saisit la main. Ses yeux produisaient une liquide claire – je savais que les jeunes deux-pattes pouvait en fabriquer, mais pas les vieux aussi. Il m’appellait ‘sa Marguerite’. Pélé, assis à ses pieds, me fait un beau sourire de complicité avec un petit clin d’oeil. A coté de nous, dans un grand seau, un bouquet de fleurs-jaunes-mimosas rayonnant.

Après un certain temps j’arrive à comprendre que ces deux-pattes furent père et fils. Pélé venait s’assoir sur mes genoux le soir et m’expliquait beaucoup de choses à travers ses regards tendres et compatisants. J’étais si heureuse de me trouver chez Pélé, Florian et Papa mais je me faisais des soucis aussi. Comment Amandine allait-elle vendre ses robes ses écharpes ses chaussures sans moi, sa Keska?

Un jour j’entends le deux-pattes fils, qui s’appellait Florian, monter de nouveau l’escalier en m’appellant. ‘Mais, Keska, je vais faire?’ Il se versa un verre de liquide ambrée avec une main qui tremblait. Je regardais le gros titre du journal qu’il avait jété sur la table à coté de Papa et moi. Il y avait un image d’Amandine devant Préf-Mode Saint Raphaël: qui à volé le mannequin du Cor des Issambres? Florian fit des allers-et-retours le long du salon en gémissant, mais son Papa, lui, n’avait pas du tout l’air soucieux. Il me tapotait la main et me souriait en disant des gentillesses à sa Marguerite, comme toujours.

Le vendredi matin, on frappa à la porte en bas. Florian descenda et rémonta avec… Amandine! J’étais si heureuse de la revoir. Florian fut devenu tout rouge mais Amandine, toute blême. Elle disait quelque chose de très rapide dont je n’ai pu saisir que ‘ma copine vit tout près…’, ‘elle a tout vu…’ ‘les flics…’ et ‘espèce de perverti…’. Elle avait son rectangle à la main.

Florian, lui, ne put rien dire face à sa colère et essaya de lui offrir de nouveau ses mimosas. Amandine les arracha de ses mains afin de les jéter par terre et marcher dessus avec ses talons rouges, en faisant des gestes et criant à tue-tête.

Florian se mit alors à genoux. Je ne comprennais pas tout ce qu’il disait à Amandine mais il y eut les mots ‘toutou’ et ‘dèces’ et ‘maman’ et ‘démence’ et ‘pitié’.

Apres une minute ou deux, Amandine se pencha pour ramasser les fleurs qu’elle avait pietiné. Florian versa un autre verre de liquide ambrée et le donna à Amandine. Elle s’assit à coté de Papa et prit sa main. Il l’appella sa Marguerite, elle aussi. Je vis une goutte de liquide claire faire une petite ruelle dans le mascara (Clarins) d’Amandine.

Et bien, après un certain temps les choses s’arrangèrent bien. Amandine arriva chez Florian et son Papa avec une petite valise. Elle apporta comme cadeau la paire de chaussures que Pele avait pissé dessus. Florian les installa au jardin pour que Pélé puisse pisser dessus à son gré.

Maintenant je repars au magasin (toujours en passant par l’avenue du grand bleu mysterieux et des pins parasol) mais je ne travaille qu’à temps partiel. Le weekend on dit a Papa que je suis partie au marché ou à la Poste. En semaine je reste avec Pélé et Papa.

A cause de la publicité, les ventes d’Amandine ont quadruplées. Une fois que l’affaire du vol se transforma en jolie histoire d’amour, les Raphaëlois s’arrêtent souvent à coté de moi pour faire des photos devant Préf-Modes et pour s’acheter une robe, une écharpe ou une paire de chaussures.

Amandine me dit des fois maintenant: ‘Keska, il fait beau,’ et ‘Keska, la vie est belle’ et je suis tout à fait d’accord. J’ai deux noms et deux boulots et ça me plaît beaucoup. Et j’ai même un petit toutou à moi tout beau tout blanc avec une laisse rouge et un collier diamanté.

Un chihuahua qui s’appelle Pélé.

L’ecrivain Vee Walker est francophone et francophile. Elle vit dans les Highlands de l’Ecosse. Si ce récit vous a plu, pourquoi pas la laisser un petit message?

Bien que Keska et le toutou ait lieu à Saint-Raphaël, les personnages et les magasins sont tous inventés. Merci aux négociants des commerces qui les ont inspirées.

Le roman de la Grande Guerre de Vee, Major Tom’s War, sera bientôt lancé en édition française sous le titre Grande Guerre, Petits Destins.

Vee va passer les mois de janvier/fevrier 2024 à Saint Raphaël de nouveau et pendant ce temps elle a déjà proposé une résidence littéraire bilingue au lycée St-Exupery et à la bibliothéque de Saint-Raphaël.

Vee fait souvent des interventions auprès des clubs lectures et des atéliers mémoirs en Ecosse et en France.

Au plaisir…

http://www.majortomswar.com.