读后续写增分之英文原著场景动作段落描写

读后续写增分之英文原著场景动作段落描写1

1. Time slowed, and stilled. It was just the two of us, me murmuring in the empty, sunlit room.

2. It couldn’t be worse than sitting in my room with the silence or the satellite news channel and the suffocating darkness of the curtains.

3. Every morning I woke to the sound of the sea breaking gently on the shore, unfamiliar birds calling to each other from the trees. I

4. The airline staff were solicitous and discreet, and careful with the chair.

5. He had always been like that, our son – quite capable of doing the opposite of what was right, simply because he didn’t want to be seen to be complying, in some way. I don’t know where it came from, this urge to subvert. Perhaps it was what made him such a brilliant negotiator.

6. He had always been like that, our son – quite capable of doing the opposite of what was right, simply because he didn’t want to be seen to be complying, in some way. I don’t know where it came from, this urge to subvert. Perhaps it was what made him such a brilliant negotiator.

7. He had always been like that, our son – quite capable of doing the opposite of what was right, simply because he didn’t want to be seen to be complying, in some way. I don’t know where it came from, this urge to subvert. Perhaps it was what

8. ‘I promise we’ll go somewhere for a blowout meal once the Viking is over. Or maybe once I’m on to carb loading.

9. It was a warm evening, and all the windows were open in an attempt to catch the breeze.

10. ‘Everything takes time, Will,’ she said, placing her hand briefly on his arm. ‘And that’s something that your generation find it a lot harder to adjust to. You have all grown up expecting things to go your way almost instantaneously. You all expect to live the lives you chose. Especially a successful young man like yourself. But it takes time.’

11. weaved my way through tables clad in white linen cloths and laden with more cutlery and glassware than I had ever seen. The chairs had gilt backs, like the ones you see at fashion shows, and white lanterns hung above each centrepiece of freesias and lilies. The air was thick with the scent of flowers, to the point where I found it almost stifling.

12. The men were less interesting to look at, but nearly all had that air about them that I could sometimes detect in Will – of wealth and entitlement, a sense that life would settle itself agreeably around you.

13. Will’s chair secured in the back, and his smart jacket hung neatly over the passenger’s seat so that it wouldn’t crease, we set off.

14. This is the thing about growing up in a small town. Every part of your life is up for grabs. Nothing is secret – not the time I was caught smoking at the out-of-town supermarket car park when I was fourteen, nor the fact that my father had re-tiled the downstairs loo. The minutiae of everyday lives were currency for women like Deirdre.

15. She possessed hair thick enough to be a wig, and a fleshy, sad face that looked like she was still dreaming wistfully of the white knight who would come and sweep her away. ‘I don’t

16. ‘I worked out what would make me happy, and I worked out what I wanted to do, and I trained myself to do the job that would make those two things happen.’

17. worked out what would make me happy, and I worked out what I wanted to do, and I trained myself to do the job that would make those two things happen.’

18. Mrs Traynor gazed out of the windows, to where her precious garden had begun to bloom, its blossoms a pale and tasteful melding of pinks, mauves and blues.

19. ‘I just … can’t bear the thought of you staying around here forever.’ He swallowed. ‘You’re too bright. Too interesting.’ He looked away from me. ‘You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.’

20. just … can’t bear the thought of you staying around here forever.’ He swallowed. ‘You’re too bright.

21. don’t think we can afford to be picky at the moment,’ he said, ignoring Mum’s protestations.

22. ‘Is it because he’s good looking?’ I demanded. ‘Is that it? Would it all be so much easier for you if he looked like – you know – a proper vegetable?’

23. Will watched me, his face impassive.

24. I normally tuned out at this point, but all I could think of now, with Will beside me, was how inappropriate it was. Why couldn’t he have just said something vague and left it at that?

25. They began to talk, Dad telling some other story against me that made him and Mum

laugh out loud. It was good to see them laughing. Dad had looked so worn down these last weeks, and Mum had been hollow-eyed and distracted, as if her real self were always elsewhere. I wanted to savour these moments, of them briefly forgetting their troubles, in shared jokes and familial fondness.

26. Not to me it didn’t. Just for once, I was quite enjoying being the focus of attention. It might sound childish, but it was true. I loved having Will and Dad laughing about me. I loved the fact that every element of supper – from roast chicken to chocolate mousse – was my favourite. I liked the fact that I could be who I wanted to be without my sister’s voice reminding me of who I had been.

27. He and Dad had quickly found a shared point of reference, which turned out to be my general uselessness.

28. Nathan carefully negotiated Will’s chair up and into our narrow hallway.

29. I laughed so hard the bus driver asked me if my lottery numbers had come up.

30. Normally, at night, it was bathed in a kind of orange glow from the lights dotted around the fortress wall. But tonight, under a full moon, it seemed flooded in an ethereal blue.

31. Normally, at night, it was bathed in a kind of orange glow from the lights dotted around the fortress wall.

32. Out of the cold, and away from the crowds, he appeared to have cheered up a little. He had begun to look around him, instead of retreating back into his solitary world. My stomach began to rumble, already anticipating a good, hot lunch.

33. ‘We’ve got a steak dinner riding on you!’ I watched him vainly trying to make ground, his nostrils dilated, his ears back against his head. My own heart lurched into my mouth.

34. ‘We’ve got a steak dinner riding on you!’ I watched him vainly trying to make ground, his nostrils dilated, his ears back against his head.

35. They looked warm and cosy, and I suspected that was the Premier Area, listed next to some stratospheric price on the board in the ticket kiosk. They

36. There are places where the changing seasons are marked by migrating birds, or the ebb and flow of tides. Here, in our little town, it was the return of the tourists.

37. ‘That’s it!’ Dad’s roar broke into the silence. ‘I’ve heard enough! Treena, go into the kitchen. Lou, sit down and shut up. I’ve got enough stress in my life without having to listen to you caterwauling at each other.’

38. ‘Katrina, calm down.’ Mum appeared in the doorway, her rubber gloves dripping foamy water on to the living-room carpet. ‘We can talk about this calmly. I don’t want you getting Granddad all wound up.’

39. ‘We can talk about this calmly. I don’t want you getting Granddad all wound up.’

40. Several people around us in the crowd swivelled their heads. My sister was laughing. She could talk about sex like that. Like it was some kind of recreational activity. Like it didn’t matter.

41. telling me in hushed tones how bright she was, as if her brilliance wouldn’t mean that by default I lived in a permanent shadow.

42. ‘Don’t lecture me, Treen.’

43. ‘Don’t lecture me, Treen.’ ‘Well, someone’s got to! You’re

44. It was as if everything had shifted, fragmented and settled in some other place, into a pattern I barely recognized.

45. It was as if everything had shifted, fragmented

46. When they told me at the hospital that Will would live, I walked outside into my garden and I raged. I raged at God, at nature, at whatever fate had brought our family to such depths.

47. When they told me at the hospital that Will would live, I walked outside into my garden and I raged. I raged at God, at nature, at whatever fate had brought our family to such depths. Now I look back and I must have seemed quite mad. I stood in my garden that cold

48. When they told me at the hospital that Will would live, I walked outside into my garden and I raged. I raged at God, at nature, at whatever fate had brought our family to such depths. Now I look back and I must have seemed quite mad. I stood in my garden that

49. (I chose to believe that God, a benign God, would understand our sufferings and forgive us our trespasses.)

50. Steven was poking at the log fire. He manoeuvred the remaining half-burnt logs expertly with a poker, sending glowing sparks up the chimney, then dropped a new log on to the middle. He stood back, as he always did, watching with quiet satisfaction as the flames took hold, and dusted his hands on his corduroy trousers.

51. now. I watched the whole of human life come through my court: the hopeless waifs who couldn’t get themselves together sufficiently even to make a court appointment on time; the repeat offenders; the angry, hard-faced young men and exhausted, debt-ridden mothers.

52. He didn’t seem to hear me for a minute. His head was sunk in his shoulders, the earlier relaxed expression replaced by a veil. Will was closed off again, locked behind something I couldn’t penetrate.

53. ‘Scratch my ear for me, will you? It’s driving me nuts.’

54. ‘You’re just used to lesbian tea,’ I said. ‘All that lapsang souchong herbal stuff.’

55. Someone had opened a window, and occasional bursts of laughter filtered out into the thin air.

56. Someone had opened a window, and occasional bursts of laughter filtered out into the thin

57. Inside, we could hear the dull drone of the vacuum cleaner.

58. It was as if with the slight lifting of temperatures everything had suddenly decided to look a little bit greener. Daffodils had emerged as if from nowhere, their yellowing bulbs hinting at the flowers to come. Buds burst from brown branches, perennials forcing their way tentatively through the dark, claggy soil.

59. It was as if with the slight lifting of temperatures everything had suddenly decided to

look a little bit greener. Daffodils had emerged as if from nowhere, their yellowing bulbs hinting at the flowers to come. Buds burst from brown branches, perennials forcing their way tentatively through the dark, claggy soil.

60. Patrick’s job, his whole social life now revolved around the control of flesh – taming it, reducing it, honing it.

61. Spring arrived overnight, as if winter, like some unwanted guest, had abruptly shrugged its way into its coat and vanished, without saying goodbye. Everything became greener, the roads bathed in watery sunshine, the air suddenly balmy. There were hints of something floral and welcoming in the air, birdsong the gentle backdrop to the day.

62. Spring arrived overnight, as if winter, like some unwanted guest, had abruptly shrugged its way into its coat and vanished, without saying goodbye. Everything became greener, the roads bathed in watery sunshine, the air suddenly balmy. There were hints of something floral and welcoming in the air, birdsong the gentle backdrop to the day. I didn’t notice any of it. I had stayed at Patrick’s house

63. Spring arrived overnight, as if winter, like some unwanted guest, had abruptly shrugged its way into its coat and vanished, without saying goodbye.

64. I scribbled everything down on a notepad. I was afraid of getting anything wrong. ‘Now

65. ‘But you do physio and stuff with him.’ ‘That’s to try and keep his physical condition up – to stop him atrophying and his bones demineralizing, his legs pooling, that kind of thing.’

66. ‘The big what?’ ‘Triathlon. The Xtreme Viking. Sixty miles on a bike, thirty miles

on foot, and a nice long swim in sub-zero Nordic seas.’ The Viking was spoken about with reverence,

67. ‘You can’t blame her,’ he said. ‘Are you really telling me you’d stick around if I was paralysed from the neck down?’

68. It was the woman I noticed first. Long-legged and blonde-haired, with pale caramel skin, she was the kind of woman who makes me wonder if humans really are all the same species. She looked like a human racehorse.

69. He could move his hands a little, but not his arm, so he had to be fed forkful by forkful.

70. ‘I’m really desperate to use my brain again. Doing the flowers is doing my head in. I want to learn. I want to improve myself. And I’m sick of my hands always being freezing cold from the water.’ We both stared at her hands, which were pink tinged, even in the tropical warmth of our house.

71. Since Thomas was born, he and Treena had moved into the bigger room, and I was in the box room, which was small enough to make you feel claustrophobic should you sit in it for more than half an hour at a time. But

72. There was a brief silence. Treen’s voice turned uncharacteristically conciliatory. This was really worrying.

73. The nearest eating place was a gastropub, the kind of place where I doubted I could afford a drink, let alone a quick lunch.

74. While she flicked through her folder of papers, I gazed surreptitiously around the room.

75. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm.

76. ‘Um … Have you ever considered joining the entertainment industry?’ ‘What, as in pantomime dame?’

77. ‘But you’ve got to look at the positive side. You knew you couldn’t stay at that place forever. You want to move upwards, onwards.’

78. and somehow this had been enough for the whole teetering edifice that was my parents’ finances to finally collapse.

79. My voice cut into the silence. The words hung there, searing themselves on the little room long after the sound had died away.

80. Her gaze had that X-ray thing that it had held since I was a kid.

81. The roads are slick with water, the grey light shining on the mirrored pavement.

. Have they thought of issuing bulletproof vests? I bet I could buy a good one in New York if –’ ‘Louisa.’

2. ‘I like to say that although we’re called the Moving On Circle, none of us moves on without a backward look. We move on always carrying with us those we have lost. What we aim to do in our little group is ensure that carrying them is not a burden that feels impossible to bear, a weight keeping us stuck in the same place. We want their presence to feel like a

gift.

3. like to say that although we’re called the Moving On Circle, none of us moves on without a backward look. We move on always carrying with us those we have

4. Camilla and I exchanged wry glances, and then, almost impulsively, I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. She smelt of expensive department stores and her hair was perfect. ‘It’s lovely that you came.’

5. ‘You could try to sound a bit pleased that I didn’t actually die.’ I passed Treena a tray of glasses. ‘Oh, I got over my “I wish I was an only child” thing ages ago. Well, maybe two years or so.’

6. When people say autumn is their favourite time of year, I think it’s days like this that they mean: a dawn mist, burning off to a crisp clear light; piles of leaves blown into corners; the agreeably musty smell of gently mouldering greenery.

7. ‘You just missed his mum. She brought him the most delicious homemade steak and ale pie. You could smell it all the way down the ward. We’re still salivating.’

8. She slowed in front of us, her expression grave, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. For a moment I thought I might pass out. Her eyes met mine. ‘Tough as old boots, that one.’

9. I saw him even as I turned the car into the ambulance-station car park. He was striding towards the ambulance, his pack slung over his shoulder, and something inside me lurched. I knew the delicious solidity of that body, the soft angles of that face.

10. A solitary cloud drifted across the blue. Sam shifted his leg closer to mine. His feet

were twice the size of my own.

11. my role as a mother, my family, my career, even my faith. I have felt, frankly, as if I descended into a dark hole. But to discover that he had a daughter – that I have a granddaughter – has made me think all might not be lost.’

12. Across the rooftops the sun had started to slide, its orange glow diffused by the lead-grey air of the City evening.

13. Some time later, after Lily had gone to bed, I joined Sam in the kitchen. For the first time in weeks some sort of peace had descended over my home.

14. the first time in weeks some sort of peace had descended over my home. ‘She’s happier already. I mean,

15. I was shivering. Sam took his jacket off and hung it around my shoulders. It carried the residual warmth of him and I tried not to look as grateful as I felt.

16. ‘You know, your dad said something to me that I’ve never forgotten: “You don’t have to let that one thing be the thing that defines you.”

17. ‘Far easier for you to just stick with that depressing little job and complain about it. Far easier for you to sit tight and not take a risk and make out that everything that happens to you is something you couldn’t help.’

18. Any news? I texted Sam. It felt odd speaking to him while having concurrent conversations with Will in my head, a strange infidelity. I just wasn’t quite sure who I was being unfaithful to.

19. I spent the morning driving around central London. I parked on kerbs, leaving the hazard lights flashing, as I nipped into pubs, fast-food joints, nightclubs where the cleaners, working in the stale, dim air, peered up at me with suspicious eyes.

20. ‘Oh, come on, Lily. A live-wire like you? You must know that nothing comes for free.’ He looked down at the image. ‘You must have worked that out a while ago … You’re obviously good at it.’

21. I walked back across the road straight past him, fumbling in my bag for my keys. Why did fingers always turn into cocktail sausages at moments of stress?

22. walked back across the road straight past him, fumbling in my bag for my keys. Why did fingers always turn into cocktail sausages at moments of stress?

23. ‘Well, it’s hardly a home, is it? It’s got no furniture, and nothing personal. You haven’t even got pictures on your walls. It’s like … a garage. A garage without a car. I’ve actually seen homelier petrol stations.’

24. ‘Ah. Then you need a castle, Dad. Castles trump feminism every time.’

25. There was a murmur of agreement at that word. It was what we all wanted, ultimately, to be freed from our grief. To be released from this underworld of the dead, half our hearts lost underground,

26. Sometimes I felt as if we were all wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far we were waving or drowning.

27. She was not supermodel beautiful, but there was something compelling about her smile.

28. wondered about drawing the curtains, then remembered there was nobody to see me, other than the hens, which were huddling out of the wet, grumpily shaking drops from their feathers.

29. He was just gulping down the last of his coffee when Richard appeared.

30. Sixteen was still a child, surely. For all her posturing, I could see the child in Lily. It was there in the excitements and sudden enthusiasms. It was there in the sulks, the trying on of different looks in front of my bathroom mirror and the abrupt, innocent sleep.

31. Sometimes I watched Lily laughing at something on television, or simply gazing steadily out of the window lost in thought, and I saw Will so clearly in her features – the precise angles of her nose, those almost Slavic cheekbones – that I forgot to breathe. (At

32. ‘You know what makes me feel down? The way you keep promising to live some kind of a life, then sacrifice yourself to every waif and stray who comes across your path.’ ‘Will was not a waif and stray.’

33. I couldn’t hear his words, but I could hear his tone: kind, reassuring, emollient. When he finished, she left a short pause, then said, ‘Okay. Fine.’

34. But I knew very well how the persona you chose to present to the world could be very different from what was inside.

35. Bathed in the evening sun, and surrounded by the scents of grass and lavender, and the lazy hum of the bees, we walked slowly from one slab to another, Sam pointing to where the windows and doors would

36. And then we were in the traffic, weaving in and out of the cars and lorries, following

signs to the motorway.

37. ‘Martin’s.’ When I asked if he was her boyfriend, she pulled the universal teenage face in response to an adult who had said something not just spectacularly stupid but revolting, too.

38. She swayed past me and headed for the music system, where she turned up the sound to a deafening level. I raced towards it to turn it down, but she grabbed my hand.

39. ‘It’s Lily. Duh.’ She fell through the door as I opened it, half laughing, reeking of cigarettes, her mascara smeared around her eyes.

40. We reached the outskirts of town shortly before eleven. Summer had brought the tourists flocking back to the narrow streets of Stortfold, like clumps of earthbound, gaudily coloured swallows, clutching guidebooks and ice creams, weaving their way aimlessly past the cafés and seasonal shops full of castle-imprinted coasters and calendars that would be swiftly placed in drawers at home and rarely looked at again.

41. The phone rang three, four times, and just for a moment I was filled with the overwhelming urge to press END CALL.

42. Our eyes locked. The young are terrifying, I thought. They are without boundaries. They fear nothing.

43. My mouth worked silently around words I couldn’t find. How could I explain to this girl what Will and I had been to each other, the way I felt that no person in the world had ever understood me like he did or ever would again? How could she understand that losing him was like having a hole shot straight through me, a painful, constant reminder, an absence I could never fill?

44. had driven to the supermarket on the other side of Stortfold, where she had chosen a huge hand-tied bouquet of freesias, peonies and ranunculus. Which I had paid for.

45. She let herself in and I followed awkwardly, feeling like an intruder. We were in a spacious, high-ceilinged hallway, with parquet flooring and a huge gilt mirror on the wall, a slew of white-card invitations jostling for space in its frame. A vase of beautifully arranged flowers sat on a small antique table. The air was scented with their perfume.

46. I could smell coffee. It took me several seconds to consider why the smell of coffee might be filtering through my flat, and when the answer registered I sat bolt upright and leaped out of bed, hauling my hoodie over my head.

47. ‘It’s not the Victorian age,’ said William. ‘You don’t have to wear widow’s weeds till you’re elderly.’

48. But the girl flicked her cigarette butt out of the window and turned to walk past me out of the room.

49. But the girl flicked her cigarette butt out of the window and turned to walk past me out of the room. ‘What?

50. I needed to be alone to digest what she had told me. It was too overwhelming. I didn’t know what to make of the spiky girl, who walked around my living room, making the air around her crackle.

51. needed to be alone to digest what she had told me. It was too overwhelming. I didn’t know what to make of the spiky girl, who walked around my living room, making the air around her crackle. ‘So did he not say anything about me

52. A girl’s voice. I peered through the spy-hole.

53. Mostly this anonymity suited me. I had come here, after all, to escape my history, from feeling as if everyone knew every thing there was to know about me. And the City had begun to alter me. I had come to know my little corner of it, its rhythms and its danger points.

54. And when it came down to it, what was the point in re-examining your sadness all the time anyway? It was like picking at a wound and refusing to let it heal.

55. How could I explain the way we had so swiftly understood each other, the shorthand jokes, the blunt truths and raw secrets?

56. ‘You’re making it sound like I’m out there slaughtering everyone’s reincarnated husbands.’

57. And now, after four weeks back in the house I’d grown up in, I could feel Stortfold reaching out to suck me in, to reassure me that I could be fine here.

58. My name would be tied to his for as long as there were pixels and a screen. People would form judgements about me, based on the most cursory knowledge – or sometimes no knowledge at all – and there was nothing I could do about it.

59. So here is the thing about being involved in a catastrophic, life-changing event. You think it’s just the catastrophic life-changing event that you’re going to have to deal with: the flashbacks, the sleepless nights, the endless running over events in your head, asking yourself if you had done the right thing, said the things you should have said, whether you could have changed things, had you done it even a degree differently.

60. ‘But you’re drifting. You don’t seem to be interested in anything.’ ‘Treen, I just

fell off a building. I’m recuperating.’

61. I waited for the pang, but it was so mild it could have been wind. ‘They look … well suited.’

62. it was the first place I had managed to sleep more than four hours at a stretch since I had left;

63. Recalling a conversation I’d had with Will about careers, I wrote to several colleges about fashion courses, but I had no history of work to show them and they rebuffed me politely.

64. No two months had ever left me feeling more inadequate. I was lonely almost all the time. I hated not knowing where I was going to sleep each night, was permanently anxious about train timetables and currency, found it difficult to make friends when I didn’t trust anyone I met. And what could I say about myself, anyway? When people asked me, I could give them only the most cursory details.

65. Winter loosened its grip and the spring was beautiful.

66. ‘Bunch of bloody rubberneckers. Anyway, hurry up. I promised Thomas he could see your scars before I take him to youth club.

67. When your whole world shrinks to four walls, you become acutely attuned to slight variations in atmosphere.

68. Grief wells up again, like a sudden tide, intense, overwhelming. And just as I feel myself sinking into it, a voice says, from the shadows, ‘I don’t think you should stand there.’

69. Now I stand on the roof, staring out at London’s winking darkness below. Around me a million people are living, breathing, eating, arguing. A million lives completely divorced from mine. It is a strange sort of peace.

70. Around me a million people are living, breathing, eating, arguing. A million

71. The plants have long since withered and died.

72. I am suddenly bone-weary, but it is the kind of head-buzzing exhaustion that tells me if I go to bed I won’t sleep.

73. am suddenly bone-weary, but it is the kind of head-buzzing exhaustion that tells me if

74. I change into my pyjama bottoms and a hooded sweatshirt, then open the fridge, pull out a bottle of white and pour a glass. It is lip-pursingly sour.

75. I change into my pyjama bottoms and a hooded sweatshirt, then open the fridge, pull out a bottle of white and pour a glass. It is lip-pursingly sour. I study the label and realize I must have opened it the

76. He smiles, and for a minute I can see how he might be in other circumstances. A naturally ebullient man. A cheerful man. A man at the top of his game of continentally manufactured car parts.