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    'Women Waking Up'
    'Women Waking Up'
    'Women Waking Up'
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    'Women Waking Up'

    By P.D.R. Lindsay

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    About this ebook

    In "Women Waking Up," you'll meet eight different women facing familiar choices in life, but with unique twists that make each story a captivating journey. From humor to courage, cunning to sheer determination, these women handle their challenges with various approaches. As you immerse yourself in their stories, you'll find yourself wondering - what choice would you make in their shoes? This collection of short stories is a celebration of the strength, resilience, and wit of women who dare to make a change in their lives. Join them on their empowering journey and discover the power of choice in shaping the course of their destinies.

    Most of these stories were first published in print magazines in the U.K. then in Canada, Australia and the USA. Peninsular short story magazine editor, Shelagh Nugent, published some of them and says: 'They were a delight to me as editor, publisher and, above all, reader. It's great to see them again in this e-book. Rowan's stories are not only well written and thoughtful, they're entertaining, a quality which is too often missing in the short story genre these days. Enjoy them, I did.

    'What can I say?’ (Writer, Jane Wenham-Jones, after reading the first story in the anthology) ‘Oh gosh, this just made me cry. I found 'The Paper Nautilus' intensely moving, evocative and beautifully written.’

    The choices these women face are not uncommon. It's what they decide to do which makes each story unique. Read them, enjoy them and see. Would you make the same choice?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherP.D.R. Lindsay
    Release dateNov 21, 2012
    ISBN9780987669124
    'Women Waking Up'
    Author

    P.D.R. Lindsay

    p.d.r. lindsay (no capitals please in tribute to a favourite poet, e. e. cummings) makes New Zealand home. Born in Ireland, brought up in Yorkshire, educated in England, Canada and New Zealand, writer p.d.r. lindsay is also Mrs Salmon, Ms Lindsay-Salmon and even for eight years in Japan, Professor Lindsay-Salmon. This wide experience of different cultures colours her writing and keeps her travelling.Social issues are her main concern which is why she writes historical stories about ordinary people, the ones whose names and lives we don't know much about. Reading the diaries and letters of parsons and farmers, wives and daughters, merchants and tradesmen showed her how the basic human dilemmas do not change over the centuries. She finds that certain human trait both good and bad, can be better shown through historical stories than through contemporary ones and hopes that readers will think about those failings as they apply to today.

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      Book preview

      'Women Waking Up' - P.D.R. Lindsay

      Women Waking up

      By P D R Lindsay

      for my daughter who is wide awake

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright, 2012 P D R Lindsay

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

      cover credit: D. L. Keur

      www.zentao.com

      Writer's Choice

      a writers' publishing co-operative

      CONTENTS

      The Paper Nautilis

      Utu

      With Hindsight

      No Heroes

      Give It A Go

      Moving On

      And At His Heels

      Happy Families

      THE PAPER NAUTILUS.

      I promised you one and today I find it. You ought to be standing beside me to see it. A paper nautilus. It floats in towards the shore on the quiet low tide, bobbing and swaying with the rhythm of the ripples that are scarcely waves. I wade out to rescue it before it grounds and holes itself, then change my mind. I stop and wait, ankle deep, letting it sail towards me, one lilt forwards and half a slide back, prolonging the joy of finally having a paper nautilus within my grasp. White, lucent, ribbed and knobbed, its lustrous splendour leaves me breathless. I sigh. I can imagine your delight on holding it. My pleasure in these natural things, my ability to appreciate their perfection, comes from you and what you showed me. A paper nautilus, you said, is the egg case of a primitive squid. The spiral end holds the eggs and the rest is space for mum to hide in whilst she protects them.

      That was when I was five.

      I could do with a shell to hide in, you added as you lifted me nearer the lambent white curve.

      It had been a wet May Saturday and we escaped boredom visiting the Natural History Museum.

      They live in warm shallow seas like parts of the Pacific, you said. We'll go and find one when you're older. You hated grey days, louring clouds and the eternal English rain. It was only Pop's job that kept us in London and you yearned for your New Zealand home.

      The Natural History Museum became a familiar place to us by the time I was nine. And always you would stop at the case of nautilus shells and breathe out gustily. I wish I could find one, you would say wistfully. The money for your trip home, our trip to see Gran and Grandad, was spent on my school fees. And Gran died before I met her. I was eleven then and old enough to realize that adults could cry. But I was bewildered by your tears and my inability to stop them.

      That was the year I tried for a scholarship so that you could finish with full-time employment in the bank. My scholarship and your part-time work would still allow you to save some money for your trip home. Together we laboured at the English, art and science folios I had to complete for the entrance exam. Pop provided folders, thick bonded paper and wonderful coloured board, but you helped me plan, write and present. Of course I chose the paper nautilus for my science folder.

      Old enough to be intrigued by sex, I sniggered over a mental picture of the tiny male nautilus who rarely exceeded four centimetres, mating with a females ten times that size. I drew a pair life size and under them wrestled to paint the light white purity of their egg case, that beautiful paper nautilus shell. Finally I made a detailed drawing of the female nautilus showing her two special arms, their fan-shaped ends clutching her new-made home full of eggs.

      Another perfect mother, you said as you helped me place the shading and shadows to make a three-dimensional appearance on the flat paper.

      I enjoyed that project. It didn't win me a scholarship though. The collection of dark-suited, straight-spined, beautifully enunciating females who were the examiners' panel questioned me closely.

      Ah, why exactly did you choose this creature, this...ah...nautilus?

      I groped for an answer. You were not permitted to be present to help me. Mum liked them or Pop thought them beautiful, you had warned me were not the answers this group wanted to hear. They're very old, I managed. Linked to the ammonites and - inspired by your comment about perfect mothers - such good mothers."

      Spines stiffened and eyebrows raised. They told you that I was probably not the right material for their particular girls' school because I seemed somewhat domestically inclined.

      You snorted and stayed on as a full-time bank clerk to pay my fees. Not once did you berate me for failing to win that scholarship. Pop tried working longer hours but you insisted that he stop. We don't see you on Saturdays as it is, you complained. I want my husband beside me in ten years time, not six feet under.

      You were right about the school. I grumbled fiercely over the uniform, the stupid panama hat and that scratchy straw boater but the education was beyond any monetary value. I never told you that, I didn't know myself until later, at university.

      Our trips to the Natural History Museum extended into trips to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert. Then I found friends to accompany me. You stayed home at the weekends and grew roly-poly round, sitting quietly knitting or sewing for me.

      You were knitting a sweater for Pop when I told you of my chance for a university scholarship in Vancouver. Marine biology, I explained, half pleading and half proud. It was my knowledge of the paper nautilus which impressed the professor.

      The needles clicked but you were silent. Then

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