![]() ![]() “What’s going on, Mum – Allanah?” Bethany asks, surprised, turning down the volume of the music that’s playing (“Radio Gaga”). Now all the tinsel and baubles are going back in their boxes. She and Bethany had spent two hours decorating that tree on 15 December. Her mother is removing the decorations from the Christmas tree that she installed three days before. “It would be a privilege and an honour.”īethany goes upstairs to her mother’s portion of the house. “I don’t want a reward,” Bethany says – thinking: Jura. “That’s very kind of you,” the woman says. Bethany thinks she’s talking to someone in the room. Bethany now recognises that the woman has a slight South African accent. “I’d be more than happy to.”Īnother silence. “Would you like me to bring it back personally?” Bethany hears herself saying. Hello? The woman on the end of the phone has gone silent for a moment. ![]() Bethany tells her what happened, how she came to have this precious book in her possession. Bethany needs no reminding – Jura was where Orwell actually wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. ![]() ![]() Orwelliana is an antiquarian bookseller on the Isle of Jura, off the west coast of Scotland. Further investigation reveals that the book is a first edition, Secker and Warburg, 1949, and, on the endboard at the back there is a new small sticky label: “Isle of Jura, Scotland”.Ī moment at her laptop, finding the website, uncovers more details. Bethany closes her eyes again, hearing the rushing of blood in her ears, her cheeks hot. On the title page is an inscription in black ink: “To Ailsa McTurk, with thanks, Geo. She opens the book delicately as the pages are stiff, yellowing somewhat. Green background, white cursive script, the words “nineteen eighty-four” (no capitals) overlaying the paler white numbers: 1984. She dumps her rucksack, sits at her desk and carefully unpeels the sticky tape that secures the book’s brown-paper wrapper to reveal the dust jacket beneath. She lets herself into the basement – she can tell her mother’s in, she can hear music: there’s always music playing in her mother’s bit of the house. She’s moved back home, symbolically, into the granny flat in her mother’s house in Hollywood Road, Fulham, SW6. She’s not perturbed, in fact she’s quite enjoying these weeks of celibacy, these weeks of self-indulgence. She has unilaterally abandoned her latest boyfriend, Aldous, the standup comic, as he was clearly insane, but as to who her next boyfriend will be she has no idea, currently. What’s going on?īethany is “between boyfriends” as she likes to put it. In fact, she reveres him so much that she’s contemplating writing a novel herself – a homage to Nineteen Eighty-Four – that she’s going to call 2084. George Orwell is her favourite writer she reveres George Orwell. But it must be some kind of sign, she thinks. Is this a joke? Her gaze searches the people on the platform but nobody is looking at her. She feels the skin across her shoulders tighten and she shivers. Fulham Broadway tube station seems to bend and swirl around her, hallucogenically. She opens it and reads on the title page: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It’s just a book, maybe it wasn’t very important to him. What should she do? She goes to a bench and sits down. She stands there and looks at the book in her hand – a hardback, wrapped in brown paper, as if to protect the jacket. He probably never even noticed it had fallen, she thinks, such was the scrum at the door. But he’s gone, lost in the surging stream of impassive commuters heading home. Want more whisky cocktail recipes? See the Fettercairn 1824 Martini, the Fettercairn Tropical Highball, the Craighouse Rocks, The Dalmore Old Fashioned and The Dalmore Mackenzie Highball. It makes whiskies that are characteristically smooth, bright and lively. Founded originally in 1810, the distillery fell into ruin at the end of the 19th century but was entirely rebuilt and reopened in 1963 in order to boost the local economy and rebuild the community. It has a harsh, cool climate, but an exceptionally warm community, all focused around the Island’s one distillery in Craighouse: Jura Distillery. The Isle of Jura lies sixty miles away from the mainland of Scotland’s western coast. Garnish with a fresh orange wheel or wedge. Simply add the Jura whisky, Apérol and tonic into a glass that already has crushed ice in and stir. You can make this drink in the glass itself. Top with Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic (or premium tonic water) ![]()
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