{"id":278,"date":"2020-02-12T10:50:14","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T10:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=278"},"modified":"2020-02-12T12:03:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T12:03:45","slug":"daffodils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/daffodils\/278\/","title":{"rendered":"Daffodils"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The university park stumbled down to the sea, imitating the crazy lurching of the terraced houses on the same giddy hill. Sam scuffed about the paths round the flower beds, vaguely aware of daffodils in bloom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            He had a\nsharp, stabbing pain at the side of his stomach that wouldn\u2019t go away. He was\nutterly miserable. Three years he\u2019d stayed away from the town, but as soon as\nhe\u2019d entered the park \u2013 following the route he and Nicola had often walked \u2013\nthe sense of oppression had just welled up from within him. Memories from the\npast  pushed up a bit like bulbs in the\nsoil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            When he\ngot back to Carol\u2019s flat \u2013 she\u2019d been friends with Nicola back then \u2013 he told\nher what had happened. The place where the two of them had chatted, held hands,\nlooked at each other, smiled – that place seemed to remember him, seemed\nimmediately to pin the past on his lapel like a flower, and insist that its smell,\nits colours permeate his heart. It was upsetting and worse than he\u2019d anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018It\u2019s\nthree years, Sam.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Did Carol mean\n\u2018only\u2019 three years? Or was she suggesting after all this time, he should forget\nabout Nicola?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I know\nit\u2019s three years. And I know she\u2019s married now – to that fool Staveley. An\nacademic! She was always impressed by that sort of status baloney. Parked me\nfor an academic. What on earth did she see in him?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Didn\u2019t\nyou hear about the suicide?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Nicola\u2026?\nHas she killed herself!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018New\nYear\u2019s Day. He made a resolution, took his life. It was on the front page of\nthe local paper.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018He<\/em>?\nStaveley\u2026? Why?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She told\nhim she loved a man from her past, and always would. He left a note about it.\n\u201cBroken-hearted lecturer\u2019s suicide\u201d, the paper said.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Did you\nsay a man from the past\u2026? Me? Does she still love me? My intuition was right\nthen, Carol! I had this gut feeling I should return!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Somebody\nbefore you. Name of Davies.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Jamie\nDavies? She had this teenage romance with him, from sixteen to nineteen. Then\nhe dropped her. It only lasted three years.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Her\nmarriage was shorter. Your relationship with her was shorter.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She never\nsaid much about Davies. I assumed she\u2019d got over him when we were together. She\nwas older and seemed happy with me. Surely she can\u2019t still be looking back to an\nadolescent affair?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I\u2019m\nreally sorry you\u2019re still hurting. Staveley was obviously hurting. And, dare I\nsay it, Nicola is too.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Funny eh?\nThe only one not hurting must be Davies. Three of us collateral damage. Do you\nknow, I sort of admire Staveley. Not because he had the courage to end his pain,\nno. Because his love was so\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Deep?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Still<\/em>\nmissing Davies? How extraordinary. Perhaps I won\u2019t return to this town.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018If you don\u2019t,\nI\u2019ll understand. You\u2019ll have moved on.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018The daffodils\nare out. Gorgeous. Have you seen them, Carol? Nature renewing. And just as\nbeautiful elsewhere, I expect.\u2019  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The university park stumbled down to the sea, imitating the crazy lurching of the terraced houses on the same giddy hill. Sam scuffed about the paths round the flower beds, vaguely aware of daffodils in bloom.             He had a sharp, stabbing pain at the side of his stomach that wouldn\u2019t go away. He was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,164],"tags":[175,95,8,122,20,14,174,11,135],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-desire","tag-about","tag-had","tag-he","tag-him","tag-his","tag-she","tag-three","tag-was","tag-years"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-4u","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}