Tag: Jonathan Leavis

A lift home – part 2

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 32 Comments

Hello everyone! Welcome to the always wonderful WIPpet Wednesday. I hope this week finds you happy and well. How’s your writing going? Mine’s going pretty well, and I’ve written a lot lately. The only problem is that the plot of Teaching Mr Leavis is still unravelling. What I mean is I need to catch up with it and reel it in a bit. This novel is going to need SO much editing!

So anyway as the title of this post suggests I’m sharing with you some more from the scene I shared last week. And don’t worry – Rebecca isn’t getting in the car with a drunk – I’ve amended it to Jonathan Leavis assuring her that he’s only drunk a glass of NON ALCOHOLIC wine! If you don’t think that works, let me know in the comments below.

OK so how much to share? I think I’ll share 14 paragraphs following immediately on from last week’s. My maths goes like this (I’m manipulating things a bit): 2+2+10=14 Simple! In this scene Rebecca has accepted Jonathan Leavis’s offer of a lift home, now she knows he hasn’t been drinking. But she’s awkward and during the drive to her house Jonathan isn’t exactly doing his best to put her at ease…

‘If you want to follow me, my car’s this way,’ he informed her.

Rebecca followed Jonathan as he led her down the dimly-lit street towards a car park behind the club that she hadn’t known existed. Suddenly aware again how short her dress was, she had to fight the urge to pull it down in case he noticed.

She kept her distance making sure she stayed a few feet behind him as they walked, her face warm with the awkwardness of the situation. You could have just got a taxi, she reproached herself. But that would have meant waiting longer in the cold, with only her flimsy black dress and jacket to protect her against the elements.

‘It’s here,’ Jonathan announced abruptly. He waved the key at the car and it unlocked automatically. I bet he loves doing that, Rebecca thought. Probably takes loads of girls home in his car. If he hasn’t already scared them off beforehand.

Then she remembered what Nick had said about his wife dying. Maybe there were no women in his life. She shivered involuntarily and quickly walked over to the car. Jonathan had opened the door for her. So he can play the gentleman then, she thought raising an eyebrow.

‘Thank you,’ she said in a low voice, climbing into the car and willing her dress not to ride up.

In no time at all Jonathan had started the engine and they were off. Rebecca barely had time to put her seat belt on. Does he drive like this all the time, she wondered, then remembered her first encounter with him and decided he must do.

‘Where do you live?’ he asked her, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

‘Coopers Close in Yarrick,’ she told him. The city of Stokington had many areas such as Yarrick, which had been a village once and had got swallowed up into greater Stokington.

He nodded, but said no more. Rebecca exhaled silently and gazed unseeing out of the window. Jonathan’s fight with Nick swam into her inner vision and she wondered again why they’d been fighting. She turned to Jonathan.

‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’ she asked, her voice blunt.

‘What was what about?’ came the terse reply.

‘Oh don’t give me that, Mr Leavis. Your argument with Nick.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he replied, glancing at her for a second with a furrowed brow before returning his attention to the road.

Hope you enjoyed that. 🙂 Wanna take part in WIPpet Wednesday? It’s easy! Just post an excerpt of whatever you’re working on writing-wise at the moment, then add your name to this linky. It should – in theory at least – relate in some way to the date. Don’t forget to check out what the other WIPpeteers have shared this week.

My thanks as always goes to the fantabulous K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 😀

 

 

Fight!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 35 Comments

Hi everyone! How are you? I hope OK. Here in the UK we’re just about coming to the end of our Indian summer. It’s been a very warm, dry September which is great for me as I hate winter and I want the warmer weather to last for as long as possible!

But at the same time the evenings are drawing in and I’m not used to that yet! It’ll be even worse at the end of the month when the clocks go back. 😦 Anyway, that’s my moan out of the way.

For today’s WIPpet Wednesday I thought I’d share with you 14 paragraphs from my WIP which I’m calling Teaching Mr Leavis. Thank you to all those who helped me come up with the title BTW – you know who you are! My WIPpet maths goes like this: 1 + 10 + 2 + 1. OK so I played around with the date a bit, but that’s what WIPpet Wednesday is all about!

To give you a bit of context this scene takes place BEFORE last week’s excerpt. Rebecca and her friends are at a nightclub. Rebecca has already had an encounter with Jonathan Leavis at the club. She’s seen her friend and colleague Nick (from the school where she teaches)  there too, who she likes. (She’s not keen on Jonathan!) Although she’s seen Jonathan, her friends have shown up and everything is going OK until this happens:

Two men were standing facing each other with their fists clenched, looking as though they were about to engage in fisticuffs. When Rebecca saw who the two men were, her mouth fell open. It was no less than Nick and Jonathan Leavis. What on earth?

‘Isn’t that…’ Michelle trailed off.

‘Yes it is,’ Rebecca replied. ‘Why are they arguing?’

‘Maybe they’re arguing about you,’ Karen piped up in Rebecca’s ear.

‘Get real, Karen,’ Rebecca said, then wondered for a moment if she might be right. But that couldn’t be so. She shook her head as if to clear it from troubling thoughts, and she and her friends watched engrossed while the argument between the two men continued. While she couldn’t hear clearly what was being said, Rebecca could tell from their body language that Nick and Jonathan were incandescent with rage at each other.

‘I won’t!’ Nick’s shout reached her ears. He looked as though he were about to turn around and leave, but Jonathan caught his arm and forced him to turn back and face him.

‘You coward!’ Jonathan yelled. He shook his head and turned his face away from Nick for a moment. Bu this proved to be a bad move. Jonathan was caught off guard as Nick landed a punch on his chest, clearly winding him. Although Rebecca couldn’t see well in the half-light of the club, Jonathan’s face looked almost purple. Nick turned to leave again and Rebecca watched, biting her lip with tension, as Jonathan rushed at him, pushing him over.

‘Why doesn’t someone do something?’ she muttered. But it seemed that everyone was enjoying watching what was happening too much to intervene. It looked as though Nick and Jonathan were going to get into a full blown fight. Someone was going to get seriously hurt. She shook her head. Standing up and ignoring her friends’ protestations, Rebecca left the alcove and weaved her way through the crowds of onlookers until she had reached the space where the two men were.

Saying nothing, she walked into the centre of the space and positioned herself so that she was standing in between them. Her lips pursed, she glared at them.

‘What are you doing, Rebecca?’ Nick asked, pulling himself up off the floor. It was the most he’d said to her for days. His face was red and she noticed that his eyes were bloodshot. He sounded annoyed.

Rebecca felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see Jonathan, a calmer, serious expression on his face.

‘Yes, Miss Engleton, this is between Nick and me,’ he said.

‘Maybe it is,’ she replied. ‘But you’re about to hurt each other. Couldn’t you at the very least do it outside and allow the rest of us to continue with our evening?’ She paused, looking from Nick to Jonathan and back again. Jonathan’s face was as red as Nick’s, if not more so. But his eyes were their usual dark hue.

‘Better still, cut it out,’ she said finally. ‘I really don’t want to have to be the one to call the police or worse still an ambulance.’

Hoped you enjoyed that! As always your comments are welcome. WIPpet Wednesday is open to anyone who’d like to share a bit of their writing. So if you fancy doing that just post a bit of your latest work on your blog. Then add your name to this. Don’t forget to check out the offerings from the other WIPpeteers.

Thanks goes to K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂