Two women establish contact through Facebook after a forty year estrangement. Lydia summarises a positive, fulfilled life: a passionate love affair, a son, a happy marriage, professional success in widowhood, comfortable retirement. There's some truth in her account, and one big lie. Jean’s account is more melancholy but more measured.
The story Lydia does not tell is darker. Six memorable months of communal living, militant political activity and comradely love spread a shadow of irrecoverable fineness. Love of life goes out of the window as the love of her life leaves her abruptly. Years later, prompted by a revelation of double-dealing, she takes drastic action. She rebuilds her future but can't shake off her past.
Jean, a more reliable narrator, tell her own story: a blameless life with scant returns.
Working from newspaper clippings and taped conversations, Jean also tells the story of her brother, Robert De’Ath. Robert was a clandestine member of the Angry Brigade in the 1970s.
Three stories, and several subsidiary tales, intertwine. All are united by instances of coincidence and of deceit - the doublespeak of the title. These are tangled threads where first impressions lie, where honest individuals conceal the truth, where great institutions of state impose on trust, and where mere mortals lose touch with reality.
Doublespeak is a fictional story set against a background of real events and organisations.
The story Lydia does not tell is darker. Six memorable months of communal living, militant political activity and comradely love spread a shadow of irrecoverable fineness. Love of life goes out of the window as the love of her life leaves her abruptly. Years later, prompted by a revelation of double-dealing, she takes drastic action. She rebuilds her future but can't shake off her past.
Jean, a more reliable narrator, tell her own story: a blameless life with scant returns.
Working from newspaper clippings and taped conversations, Jean also tells the story of her brother, Robert De’Ath. Robert was a clandestine member of the Angry Brigade in the 1970s.
Three stories, and several subsidiary tales, intertwine. All are united by instances of coincidence and of deceit - the doublespeak of the title. These are tangled threads where first impressions lie, where honest individuals conceal the truth, where great institutions of state impose on trust, and where mere mortals lose touch with reality.
Doublespeak is a fictional story set against a background of real events and organisations.
