THE RIVER WOMAN

Sorrel Pitts grew up near Marlborough in Wiltshire, England.

After graduating in English Literature and Language, she worked as a magazine editor before spending the rest of her twenties as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language in Turkey and Spain.

She returned home in her early thirties to complete an MA in Publishing at Oxford Brookes University.

She now lives in Oxfordshire where she worked as Commissioning Editor in Macmillan Publishers’ ELT division.

She currently works as an Editorial Manager for Oxford University Press. The River Woman is her first novel.

‘One of those stories that intrigues from the start’   Georgina Hawtry-Woore, Random House
 
‘…very well crafted with some excellent characterisation.’  
Wayne Brookes, Harper Collins
 

I know what I’m doing, I just can’t stop it. It’s because I need answers. I thought that this would be an answer, this frozen end, serenaded by the gentle song of the river. Evidently it is not.

John Morgan, a retired doctor, runs a small farm in the west country. His son David, a talented but emotionally unstable artist, lives in a shed on his father's land. Both men are still grieving the recent death of David's mother, May, but their anguish is made worse by the fact that David blames his father for her death and is no longer speaking to him.

Into this troubled world steps Nicola, a young woman who David finds on the farm during a blizzard. Desperate, and half-frozen to death, Nicola is taken in and nursed back to health by John Morgan. As she recovers, Nicola slowly ingratiates herself into the lives of both men, and seems set to be the conduit through which their differences can finally be reconciled. But nothing in The River Woman is as it seems. Who is Nicola and why does she keep her past such a secret? Why is she so curious about John and David Morgan, and is there a connection between her presence on the farm and May Morgan's untimely death?

Chapter One (Extract)

I have to make a decision.

I know that I’m not in the best frame of mind for this. For a start, I’m nearly dead from cold, and in a near-death state it’s hard to think clearly about the simplest of things. But in my case oncoming death has brought a strange kind of clarity. It has done away with all those confusing shades of grey and left me with a very simple dilemma. That dilemma is whether to live or to die.
I am only thirty years old. But I have done something very bad. No, that is a euphemism. I have done something terrible: something which I know I deserve to die for; something which I have planned to die for.
Here is my death scene. It is the middle of winter. I am sitting in the snow on an old bridge in a big field somewhere in Wiltshire. My bare legs hang over heavy blocks of sharp-edged sarsen stone which rise, in a rugged curve, over a wide stream. I stare into its depths, absorbed by the endless sifting of flint and weed. Freezing snow cuts into the crook of my knees and my feet dangle over the swollen, ice-grey waters.
I have been sitting here for hours, since early morning, and believe me the cold, when it gets you, hurts like nothing else. So many pains …. I’m confused, but I concentrate on the water and the frightening fact that soon I’ll be completely numb.
The snow, glittering and virgin, covers the river banks and forms sad moustaches on the naked branches of trees. A blackbird’s song drifts over its silver slopes. The large, now familiar, house on the distant hillside frowns at me, no doubt wondering what on earth I’m doing on such a day, in such clothes, wishing to die. In my mind I picture its inhabitants, sitting beside a fire, the rosy glow on cheeks, a newspaper, mugs of sweet tea. They are oblivious to this girl who has followed them all day in her tortured imaginings.
I raise my gaze from the water and look at the house longingly. It is perhaps a mile away, the only human structure on the bleakest of landscapes. The house is the reason for my change of heart. I do have not much time left. My story may end here, forever untold, or it may begin without a history, without an explanation. These are critical moments.
But as my body begins to pull itself back from the water’s edge, I see I have already made my decision. My spirit, that house, fear – I’m not sure what, is propelling me away from the death’s edge, the abyss. I know I can do nothing but cause further pain, I know my way is littered with crumpled motivations, inexcusable curiosities, petty logics. Although I’m crazy, believe me, I’m quite sane. I know what I’m doing, I just can’t stop it. It’s because I need answers. I thought that this would be an answer, this frozen end, serenaded by the gentle song of the river. Evidently it’s not.
It seems to me that there’s more reason in my living than in my dying.
I lever myself away from the bridge and begin to crawl, my knees and hands pushing into the deep snow, slow, hesitant, pausing every few feet. Then, forward again, a death-shadow over my shoulder and the waters beside me. I am cold, so cold, my body hurting, every inch a victory, every twist of a limb a signal to my blood to keep moving, keep flowing.
I force myself to straighten, but movement has already brought back some circulation and my body is losing its stiffness. I wobble, pressing a hand into the snow, and rise to my feet. The water drifts, and from the mauve taint coating the suffocating winter sky, I see that evening is approaching. With evening more snow will come.
I am dizzy but I can stand. And walk. Every part of me aches but I can walk, slowly at first, my breath on the air, my arms gripping my stomach. It’s more a lurch than a walk, but those old-men trees by the field’s edge begin to look not so distant, and the river’s voice is growing silent.