# Read the first page of After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell Read the opening of After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell free, no signup. A coma forces a family's buried tensions into the open. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/after-youd-gone-maggie-ofarrell - Genre: Literary fiction - Year: 2000 - ISBN: 9780593684801 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780593684801&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780593684801 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780593684801 ## The opening The day she would try to kill herself, she realised winter was coming again. She had been lying on her side, her knees drawn up; she'd sighed, and the heat of her breath had vaporised in the cold air of the bedroom. She pushed the air out of her lungs again, watching. Then she did it again, and again. Then she wrenched back the covers and got up. Alice hated winter. It must have been around 5 a.m.; she didn't need to look at her clock, she could tell from the glow behind the curtains. She'd been awake most of the night. The weak dawn light cast the walls, bed and floor in greyish-blue granite, and her shadow as she crossed the floor was a grainy, unfocused smudge. In the bathroom, she twisted the tap and drank straight from it, bending over and pushing her mouth into the pressurised, icy flow, gasping with the shock of the cold. Wiping her face on the back of her hand, she filled the toothmug and watered the plants on the bath edge. It had been so long since she'd cared for them that the parched soil didn't absorb the water, and it collected on the surface in accusing, mercuried drops. Alice dressed quickly, putting on whatever clothes she found discarded on the floor. She stood at the window, looking down into the street for a moment, then went downstairs, slinging her bag over her shoulder, closing the front door behind her. Then she just walked, head bent, coat pulled around her. She walked through the streets. She passed shops with drawn-down, padlocked shutters, street-cleaning lorries scrubbing the kerbs with great circular black brushes, a group of bus drivers smoking and chatting on a corner, their hands curled around polystyrene cups of steaming tea. They stared as she passed, but she saw none of this. She saw nothing but her feet moving beneath her, disappearing and reappearing from under her with a rhythmic regularity. It was almost fully light when she realised she’d reached King’s Cross. Taxis were swinging in and out of its forecourt, people milled through its doors. She wandered inside, with a vague idea of buying a cup of coffee, perhaps, or something to eat. But when she entered the white-lit building, she became mesmerised by the vast expanse of the departures board. Numbers and letters flicker-flacked over each other; city names and times were being arranged and rearranged in letters caught on hidden electronic rollers. She read the names to herself—Cambridge, Darlington, Newcastle. I could go to any of these places. If I wanted to. Alice felt up her sleeve for the bulk of her watch. It was too big for her, really, its face wider than her wrist, but she’d pierced the scuffed strap with extra holes. She glanced at it, then automatically lowered her arm again before realising that she hadn’t in fact taken in what she’d seen. She raised the watch to her face again, concentrating this time. She even pressed the little button at the side that illuminated the tiny grey screen—where constantly shifting liquid crystal displayed the time, date, altitude, air pressure and temperature—in a bright peacock-blue light. She had never worn a digital watch before this. It had been one of John’s. His watch told her it was 6:20 a.m. And that it was a Saturday. Alice turned her face up again to the departures board. Glasgow, Peterborough, York, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. Alice blinked. Read it again: Edinburgh. She could go home. See her family. If she wanted to. She looked to the top of the column to see the train’s time—6:30 a.m. Did she want to? Then she was walking fast towards the ticket office and signing her name in cramped, cold-handed writing. “The Scottish Pullman to Edinburgh,” the sign said as she got on, and she almost smiled. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-heaven-and-earth-grocery-store-james-mcbride.md) - [Luster by Raven Leilani](https://uncovered.ink/read/luster-raven-leilani.md) - [The Gathering by Anne Enright](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-gathering-anne-enright.md) - [The Best American Short Stories 2021 by Jesmyn Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-short-stories-2021-jesmyn-ward.md) - [Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman](https://uncovered.ink/read/eleanor-oliphant-is-completely-fine-gail-honeyman.md) - [The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-sense-of-an-ending-julian-barnes.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). 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