Home > Work > New Reform (New Reform Quartet #1)
1 " Jack was excellent at his job as long as he stuck to Mr Lemon’s instructions, ‘Always be nice to the customers, even if some of them are arrogant assholes. "
― Jim Lowe , New Reform (New Reform Quartet #1)
2 " She’d often thought of her late Ma as she wandered around the low-rent offices, efficiently cleaning each one with its drab kaleidoscopic decor of orange and brown. Her family home, like everybody else’s, was decorated like this until the tsunami of black ash and chrome swept them into the history books. "
3 " Jack tried to reason himself into leaving but he couldn’t escape the lure of the big win, he couldn’t leave until it was his or there was no choice left, no choice left meant no change left. Still, the nudges kept coming, the cherries, never enough money to leave, always just enough left to keep going. Jack was in his own private nightmare; maybe this was where he belonged.Finally, he lost it all, losing always felt good but never as good as this. "
4 " The light in the room emphasised the array of bruises all over Jack’s body. The full-colour spectrum was present from sickly yellows, pooling purples, and blue blacks. "
5 " Your family, the O’Neills, guns, IRA?’‘No, Unionists.’‘Fuck! You’re not even on the right side. If it weren’t so fucking dangerous, it’d be funny! "
6 " There were times when Heather tried to connect with Sean, but any ten-year-old would have struggled with a Mother explaining that, maybe, she had, ‘existentialist tendencies in my outlook on the technological world. "
7 " He did notice Tony’s gleaming white teeth for the first time. Tony wasn’t known for his smiling. He tried to find a suitable word to describe this smile, but the only word that came to him was expensive. "
8 " She watched the thick, clear plastic sheeting covering the hole on the roof rise and fall in tune with the wintry blasts like the last gasps of a dying man. "
9 " In every room against the brown backdrop, there would be St George Crosses and Union Jacks. Even the crockery would be adorned with symbols of this so-called great land. "
10 " The white birds gorged on the swarm of dead bluebottles that had carpeted the ground. The cold had killed them the moment they left the heat of the chimney. The birds grew fatter before Tatum’s eyes and their features grew hideously distorted, but they continued their gluttony.The Nurse said, ‘They can’t help themselves - the poison is irresistible to them.’The white birds devoured every bluebottle, and the heavily laden flock ascended slowly into the air and then went in search of their next feast. "
11 " Killer walked up to Tatum, and glared into her face, ‘She was a virgin. Virgins always cry.’ He looked for any sign of recognition from her, but Tatum held her reaction in check. "
12 " She would look wistfully at the sky, and she relished her favourite freezing cold, north-easterly winds, that blew bitter draughts that mixed with her drifting tobacco smoke throughout the home, ‘They are the spirits of the old country,’ she would always say. "
13 " The supporters swayed forwards and backwards like waves crashing on the shore. "
14 " Among the supporters was Jack, who shouted, jeered and hurled abuse with hundreds of other like-minded dead souls. "
15 " This was not a romantic half-light, the white tailor’s dummies that stood like Terracotta Warriors forever on guard in her basic room, infused up the eerie glow like sunbathers soaking up the ultra-violet rays on a beach. "
16 " He had a thick moustache, and his eyes peered out from his long, lank black greasy hair, like a light from a cinema screen before the drab velvet curtains had been fully withdrawn. "
17 " At school, everybody called her Irish, because of her name and her accent, but she felt more British than any of them. On rare occasions, a school friend would invite her over to her place, but there was never a flag to be seen, neither English nor British. "
18 " Hollywood directed the Holocaust, amazing special effects, granted. It’s all probably another strand of Operation Fortitude. "
19 " It seemed natural to assume that this band of brothers were the pinnacle of supporters, prepared to spill blood for their team. "
20 " Beverly was a very attractive woman; unfortunately, it was always the wrong men who would be attracted to her. "
