In The Stars Part I, Episode 1: Capricorn
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About this ebook
Death in a prison cell, a birthday celebration gone awry, dead mice, dawning realisations and a chance encounter on a train...As the light dawns on a grim, dark January, it soon becomes clear; this could be The Circle’s annus horribilis.
* * * * *
‘Capricorn’ is the first episode of In The Stars. For those readers unfamiliar with the Hiding Behind The Couch series, it re-introduces the main characters, so you could pick it up from here and perhaps catch up with the previous books later.
In The Stars explores the day-to-day lives of The Circle—nine friends from high school, now it their late thirties—following them through celebration, loss, illness and life-changing decisions.
Each episode covers the period of time indicated by the zodiac sign from which it takes its title.
The full novels of In The Stars Part I: Capricorn–Gemini and In The Stars Part II: Cancer–Sagittarius are also available for purchase (paperback/ebook).
In The Stars Part I is season four in the Hiding Behind The Couch Series.
The story follows chronologically from The Harder They Fall (Season Three), Crying in the Rain (Novel) and First Christmas (Novella). It continues in Breaking Waves (Novella) and In The Stars Part II (Season Five).
* * * * *
What readers say about the Hiding Behind The Couch Series:
“The remarkable characterisation in these novels is what makes them for me.”
“This story reminds me of my favorite movies about friendship and relationships.”
“Few authors have explored the depths of longtime friends within a group, or ‘circle’ the way Debbie McGowan has!”
Debbie McGowan
Debbie McGowan is an award-winning author of contemporary fiction that celebrates life, love and relationships in all their diversity. Since the publication in 2004 of her debut novel, Champagne—based on a stage show co-written and co-produced with her husband—she has published many further works—novels, short stories and novellas—including two ongoing series: Hiding Behind The Couch (a literary ‘soap opera’ centring on the lives of nine long-term friends) and Checking Him Out (LGBTQ romance). Debbie has been a finalist in both the Rainbow Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards, and in 2016, she won the Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) for her novel, When Skies Have Fallen: a British historical romance spanning twenty-three years, from the end of WWII to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Through her independent publishing company, Debbie gives voices to other authors whose work would be deemed unprofitable by mainstream publishing houses.
Read more from Debbie Mc Gowan
Upstaged: An Anthology of Queer Women and the Performing Arts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHiding Behind The Couch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The WAG and The Scoundrel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSugar and Sawdust Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ruminations Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5What A Scorcher! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeginnings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn The Stars Part II: Cancer–Sagittarius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTabula Rasa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDistractions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClass-A Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn The Stars Part II, Episode 11: Scorpio Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPerfect Tenor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn The Stars Part II, Episode 9: Virgo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn The Stars Part II, Episode 10: Libra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Too Late Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComing Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nina, Pretty Ballerina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Harder They Fall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In The Stars Part II, Episode 12: Sagittarius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChampagne Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReunions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChain of Secrets Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seasons of Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo By Two Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHighlights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFirst Christmas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In The Stars Part I, Episode 4: Aries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Book preview
In The Stars Part I, Episode 1 - Debbie McGowan
In The Stars Part I, Episode 1: Capricorn
Hiding Behind The Couch
Season Four
by
Debbie McGowan
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
Copyright 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 Debbie McGowan at Smashwords.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/debbiemcgowan
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
Cover Design by Debbie McGowan
Licensed stock images: usage is not indicative
of the models’ identity, activities or preferences.
Zodiac Illustrations by Emma Pickering
http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
* * * * *
This novel is a work of fiction and the characters and events in it exist only in its pages and in the author’s imagination.
* * * * *
Death in a prison cell, a birthday celebration gone awry, dead mice, dawning realisations and a chance encounter on a train…As the light dawns on a grim, dark January, it soon becomes clear; this could be The Circle’s annus horribilis.
* * * * *
‘Capricorn’ is the first episode of In The Stars. For those readers unfamiliar with the Hiding Behind The Couch series, it re-introduces the main characters, so you could pick it up from here and perhaps catch up with the previous books later.
In The Stars Part I is Season Four in the Hiding Behind The Couch Series. This book is also available as six separate episodes.
The story follows chronologically from The Harder They Fall (Season Three), Crying in the Rain (Novel) and First Christmas (Novella). It continues in Breaking Waves (Novella) and In The Stars Part II (Season Five).
For those readers unfamiliar with the series, In The Stars re-introduces the main characters, so you could pick it up from here and perhaps catch up with the previous books later.
* * * * *
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my wonderful proofreaders, Tracy and Andrea, for your persistence in / insistence on finding and then laughing at my dreadful mistakes, not to mention your extraordinary expertise in all matters, but in particular, those of bingo and health care! The Circle thank you, too!
***
‘Love Hearts’ used with kind permission:
Swizzels Matlow Ltd.
www.lovehearts.com
Excerpts from:
‘The Signs’, by Henry Van Dyke
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poems of Henry Van Dyke.
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.
Reproduced under the terms of the
Project Gutenberg Licence.
www.gutenberg.org
‘Footprints In Your Heart’, by Eleanor Roosevelt;
also attributed as
‘Today is a Gift’, by Laszlo Kotro-Kosztandi.
Further bibliographic information unavailable.
* * * * *
Dedication
For my friends on the flat roof:
we steered a wayward ship,
lost and found God, glimpsed Satan,
didn’t learn a lot of Latin.
And for Powelly, rider on the storm.
Elf people, though, dude. Seriously?
* * * * *
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Marigold: Friday 6th January
Hair: Friday 13th January
Extermination: Saturday 14th January
Sweet Little Lies: Monday 16th January
U-Turn: Thursday 19th January
Hankering: Thursday 19th January
Roberta: Thursday 19th–Friday 20th January
Kid Gloves: Friday 20th January
The Story Continues
About the Author
By the Author
Beaten Track Publishing
* * * * *
In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.
William S. Burroughs
* * * * *
Capricorn
The goat looks solemn, yet he likes to run,
And leap the rocks, and gambol in the sun:
The truly wise enjoy a little fun.
Marigold
Friday 6th January
Rank mops and disinfectant. The stench clung to every grubby cubic inch of air. Metal clanged loudly against metal; the jangle of keys echoed around the corridors and up through the levels, ricocheting along landings and up into the void above. It was a grey, grey world. The steel doors were painted industrial grey. The bars were Hammerite grey. The walls were a featureless corpse-skin expanse, terminating at distant skylights showing nothing but grey sky. Even the uniforms and overalls—everything. Grey.
Well, almost everything.
Eh, it’s our turn,
a voice shouted from across the void. This is fucked up.
Yeah,
another voice agreed from behind. Oy! Marigold! Get a new fuckin’ mop, you cunt. It stinks to shit.
‘Marigold’ continued along the corridor, trying to ignore the multiple complaints as he passed each cell. They had every right. No supplies, and the mops hadn’t been changed in all the time he’d been in there, which was five months, two weeks, four days and three hours. Seventeen days to go. Then he’d be out. He glanced up and spotted Darren coming his way.
Alright?
Marigold said. Hardly anyone there called him by his real name, not even his fellow wing cleaners.
Yeah. Noisy today.
Third’s not been cleaned this week. That’s why.
So why’re we doing Second?
Don’t ask me. Anyway, sooner we get on, the sooner we’ll be done.
Marigold wheeled his stinking grey mop bucket along the filthy concrete third floor of C-wing. Darren followed with the cleaning trolley, past the rest of the cells and onwards to the lift, where they waited whilst the screw unlocked the gate. Marigold let Darren enter first and followed reluctantly, turning to watch as the gate was locked again. The lift started to descend.
Not long now, huh?
Darren said, gnawing at the grotty stubs of his fingernails.
Nope. Two weeks, three days.
Darren changed hands. Wish it was me.
Yeah,
Marigold replied absently. The lift came to a stop, and the gate procedure was repeated, in reverse, to the accompanying third-landing prisoners’ shouts tumbling from above. The second landing was empty, with everyone out for exercise, not that it would have mattered, as they only cleaned the corridors. Darren stopped the trolley and pulled the wide broom free, flipping it up the right way and letting it flop to the floor.
Gonna start at the other end,
he said and dawdled away, the broom shushing along the floor behind him.
Right,
Marigold acknowledged belatedly. I’ll just get this shit off the wall first.
The second landing was where they put the weirdos, not the pervs—they were on the fourth floor—the ones that were a bit loopy but not loopy enough to be in K-block. It was closer to the screws’ station, in case anything kicked off, which it didn’t very often. In fact, most of the time there was just this line of shit along the wall, from the showers to C221. And they wondered why he’d asked for rubber gloves? Doctor Sheridan got him permission eventually, but he had to hand them in at the end of every day. Sometimes he wondered why he wasn’t in K-block himself. Maybe he wasn’t the right kind of loony. He was never the right kind of anything.
He squirted dilute disinfectant over the trail of faeces, breathing through his nose, which would’ve seemed counter-intuitive to the uninitiated, but for as much as it stank worse when it was wet, he’d once been hit in the face by spray-back and swallowed it; he wasn’t making that mistake again. Back to the start of the line, he retraced with a rancid, damp cloth, pushing the brown smudge around until it