{"id":126626,"date":"2020-06-23T10:45:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T23:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=126626"},"modified":"2020-07-06T13:05:42","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T02:05:42","slug":"read-an-extract-from-there-was-still-love-by-favel-parrett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2020\/06\/23\/read-an-extract-from-there-was-still-love-by-favel-parrett\/","title":{"rendered":"Read an extract from There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"There<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We’re celebrating <\/em> the 2020 Stella Prize longlist<\/em> by featuring excerpts from all of the wonderful books that were nominated! Today\u2019s extract is from the novel There Was Still Love<\/a><\/strong> by Favel Parrett, which the Stella Prize judges called \u2018a confident, sparkling novel that brings to life the story of a family regrouping after the impacts of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia with warmth and resonance.’<\/em> Read on!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\"Favel<\/a>

Favel Parrett<\/p><\/div>\n

The Suitcase<\/strong><\/h4>\n

There are suitcases everywhere. They cover the country. Little brown suitcases on trains, and on carts \u2013 suitcases strapped to the top of buses. There are suitcases being carried along old country roads by women, by men, dragged by children. There are suitcases abandoned in ditches, suitcases left broken in stairwells.<\/p>\n\n\n

People carry little brown suitcases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside, all they can hold. A set of warm clothes, a photograph of loved ones, a treasured book. They carry little suitcases to imagined safety and hope to find a place where they can put their suitcase down and unpack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must become a little brown suitcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must close up tight, protect your most needed possessions \u2013 all you can hold. Your heart, your mind, your soul. You must become a little suitcase and try not to think about home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melbourne 1980<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Huge yellow wheels of cheese sit behind the glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man behind the counter gives me a slice. It is the kind that has round holes in it like the cheese in cartoons. It is the cheese I like best because it doesn\u2019t really smell like cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Say thank you<\/em>,\u2019 my grandma says, and I do. The man winks at me. People know us at the market because we come almost every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the bread counter, my grandma buys three Kaiser rolls, and the woman hands them to her in a paper bag. My grandma pays with coins from her purse, but instead of moving away, she stands there moving coins around with her finger. There is a man right behind us, and he keeps moving his feet, shuffling. He keeps sighing. I don\u2019t want to turn around and look at him. I look ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Do you have any rye bread with caraway left?\u2019 My grandma asks and the woman behind the counter turns. She checks the rows of loaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018None left,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ll take the normal rye,\u2019 my grandma says, and the woman grabs a loaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oh, not the dark one, the light rye please,\u2019 my grandma says, her eyes wide and the woman puts the dark rye back on the shelf. She picks out a loaf of light rye. The man behind us is tapping his foot now, banging it hard on the ground. He sighs again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hurry up, stupid wog,\u2019 he says suddenly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stand very still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandma smiles at the woman behind the counter. She hands over the money for the rye, the coins, and she puts the wrapped loaf in her fabric shopping bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Thank you,\u2019 she says in her best accent. She takes my hand, and we walk away from the bread counter, and away from the man. I turn and see his blue jeans and his black shoes \u2013 the ones that were tapping against the concrete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look up at my grandma, and she looks completely normal \u2013 her face still like stone. But then a tear, just a small one, spills down her soft, powdered cheek and she does not wipe it away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandma never spoke to me about what happened. We never talked about it, and my grandma did not tell my grandpa about the man at the market when we got home. I did not know what the word wog<\/em> meant, but I knew that it felt like a giant spotlight suddenly shone on my grandma to make sure that everybody knew she did not belong. To make sure she felt ashamed of her accent, ashamed of her face, ashamed of the way she loved the taste of caraway seeds in her light rye bread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Who watches the tennis?\u2019 my grandpa asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The bourgeois,\u2019 I answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandpa gets up out of his armchair and he moves towards the TV at pace, like he is going to change the channel, or even turn the TV off altogether. My grandma throws a couch pillow at his head, but he catches it with ease. He winks at me, hands me the pillow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Right, I\u2019m going to bed,\u2019 he says. His afternoon nap before he has to become a night watchman. Grandma pats the space on the couch next to her. That means, Come and sit with me. I do. I give her the pillow and she puts it behind her head and leans back. The match has started. There\u2019s that whack of tennis balls being smashed hard against the tight strings of rackets. And there is a lot of grunting. But there is no clapping. People can only clap quickly when a point or game or match is won. I can only talk quickly when a point or game or match is won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Fifteen\u2013love.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandma loved the tennis. If a Czech player was playing she loved it even more. If a Czech player was playing, my grandpa even watched for a few minutes. If Ivan Lendl was playing, then my grandpa might even watch the whole match with us. I didn\u2019t really like the tennis, but I think it was probably my grandma\u2019s favourite thing. It was only on the TV in summer. I was glad it wasn\u2019t on all year round because by the end of the summer I had really had enough of it. Tennis meant less time in the lounge listening to music and playing cards. It meant less trips out in the afternoon. Tennis meant sitting for hours in the hot lounge room listening to a man say, \u2018Fifteen\u2013love.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d watch my grandma\u2019s bare feet resting on her footstool. They would flinch every so often with the action on the screen, with the flying tennis balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandma\u2019s legs resting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good to get off her feet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good to rest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that weight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandma\u2019s soles were thick, solid like concrete slabs. She used a pumice stone and it lived on the corner of the green bath top. It worked very hard, that stone. All the weight it tried to scrub away but never could. All the weight her feet carried, heavy and solid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she could be light on her feet sometimes, my grandma. Light somehow when you least expected it. Sometimes she even seemed weightless \u2013 like when she\u2019d come into the lounge in the morning with her girdle half on and say, \u2018Pull me up!\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d stand on the couch, balancing as best I could, and I\u2019d grab onto the tight tan material. I\u2019d try to get my fingers right in under the thick cross-hatched stitching, and I would pull<\/em>! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d pull up against my grandma\u2019s ample flesh using all my strength. I\u2019d pull against the bulging, rolling waves. I\u2019d feel her soft brown skin against my fingers and I would pull<\/em>! And it felt like I was pulling her body right up into the air. I\u2019d imagine her feet off he ground, her legs dangling free. She seemed to hover there for a time, like she was up in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know it is impossible. She was too big, too heavy, and I was only small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, I have the feeling of it in my hands \u2013 lifting her up into the air. My grandma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When that underwear-armour covered everything except her arms and legs, my grandma would pat the sides of her girdle, finally ready for the day. I\u2019d watch her walk to her bedroom, her feet moving quickly. No stomping, no sound \u2013 as if her body was somewhere far away and the person I could see was just a projection. A silent film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019d get dressed. Put on her tights and one of her bright nylon dresses. She\u2019d fix her long hair in a high beehive, spray it tight with hairspray. She\u2019d do her face, finish it off with powder that smelt like fresh rose-petals. Then it would be time for the market. We would leave the flat, walk down the stairs together, and my grandma would hold my hand all the way to the market and all the way home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—There Was Still Love<\/a><\/em> by Favel Parrett (Hachette Australia) is out now.<\/strong> Find out more about the Stella Prize here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the wonderful 2020 Stella Prize longlist!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":126632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6677],"tags":[715,723,1956,9290,11421,5977,10503],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/StellaFavelParrett-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126626"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127275,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126626\/revisions\/127275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}