Soft Belly Days has been adapted from an award winning screenplay of the same name commissioned by the Cornwall Film Fund.
Set in the romantic south westerly county of Cornwall, it tells the story of Rachel Tangye (48), who strides across the frosted sands of Carbis Bay beach trying to come to terms with her Father's dying. Rachel is haunted by childhood memories which rise like bubbles out of her subconscious. She remembers making three wishes: one, to see God, two, for a baby sister and three, to move house. Within a year all three wishes come true. God is immediately revealed as a shaft of white light and to the eight year old Rachel, this convinces her that miracles do happen and wishes really do come true. This belief is compounded when within a year the Tangye's move to a new house and Rachel has a baby sister called Rebecca.
However, the adult Rachel who walks over the sands observing the churning sea is also tormented by Abigail Daylight. Abigail was a local bag lady and as a child Rachel was convinced that Abigail was a witch who could 'take out your beating heart just by looking at you'. Rachel's fear of Abigail is magnified by her brother's constant taunting, and when Abigail saves Rachel from drowning Rachel is convinced that she owes the witch her life. In a moment of fear and panic, Rachel wishes Abigail dead; she makes this wish when holding onto her sister. It is a moment captured in amber. A sinister realisation creeps into Rachel's mind that for uttering such unholy thoughts she will one day surely pay. Eighteen months later it is Rachel who finds Abigail dead from asphyxiation on top of her lover's grave. Rachel feels guilty and responsible; she is convinced there will be a punishment meted against her.
It is not until the adult Rachel witnesses the death of her beloved father that she recalls the fight she had, aged sixteen, with her eight year old sister Rebecca. The fight is in the midst of a thunderstorm at the top of a disused mineshaft, fenced only with rusting barbed wire, Rachel pushes Rebecca hard against the wire, it snaps like breaking violin strings and Rebecca plummets to her death. Emotionally unable to face this reality, Rachel suffers from traumatic amnesia, but once her father dies and Rachel confronts her concepts of God, the memory bursts into her consciousness. It is something she recognises as true but something she cannot forgive herself for. She begins to become just like Abigail . . . the person she most feared.
It is revealed that both her father, Jack, and her mother, Ruth, knew intuitively that their first daughter was, somehow, responsible for their second daughter's death. Jack and Ruth kept this secret from each other, both of them waiting on a cliff edge for Rachel to fall into the truth. It is love and forgiveness that are the hallmarks of intimate family relationships and this is demonstrated throughout the story by both tragic events and comic moments.
Abigail Daylight's story is revealed in her love letters to Johnny, scrunched up sheets of Basildon Bond fill her carrier bags and slope her shoulders as would the weight of granite stones. It is a sorry tale of unrequited love; where Abigail gives herself entirely to Johnny Daylight but he abandons her and emigrates to Australia, one of the many Cornish tin miners to become a ten pound Pom. Abigail's father, Arthur Dean, the mine captain, tries to rescue Abigail from such a toxic, obsessive love and enlists the help of Jack Tangye to stage a funeral, claiming that Johnny had died in a mining accident and he had shipped his body back for burial. In fact, they buried sand bags, but during the committal Abigail slips away and finds Johnny's trunk stored with the winter clothes he did not think he needed in Australia. She puts on his coat, inhales his masculine muskiness, feels his silk lined charm, she puts on his shoes and takes with her a bottle of gin; she doesn't come out alive.
Genre: General Fiction
Set in the romantic south westerly county of Cornwall, it tells the story of Rachel Tangye (48), who strides across the frosted sands of Carbis Bay beach trying to come to terms with her Father's dying. Rachel is haunted by childhood memories which rise like bubbles out of her subconscious. She remembers making three wishes: one, to see God, two, for a baby sister and three, to move house. Within a year all three wishes come true. God is immediately revealed as a shaft of white light and to the eight year old Rachel, this convinces her that miracles do happen and wishes really do come true. This belief is compounded when within a year the Tangye's move to a new house and Rachel has a baby sister called Rebecca.
However, the adult Rachel who walks over the sands observing the churning sea is also tormented by Abigail Daylight. Abigail was a local bag lady and as a child Rachel was convinced that Abigail was a witch who could 'take out your beating heart just by looking at you'. Rachel's fear of Abigail is magnified by her brother's constant taunting, and when Abigail saves Rachel from drowning Rachel is convinced that she owes the witch her life. In a moment of fear and panic, Rachel wishes Abigail dead; she makes this wish when holding onto her sister. It is a moment captured in amber. A sinister realisation creeps into Rachel's mind that for uttering such unholy thoughts she will one day surely pay. Eighteen months later it is Rachel who finds Abigail dead from asphyxiation on top of her lover's grave. Rachel feels guilty and responsible; she is convinced there will be a punishment meted against her.
It is not until the adult Rachel witnesses the death of her beloved father that she recalls the fight she had, aged sixteen, with her eight year old sister Rebecca. The fight is in the midst of a thunderstorm at the top of a disused mineshaft, fenced only with rusting barbed wire, Rachel pushes Rebecca hard against the wire, it snaps like breaking violin strings and Rebecca plummets to her death. Emotionally unable to face this reality, Rachel suffers from traumatic amnesia, but once her father dies and Rachel confronts her concepts of God, the memory bursts into her consciousness. It is something she recognises as true but something she cannot forgive herself for. She begins to become just like Abigail . . . the person she most feared.
It is revealed that both her father, Jack, and her mother, Ruth, knew intuitively that their first daughter was, somehow, responsible for their second daughter's death. Jack and Ruth kept this secret from each other, both of them waiting on a cliff edge for Rachel to fall into the truth. It is love and forgiveness that are the hallmarks of intimate family relationships and this is demonstrated throughout the story by both tragic events and comic moments.
Abigail Daylight's story is revealed in her love letters to Johnny, scrunched up sheets of Basildon Bond fill her carrier bags and slope her shoulders as would the weight of granite stones. It is a sorry tale of unrequited love; where Abigail gives herself entirely to Johnny Daylight but he abandons her and emigrates to Australia, one of the many Cornish tin miners to become a ten pound Pom. Abigail's father, Arthur Dean, the mine captain, tries to rescue Abigail from such a toxic, obsessive love and enlists the help of Jack Tangye to stage a funeral, claiming that Johnny had died in a mining accident and he had shipped his body back for burial. In fact, they buried sand bags, but during the committal Abigail slips away and finds Johnny's trunk stored with the winter clothes he did not think he needed in Australia. She puts on his coat, inhales his masculine muskiness, feels his silk lined charm, she puts on his shoes and takes with her a bottle of gin; she doesn't come out alive.
Genre: General Fiction
Used availability for Carly Nugent's Soft Belly Days