The Edge of Me (22 page)

I’m doing a lot of writing. I’ve bought a journal and I’m recording my parents’ stories. I’ve spent long evenings with my mother, listening to her and transcribing her words. I’m involved with a charity now that works with orphanages in Eastern Europe, and I’m planning to spend part of this summer helping on a building project in Romania.

I email Andjela most weeks, and she’s doing really well. She goes to the local school and has made some friends. Peter has bought her a bulldog puppy and she goes walking in the pine woods with him. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the ferns brushing my legs and smell the zest of pine on the air. Last time she wrote, she sent me a photo. She’s standing in front of the inn in the little square, arm in arm with Natalija. They are squinting in the sun, and smiling. Her hair is cut into a smart bob, and she looks well fed and happy.

They’re coming over at Christmas and I’m starting to think of a cool present for her. Natalija says she’s mad on clothes, so when I go to the city, I’ll look for something she might like.

I haven’t been back to the street in London. I know
some day I must, but right now I can’t bring myself to. It holds so many bad memories and I don’t want to think of them now. I hear about Kristina from time to time on the news. She’s on remand awaiting trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. She could be put away for a long time. I tried to make contact through her solicitor once but was told she had no wish to be in touch. I guess that was always the way it was going to be. I think maybe that was the hardest thing about coming here: remembering my life before. What I had and what I didn’t have and the way I used to feel.

Joe and I see each other as much as we can. We’re going travelling after school ends. He comes to me or I go to London. He’s just passed his driving test, and last weekend, he drove over in his mum’s car and took me out to Arcachon by the sea. We sat on the dunes under a blanket and ate chips. He threw one into the air and a seagull dipped and caught it mid-flight. And I told him how much I loved him. I do.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

‘Thank you’ is a rather silly expression. It’s what we say when we’re handed a plate of peas or when someone opens the door for us.

I’d like to take some of those thin little ‘thank you’s and knit them into an enormous, hairy patchwork quilt of ‘thank you’s. And in every patch, there’d be a name: of friends who read bits, encouraged me, were unfailingly positive, offered suggestions, and listened to me whining about rejections and semi-colons.

Thank you to my wonderful editor Sara, who saw it a long time ago, and made me have faith in it as something that might perhaps work – I’ve learned so much from you, babe.

Thank you to Catherine, for your encouraging words and for the final top and tail.

Thank you to my dear stepsons: Jack, James and Oliver, who always say, ‘How’s the book going?’ and ‘Like the cover, Jane’.

Thank you to my excellent friend and partner in crime at Blowfish, Lisa, whose brilliant brain drilled down into every corner of this book, tweezing out mad inconsistencies and horrible grammatical errors.

Thank you to my husband, TB, who’s been rowing our little boat against the tide and without whom I wouldn’t have written a single word. Ever.

Thank you to my three children, who’ve watched me cry and squirm and agonise over plot and character and who’ve given me countless ideas and space and snuggles and practical help and wonderful, bountiful, encouragement and love.

Thank you.

The idea for
The Edge of Me
came to me a long time ago. The Bosnian War was happening when my own children were little and because I was interested in writing a story with its roots in war, I chose this one.

Many children on all sides were orphaned or separated from their loved ones. Some were taken like Sanda; many grew up scarred and troubled.

A book I loved as a child was
The Silver Sword
by Ian Serraillier. It’s set in war-torn Europe in the Second World War about three children whose parents are taken away and who undertake a perilous and frightening journey out of Nazi occupied Poland and on into safety in Switzerland. It’s a book about courage when everything is lost and everyone is displaced. It’s also about salvation.

In
The Edge of Me
, Sanda finds the courage to fight for what’s right when everything is wrong and twisted; she also finds herself and what was missing all along.

NOTE:

The
Scorpions
were a Bosnian Serb paramilitary
organisation that was very active in the Bosnian War and responsible for many atrocities. That they are still operating to this day, as suggested in the book, is, to my knowledge, entirely fictitious.

To read more about the Bosnian conflict, please visit the Blowfish Books website:
www.blowfishbooks.com

If you have enjoyed this book, please do leave a nice review on our Amazon page.

Coming soon from Jane Brittan:

BAD BLOOD

The first instalment of Jane Brittan’s edgy, fast-paced thriller series follows Ben and Sophy as Ben struggles to make sense of what happened to his father, what he left behind when he died and why certain people seem so interested in it.

The stakes are high from the very start and the more he finds out, the worse they get.

His father was a scientist. It’s only later that Ben finds out exactly what kind of scientist. And that’s when things get dangerous …