Broadband E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

"She had liked the outward look of Ewan, but he was a little older than the type of man she thought she should go for. She had made presuppositions, cast him in a mould. Dismissed him. Perhaps he had sensed that. Now, when she was curious, changing her mind, she only had this slender information about him. She kicked herself. She mustn't be so flippant, abrasive. She needed to be more open, and to be more approachable, or she was never going to get hitched. For that was her goal. After coming up here and hiding herself away for two years she’d finally realised that’s what she wanted now. This spring in particular, surrounded by all this new life, the lambs, the nesting birds, she’d felt the pull to procreate strongly but also the pull to have a companion. "We're not the enemy," a failed suitor had yelled at her in departure. He had told her that what she communicated was hurt and that that message overpowered the signals that said she needed someone. She’d had time to think this over, and her attitudes to men. Here on the island men and women were co-dependent. In the past there had been a gender split on tasks. That was still there, but it was a choice now. Women drove tractors, sheared the sheep. She looked in the mirror, pursed her lips then ran her hands over her body adjusting her bra. Although it was important, it wasn’t just sex that drove her now. People needed companionship, someone to care for them. She longed for that, something meaningful and deep"

Leseprobe

alastair macleod

Broadband

to North Ronaldsay, a little green gem in an ocean of blueBookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

BROADBAND

      The wind was sculpting Ewan’s BT anorak round his body. He tightened the nuts bolting the aerial to the mast. It needed to be secure. There was always wind here; it could reach a storm force eleven and twist, even rip off, a dish aerial. He’d seen that in Lewis, near his home. He paused to look out over this Orkney island. North Ronaldsay. It was only four miles long; a green flat tablecloth on the blue sea.

      Did they need it, broadband? Would it help people here understand each other better? What need, he thought, had they for the potential of the radio waves and the optical fibres as thin as your hair to carry thousands of conversations in both directions? An old crofter had said, “It’ll mebbe come in handy, in the winter.” A lot of them already had a p.c. connected to the Internet. They used the computer for stock records and subsidy forms. Nearly all of the islanders used the net for shopping, banking, selling things on eBay and for contacting relatives by email.

      A vintage tractor from the 50’s might be outside the croft but inside they were connected. After all there was only one shop here. It offered a few canned and preserved foods. Beyond that everything had to come in, even the milk; there were no milkers on the island. People south imagined the islanders growing all their own vegetables, milking cows, keeping chickens. That was the past. Now they all had freezers. What didn’t come in on the three flights a day, came in palletted on the weekly boat.