Excerpt from Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A man came in with his wee boy. Gerry watched them in the mirror. The father approached the urinals and the child was going to follow him.

'Stay there,' said the father. The child did as he was told. But a moment later he moved under the hand dryers and immediately set one off. With a howl it blew hot air down onto his head. His hair threshed and flickered and the wee fella screamed with fright. He didn't know where to run. Gerry stepped forward.

'He's okay, okay,' shouted the father above the noise. But the child's tears and panic were obvious as he screeched his head off. Gerry squatted to be at the same height, put an arm around the child, patting his back, while his father finished. But the boy twisted away towards his dad. The father smiled and picked him up – touching the top of his head to feel if it was hot. 'You're okay. You got a fright. It was just a big noise.' Gerry made a sympathetic face.

'Och, the poor wee man,' he said. Then to the father, 'I've a wee one that age myself. A grandson. You couldn't protect them enough.'

'He's all right, aren't you, son,' said the father, leaning back from him. The child stopped crying but was distressed and shy at being the centre of attention in a toilet full of grown men. He nuzzled into his father's neck as they backed out the door.

In WH Smith's Gerry bought a packet of Werther's Original. He'd kid her on that he forgot. Then surprise her just before take-off.


In the huge hallway Gerry joined his hands behind his back as he walked. He stared up into the ceiling of the new extension.

'Hi,' he said and sat down beside Stella. 'What did you get?'

'The Traveller's Friend.' She rolled her eyes a little.

'What about the Werther's?'

'I forgot.'

'You'd be a great one to send for sorrow.'

'Have you what'll do you?'

'The remains of a packet.'

Gerry stretched out and put his hands behind his head. He told her about the toddler and the hand drier.

'Designers and architects should take responsibility for stuff like that,' he said. 'It's just bad design and shouldn't happen.'

'The poor wee thing,' she said over and over again.

'I held onto him till his father had finished at the porcelain.'

'Too much information,' said Stella. 'It's your turn to hold the fort.'

'So I've time to waste,' said Gerry. 'Where's the paper?'

She pointed, got to her feet and wandered off. He followed her with his eye. She went into the duty-free area. It was a huge concourse and she looked tiny at the far side of it. Architecture was about the size of things compared to the human. He opened the paper and began to read.

She came back sooner than expected.

'It says Boarding.' They walked the carpeted corridors for ten or fifteen minutes. Stella said, 'If you'd told our parents carpet would be laid in miles, they wouldn't have believed you.'


The plane sat roaring on the runway, waiting its turn. Stella particularly disliked both take-off and landing – that race to build up speed, the parting from the ground and then, at the end of the flight, the thump of the tonnage of aeroplane coming into contact with the earth. The way the wings shook and opened up like they were broken, followed by the roaring of the reverse thrust. Now she closed her eyes and gripped the armrest. Gerry put his hand on hers. He tapped a little rhythm on the back of her hand to comfort her.

'What's this?' said Gerry.

'Wristbands.'

Excerpted from Midwinter Breakby Bernard MacLaverty. Copyright © 2017 Bernard MacLaverty. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.