In our special Christmas short story series, we're parcelling up two of our most popular short stories each day – one to read and one to listen to. Today…
• Listen to Helen Simpson reading The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter
• Read Roddy Doyle's short story The Plate
• Read Roddy Doyle's short story The Plate
Helen Simpson and Angela Carter. Photograph: Graham Turner/Jane Bown
Helen Simpson reads Angela Carter's short story The Kitchen Child, which "shows her stories can be sunnier, funnier and altogether more high-spirited than her more minatory, gothic tales might suggest."
Listen to The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter
Read The Plate, a short story by Roddy Doyle
'He was in hell and he'd never recover'. Photograph: Wassink Lundgren
–I love you but I think I'm dying.
This was what he said as he came in the back door. Then he turned around and walked back out. Maeve thought he was leaving her. He'd said he was the night before. Until she saw the way he was walking. And she knew it: he was dying. He walked like he'd been stabbed, away from the door, out into the garden. It was after nine but still bright enough, early September. His back to her, crouched, he moved quickly, sideways, clutching something – his stomach. The back door was a slider, all glass. She watched him move down the garden. She waited for him to fall. She waited for the blood.
But he didn't fall.
–Are you all right?
She stayed at the door.
–Jim?
He'd gone to the end of the garden. The sun was down, behind the high back wall. He was dark, crouched, still moving. She saw now; he was coming back.
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