The Past Is Another Country (Paperback)

'Handled intriguingly and it's amusing... you smile at points as you read. She has a very light touch. But it does get serious later on.'
Mike Petty, 'And Now Read On', BBC Wales.

Author Frances Campbell lives in Glasgow . She is a member of the Humanist Society, has worked with disabled children and been a bone marrow donor. She's now working on a media helpline. She's written for The Guardian, The Independent, The Scotsman, and Good Housekeeping. Her short stories have appeared in Chapman, Scottish Child and West Coast Magazine. She is currently completing her second novel.

Excerpt:
'Magic mushrooms?' said Al. Jane pointed.
'By the trees. Some guys from our kitchen were on them last night. They were so spaced out. It was a riot.'
Al stopped chewing her piece of grass and frowned.
'Are they okay to take?'
'The guys last night said so. They were really mellow. Do you think we should try them?'
Al hesitated.
'Are they addictive?'
Jane sneered.
'They just make you feel good. Unless you do too many. Then you think you can fly. Or walk on water.'
Al got up from the grass to check them out.
'We'll need a couple of dozen at least,'
Jane called after her, taking a slug from the wine bottle. They were enjoying an Indian Summer. The sun speared down from the blue and glistened off the teaching building on the far side of the loch; it was cooler under the trees.

Al found them by an old log. They were small and pointed - with fawn caps like innocuous demons. She scanned the ground. Now she knew what she was looking for they seemed to pop up all over the grass. Lifting the hem of her T-shirt, she made a basket and filled it. A thrill of devilment ran through her but it was tempered with virtue; gathering mushrooms seemed such a wholesome thing to do. Jane dragged herself up from her pitch against the Standing Stone to inspect the haul.
'What do we do? Eat them raw?' said Al.
She broke off a piece and put it in her mouth. Jane watched. Al chewed, rolled the pellet round her mouth then spat it out.
'I think you're meant to dry them,' said Jane.
She took a handful out of Al's T-shirt and started laying them in rows on the Standing Stone.
'Christ, feel - you could fry an egg on this.'
Al touched the Stone. It was a squat lump - five foot of granite at a drunken angle. When they first started taking their lunch to the lochside Jane had speculated about the mystical qualities of the Stone - was it a pagan altar or a piece of some astral chart? The University guide book revealed that it was merely a milestone for a village that had once stood nearby.
'Ten minutes on each side should do,' said Jane, taking another slug of Bull's Blood.
Al took a long swallow too. She was going to need to be well-pissed to get those mushrooms down.
They had dispensed with glasses. Al had enough to do packing the kids' lunches - crisps, cheese triangles and Ribena for Louise; chipsticks and peanut butter for Ewan - without worrying about etiquette. With Jane it was just that she liked to travel light - no excess glassware or kids on her hands, no husband, no permanent home. A forty year old divorcee living in a campus flat.

'How's that thing going with the Religious Education tutor?' Al asked, nibbling a piece of cheese.
Jane wrinkled up her nose and smiled.
'He's still resisting temptation but I'm working on him.'
'Why? - He's so holy, for Chrisake.'
'He's got a lovely smile. And apart from being faithful to that bloody wife of his he's very open-minded. We're looking into some pretty weird stuff.'
'Such as?'
'Hang on,' Jane dug in her rucksack and came out with a book.
'He lent me this. It's about the early cults: paganism and Wicca... It's even got spells.'
'Get on!' Jane rifled through the pages.
'Here's one to beguile a man:

Take the blood from a newborn's thigh
Take the root of antimony
Charms of sweetness, horn of bull
Drink deep when the moon is full.'

Al blinked.
'Sounds effective even without magic. I wonder what antimony does?'
Suddenly Jane jumped up.
'The mushrooms, I clean forgot.'
She felt two or three for dryness, grunted happily and tossed them down on the spell book. Al picked up a small one, looked at it closely then flung her head back and tossed it in her mouth. She managed to swallow it whole. Jane smiled connivingly and did the same. Then she plopped herself down and picked up the spell book.
'I wonder if it matters who you are. I mean, do you have to be a witch? Or can anyone use them?'
Al rolled her eyes and took another slug of wine. Jane recognized the challenge.
'What? What's so funny?'
Al grinned. 'How can you believe that crap?'
'Witchcrap?'
'Yeah. And magic and all that nonsense.'
'Why not? There are things that can't be explained.'
'But you don't even try,' Al flung out her hands.
'You want to be awed.'
'So. What's wrong with that?'
The mushrooms weren't working. Al felt herself growing heated not mellow. She took another couple.

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