The Sky is Not Blue

Chrissy Barker returns to her home town after 34 years away, unsure whether she caused the death of her best friend in 1973. A dark tale of oppressive friendship and the fallibility of memory.

Chrissy does not remember the past or, if she does, it's with a photographer's eye - she understands the fallacy. Human lives are albums of brief snapshots - perceptions - with no coherent links. Back in her hometown for the first time in 34 years, she aims to liquidate her inheritance rapidly and leave. She has no reason to stay. Thoughts of childhood & youth, the only man she ever loved, and a drunken argument with her closest friend in 1973 have been purposefully neglected since she ran away.

But the past returns, unbidden and cloudy, when she re-encounters elderly neighbour, Alice, and her only other childhood friend, Marion. Neither seems able or willing to fill in the gaps. Each appears to hold a different snapshot album of her life. When she discovers Spencer, the nihilistic lover she assumed dead, alive and producing commercial art for tourists, she must question beliefs which have driven her for 34 years.

Memories of the events leading up to Pat's death will need to be recovered if she’s to find out what it is she's been running away from all those years.