R M Cartmel

The White House, Holyhead R M Cartmel

Can a piece of piano music being played in a Welsh gastro-pub rekindle a university romance?The year is 2039 and post-Brexit politics are a shambles. Scotland and Ireland are independent, England has broken into five independent areas and Holyhead, off the coast of Anglesey, has become an escape route to Ireland and America, providing the traveller has the vital visa. Shane, an Australian, has left Cambridge and reaches North Wales acquiring 'The White House' a pub-cum-casino. He has with him Ali, who plays a piece of piano music ('Layla') which Shane hates. The cause of his vitriol, Jenny, arrives in Holyhead with her husband, Andrew Grant, who is fleeing authority. Shane has two visas in his safe. He realises that he is Jenny's passport to freedom. She takes him to bed. He has to choose between the seductive women made in heaven and losing his love to an airship going to America.... and Ali will keep playing that bloody piece of music.