Listen and Read along - The 'Last' Pages
1. Song from the Last Page of How to Be Both
from How to Be Both by Ali Smith (Penguin Books)
The root in the dark makes its way under the ground before there’s any sign of the tree. The seed still unbroken, the star still unburnt, the curve of the eye bone of the not yet born. Hello all the old bones, hello all the new. Hello all the everything to be made and unmade both.
2. Song from the Last Page of Lanark
from Lanark by Alasdair Gray (Canongate Publishing)
(With permission from the Estate of Alasdair Gray)
I started making maps when I was small showing place, resources, where the enemy and where love lay. I did not know time adds to land. Events drift continually down, effacing landmarks, raising the level, like snow. I have grown up. My maps are out of date. The land lies over me now. I cannot move. It is time to go.
3. Song from the Last Page of The Pink House
from The Pink House (Reality, Reality) by Jackie Kay (Pan Macmillan)
For the first time in months I’m not frightened. The future is here and it is not as bad as I thought. If you have nothing, they can take nothing away. I fall asleep, a little wine-happy – it’s a while since I drank anything – and before I know it I am dreaming. I am dreaming in the pink house. I think my baby is dreaming too. I know she is.
4. Song from the Last Page of Treasure Island
from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Cassell)
The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts, or start upright in bed, with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: ‘Pieces of eight! pieces of eight!’
5. Song from the Last Page of News of the Dead
from News of the Dead by James Robertson (Penguin Books)
One day you will wake up and it will be the last day of your life. You may know this or you may not. You may want to know this or you may not. Either way it will not be in your control. But if you are in your place when death comes calling, so you don’t even have to get up and open the door, then you are blessed indeed, whatever else has befallen you in the days and years that went before.
6. Bà Bà Mo Leanabh (by Deirdre Graham)
Words by Calum Mackinnon from Litir Chun an t-Saighdear Gun Ainm (CLÀR)
7. Song from the Last Page of Duck Feet
from Duck Feet by Eli Percy (Monstrous Regiment Publishing)
Then the train driver stuck his heid oot the windae an he shoutet, C’moan hen – wuv no got aw day – are yi on are aff.
The adrenalin wis pumping through me, an the sweat was lashing doon ma back; ah wiped ma face on ma sleeve, an ah took a deep breath. Here goes nothin, ah said,
an ah stepped through the slidin doors.
8. Song from the Last Page of Sonny and Me
from Sonny and Me by Ross Sayers (Cranachan Publishing)
'Naw?'
'Naw.
Cause you're my best friend. And my best friend wouldn't dae that.’
He walks ahead.
'Noo, let's see if the icey does rainbow slushies.'
I smile and follow on. I'm lucky I've got him tae keep me right.
9. Song from near the Last Page of Peter Pan
from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity)
But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust on the box in which she had kept her toys.
10. Song from the Last Page of The Valley of Fear
from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle (Penguin Classics)
I don’t say that he can’t be beat! But you must give me time
We all sat in silence for some minutes while his fateful eyes still strained to pierce the veil.
11. Song from the Last Page of At the Loch of the Green Corrie
from At the Loch of the Green Corrie by Andrew Greig (Quercus Publishing)
Tired, enriched, unburdened for now, I follow the burn over the bealach and off the page, into where whatever has existed once, exists all the time.