First aid
By: Janet Davey.
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 2004
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 178
Subjects: Seaside resorts -- Fiction.; Violence -- Fiction.; Kent (England) -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Description: Set in a town on England's Kent coast, First Aid takes place over one summer weekend. Jo's husband Peter has left her a couple of years ago, and she is now caring single-handedly for her teenage daughter, son and toddler. She works in a local junk shop. A love affair with a single man is just beginning to give her life new meaning when the man inexplicably lashes out and cuts her face. Jo packs her bags, and with her children takes the train to London to stay with her grandparents. But, a few miles into the journey, her daughter jumps off the train and runs away. As we follow Jo's attempts to explain things to her grandparents, and her daughter's uncomfortable nights on the junk shop floor, we gradually learn what led up to the attack - and how everyone would like to escape the ties that bind them and begin afresh.