Blue Heaven Book

THE STORY: Laura and Julian are a middle-aged couple whose marriage has begun to sour. Laura confuses her selfishness with sensitivity and is increasingly convinced that Julian doesn't understand her. There is also the added irritant of Daniel, who is Julian's assistant and (as Julian suspects) Laura's lover. After a stormy session with Julian she decides to leave him and go off with Daniel. She is obliged to return briefly, however, and it is here that the midsummer madness of the Eve of San Juan takes over. When Laura tiptoes back she is more than slightly perplexed to find that it is not a few hours later at all - but ten years in the future. An atomic war has intervened, Spain is under Russian control, and Julian is living with another woman. The old comforts are gone, but Julian is a happy man at last and his changed situation fills Laura with the truth of her own past failures as a wife and a person. But then we are suddenly back in the present and a sobered Laura pleads vainly with Julian for a second chance. Again Time is turned upside-down, and now it is the past which is evoked as Julian confronts Laura as she was during their wartime marriage. Just as Laura had learned from the future now Julian realizes from what once was that he too shares responsibility for the bitterness of the present. The result is reconciliation and renewed awareness of what is really important in life - plus utter confusion for Daniel, who blunders in and out of each episode, struggling to make sense of the goings-on. Set in modern Spain, the action takes place on the Eve of San Juan when time reputedly ceases to function and anything can happen at the witching hour of midnight.