Expectant Management

In this celebration of the work of Joseph Conrad, 160 years after his birth, fiction writers were commissioned to research and creatively respond to Conrad's body of work. In 'Expectant Management', Schofield uses the framework of Conrad's short story 'The Secret Sharer' to create a new work of fiction that explores notions of loneliness, trauma and third man syndrome. A headteacher, recently deployed to revive a failing secondary school, is experiencing a miscarriage and cultivates a relationship with an imaginary friend as a coping technique. The story is a psychological exploration of ways humans, specifically women, manage trauma around stillbirth and seeks to put women back into scholarly conversations around Conrad's work.