Social Butterfly...

The first half of this week has mostly been spent waiting in for parcels, working on my NaNoWriMo project, and reading, but the last couple of days have been rather social.

On Thursday, I went to see my friend S and her daft dog, Anni.  We had a lovely lunch and walked in the woods - there will be photos, at some point.  S has this brilliant idea - instead of giving just one gift to someone, she makes/finds 24 individual ones to wrap and she presents these in a beautiful box as an Advent Calendar gift. It means something every day and the thought and time she puts into this is amazing.

Today started with a visit to my father-in-law with shopping.  He's not the chattiest of chaps, but that's okay.  From there, I met my friend the lovely H-with-the-extra-E for lunch and we had a good catch-up chat. We both laughed far too loudly and at one point I found myself singing nursery rhymes for her to add to her collection of songs to sing her grandchildren.  In turn this led to my rendition of 'Puff, the Magic Dragon', which she had never heard before and which is not strictly PC... Nice to hear her laugh, though!

This was followed by an hour and a half the local library - I needed to research dual-nature angel/demons for something.  It was interesting.

From there to a rendezvous with my husband and a meet-up with my big bother A and his ladyfriend M.  We wandered the German market, A poring over all the pretty colours while M and I assessed his mental age - I went for 10, but with the air of one who's spent more time with him lately, M said 7... We went for hot drinks, wandered Leeds looking at the Christmas lights... A had brought his copy of 'The Sundered' with him for me to sign, which was quite fun.

T and I got home about quarter past six, starving hungry and rather cold.  But it's good to catch up sometimes.

The Monday FictionFest

Good morning, everyone!

You may have noticed the blog has been dwindling down to one post a week at the moment... it's November, National Novel Writing Month, and I've been working my NaNo project.

Last Thursday saw the launch of the Writers in the Rafters' third anthology, 'In Sight of Fallen Walls', being a collection set in and around Leeds' Kirkstall Abbey and Abbey House Museum.  I'll be posting the story on here in a few weeks, so that my friends who are getting copies won't read it here first.

So in the interim I will present to you a story that remembers warmer days and which was written after my return from my first ever trip to Crete. It incorporates the titles of three song tracks.

Oh, Shirley Valentine, What Have You Started…?

Her earbuds connecting Ruth to her laptop’s music library, she selected her album-de-jour, opened Word, and created a new document.  Music filled her ears, astounding sounds, amazing music she’d almost forgotten was there.  She felt ready, poised like a gymnast on the asymmetric bars at the apex of her swing, perfectly balanced and about to fall into a world of her choosing, her creating.

She closed her eyes for a moment, riding the waves of sound, surfing the instrumentals, allowing her fingers to rest on the keyboard… a lyric chimed with her mood, suggested a theme, and her hands danced, counterpoint to the melodies, harmonising with a manic finger-drum accompaniment to the bass, and she typed and typed, not stopping to correct anything, emptying, translating herself into the screen.

So engaged was she in her world of music and mind that she didn’t notice Niko take a seat opposite her, wasn’t aware that he’d spread out a collection of brightly coloured leaflets on the table.

Niko sighed.   Ruth was different, intriguing, and he enjoyed spending time with her.  But she seemed so much more interested in her writing than she was in him…  Losing patience, he picked up the flyers again and pushed one over the rim of her laptop so it slid down the screen.  Ruth jumped, looked up, and smiled ashamedly as Niko waved the rest of the leaflets at her.

‘Sorry!’ she exclaimed, a little too loudly because of her earbuds.  ‘Just a minute…’  She clicked on the keyboard and pulled the earbuds out.  ‘Sorry, sorry… I had an idea and I just had to get it down…’

She slid along the bench to make room for Niko; he took the hint and joined her, and she found her breath catching in her throat.  There was something about Niko…  In some lights, he was nothing, just another pretty barfly, spending his afternoons allegedly helping his cousin Maria who owned the place, but really only occupied in filling and refilling his beer glass and smoking horrid hand-rolled cigarettes. Yet, catch him at the right moment, the right angle, and he was drop-dead gorgeous, with eyes far too blue for the climate, hair bleached light and perfectly tanned caramel skin.  Sitting so close to him now, she could feel the heat coming off him, drawing her in.

England had been so very cold when she’d boarded her plane three days ago.

‘So,’ Niko began, ‘I promised I would bring these – things to do, places to go… We could go over to Ierapetra , if you like.  It won’t take so long... I have my wheels…’

She looked at him with raised eyebrows.  NIko’s ‘wheels’ comprised two in number, and were part of a very old, very noisy scooter.  Granted, before Ruth set off on this trip, she had given herself permission to be silly if she wanted to, but there was a difference between silly and stupid.

‘Or we could get a bus,’ she suggested.  ‘That way, if you wanted to have a drink through the day, you could.’

‘What is it with you English and say drink but not drive, or drive but not drink?’ he said, trying to sound amused, not annoyed.

‘Well,’ she said, shifting in her seat so that he could see he had her full attention.  ‘We English also say; you’re a long time dead, Niko.  I haven’t finished playing with life yet.  Oh, what’s this one?’

She fished a leaflet out of the stack.  Across the top, in violent purple script, was the legend ‘Kadu Excursions – See With Us What Others Miss’.

‘… I like the sound of this one! ‘Malia Palace Archaelogical Site… The Unspoiled Knossos…’  It’s a lot of money to go with these people, but it says the site’s on the main coast road… if you really want to take me out for the day…?’

‘Let me look.’ Niko picked up the Kadu flyer and turned it over in his hands.  ‘But you said you’d been to Knossos?’

‘I know… but this palace hasn’t been rebuilt by a crazy Englishman.  It was hard, at Knossos, to get a real sense of the age of the place…’

‘And you don’t want to go to Ierapetra  instead?’

‘Later in the week, maybe? It does sound lovely… could we do Malia Palace first?  Please…?  Come on, Niko!  I’ll pack us a picnic?’

He shrugged, giving in. ‘Yes.  If you want, tomorrow.’

‘Excellent!’ Ruth exclaimed.  ‘I’ve still got the bus timetable I picked up in Iraklion… will around eight be too early for you? Oh, wait, the site doesn’t open until ten, so…’

Niko let Ruth make the plans, happy to go along with her obvious delight in the trip.  Presently, however, he judged the topic worn out, and he gave her shoulder a little nudge with his arm.

‘How is the writing today?’ he asked.  ‘You seemed to be working very hard!’

‘It’s going well,’ she said, nodding enthusiastically.  ‘I had this idea about a kerb crawler… he gets more than he bargains for when he picks up a transvestite and drives out into the countryside with her… him…’

Niko shook his head.  ‘My English is good, but not that good…’ he said.  ‘Transvestite I know… Paul O’Grady, Lily Savage, yes?’

‘Pretty much, yes,’ Ruth agreed, and went on to explain what a kerb crawler was. 

Niko looked at her in stunned amazement, and then burst out laughing.  ‘But why would you write about something like that here?’ he asked, waving towards the hillside.

She took his point; it was a beautiful spot.  The road climbed from the little holiday complex up into the hills where two or three old villages lay, their houses scattered like white Lego bricks against the green and grey of the mountainside behind.  From where she sat, Ruth could also look down over the town’s picturesque urban sprawl to the great sweep of the bay and the multiblue hues of the Aegean.  She shrugged.

‘People are generally the same wherever you go,’ she said. ‘It just came to me.  Maybe I’ll get more appropriate inspiration tomorrow.’

‘Of course.  And have you finished your writing now?’

Much though she wanted to just shut the laptop and follow Niko wherever he wanted to lead her, Ruth forced herself to shake her head.  ‘I’ve another half hour or so before I get to the point where I can email it to my editor and finish for the day.’

‘All right.  I’ll go over to the pool where I can smoke.  Come get me when you’re done.’

Ruth smiled and nodded and turned her attention to her laptop again, trying to appear focussed and in the zone.  Almost, she was tempted to turn the short story into a novella, just to prove to Niko she didn’t care about spending all her time with him.  No, she admitted.  To prove to herself.

Briefly she wondered how long it would take him to get bored with her…  Probably not quite as long as it would take her to get bored with him, but then, she was a person who found so many things interesting…

Over by the pool, Niko sprawled on a sun lounger like a hen party’s dream date and lit a cigarette.  He waved casually in her direction, and Ruth instantly gave her kerb crawler a twenty-a-day habit and a caramel suntan.

To her surprise, when it was time for her to go home, Niko suggested she stay on.

‘Another week; there’s room…’

‘I’m sorry; I have deadlines and…’

 ‘You can write here and send in the emails…’

She’d sighed and shaken her head.

‘I’m sorry. There are people at home who need me.’

‘But what if I need you?’

She’d smiled, not believing him, and got into her transfer coach.

The English climate came as a spiteful shock; spatteringly cold rain slapping Ruth’s face as she disembarked from her flight.  She was very glad to get into her friend Peg’s warm, waiting car.

‘How was it? Peg asked.

‘Oh, you’d love it!  Wall to wall heat, appalling bathrooms… ‘

‘And did you get to play at Shirley Valentine?’

Ruth smiled broadly.  ‘I did indeed; Niko. He was very pretty and very sweet…’

‘Oh?  Tell me more about Niko?’

Ruth sighed happily.  ‘Half Duracell bunny, half Greek god… ’

‘Ruth!’

‘Oh, he has his faults.  Smokes like a bad barbecue...  Mostly rollups… and the occasional reefer…’

‘Madness!’  Peg laughed, shaking her head.  ‘Utter madness!’

‘Oh, I didn’t indulge; I’m odd enough as it is…’

‘So… really, how was he?  It?  The trip, I mean…’

Ruth laughed, and elaborated on Knossos and Malia Palace but was thinking about Niko as she summarised.  ‘In a word: Astounding!’

‘Sounds amazing…’

Music interrupted, Ruth’s ringtone, her agent calling. 

‘I’m glad it’s you… listen, how about if I emailed you my final draft?  Great!  From Crete..?’

Her grin broadened, imagining his face. 

Shirley Valentine had a lot to answer for.

******************************************

I feel I ought to add a post script, here; many of the Monday stories have been originally written for specific deadlines and word counts.  With this one, one of my readers has just queried the ending; yes - Ruth does, indeed, decide to head back to Crete to see what might happen...

One of my many must-do plans is to take these stories and write them to the length they need to be to really round off properly... but there are so many works-in-progress...

The Monday Story

Good morning.

This Thursday sees the launch party for Writers in the Rafters' third anthology, 'In Sight of Fallen Walls', a collection of work set in or around Kirkstall Abbey and Abbey House Museum in Leeds.  In recognition of this, today's story is my contribution from last year's anthology where we wrote about artwork on display locally.  The painting is Silver Estuary by Christopher Nevinson.

The Sanctuary at Silver Estuary

The sky was a pale, shining blue so bright it looked like polished metal. Where it fell to the sand dunes making hummocks on the horizon, a herd of clouds launched themselves into its dome. The sandscape was beige, dun, gold and peach and undulated softly and calmly around the serpentinian curves of the saltwater reaches of the tidal river. 

Now, at low tide, it spooled like loose blue ribbon in loops and hoops and broad curves at Mesri’s bare feet.

The sun was at her back and her shadow was attenuated with the loose, alien feel of early morning as she turned to look back towards the sanctuary. It stood guard on the promontory, looking safe and comfortable with its warm, red sandstone walls and dark slate roof. The wide windows were blank, dark spaces framed with white shutters and the gardens merely a smudge of green at this distance.

Mesri sighed and tried to hold on to the sense of peace that the house and its setting usually gave her, filling her eyes with its stalwart reassurance before turning her back to it to scan the sands for any signs of activity; he was out there somewhere, she knew; she just had to find him.

Gathering her hems – she wore a simple lavender shift that left her arms bare and fell to just below her knees – she stepped into the nearest stream. It was fresh and brightly cold and it rose over her ankles and up her shins as she waded carefully across and plunged up the bank to stand on the drier sand above and look to the south.

Several more tributaries lying like the silver tresses of a sea goddess sprawled across the sands and there, just climbing up from the crossing of one, the distant, upright shape of a man moving at some speed and she made her way towards him to hasten their meeting.

She felt a smile grow on her face as she took in the sight of him. He was running, his long limbs moving freely and smoothly as he paced the sand, no trace there now of the injuries which had brought him into her care, at least not where you could see. Outwardly, he was toned and lithe and whole again, golden in the sun, his dark hair bouncing as he ran.

Seeing her, he slowed his pace and waved a greeting.

‘Mesri! Another lovely morning – is the weather always so fair here?’ he asked as he came up to her.

‘Hardly,’ she said, falling into step beside him as they headed back towards the sanctuary.  ‘In the winter, we get very wild tides.  The storms are spectacular, but the downside is that we can get cut off for weeks at a time.’

‘I wouldn’t mind that,’ he said.  ‘Being stranded here. With you.’

‘Jared, there’s been word,’ she said abruptly, not at all how she’d intended to tell him.

‘What?’ He stopped and put his hands on her shoulders, making her face him.  ‘When? It doesn’t matter, I’m not going back, Mesri, I can’t. You’ve no idea what it was like, what they had me do…’

She looked up into his deep, dark eyes.

‘I’ll back you to the hilts, whatever you want,’ she said.

‘Why can’t they just leave me alone?’ he said sharply.

‘They will, after tomorrow.’

She lifted his hands off her shoulders, linked arms with him and started again towards the sanctuary.

‘Is that how long we have?’ he asked slowly.

‘They’ll come on the evening tide.’ She dropped his arm and held out a hand to him.  ‘Come on. We’ve been out in the sun long enough. Let’s go inside.’

The sanctuary was spacious and cool and built on one storey. It was roughly divided into three areas.  Mesri’s personal living quarters were at one end, while a self-contained apartment for visitors was at the other. In between, a large kitchen and communal area, a treatment room and an exercise room made up the central space and ensured some degree of privacy for both of them.

The truth was, though, that they had become used to spending most of the day together; Mesri was quiet, self-contained, allowing the conversation to largely be driven by what Jared felt like talking about. There were long periods of silence between them, but these silences never felt awkward, a space to be filled with mindless chatter; rather they were important pauses in the flow of the days, chances to reflect and be at peace.

Later, Mesri woke alone in the pre-dawn half-light.  A noise in the corridor alerted her to Jared’s whereabouts and she slipped into a cotton wrap before going in search of him.

As she’d feared, he’d found his way to the treatment room and was about to open the door. He jumped at the sight of her, looking guilty and fierce at the same time, making her smile sadly.

‘It’s not good for you, you know,’ she said. ‘To keep looking.’

‘I’ve got to,’ he said.

Inside the room, large and forbidding in the tawny-grey halflight and humming softly, mechanically, was a bed covered by a transparent dome. Jared shook his head as he looked down at the shape within.

‘I still can’t really believe that’s me,’ he said.

‘It’s just your flesh,’ Mesri said. ‘A bit like looking at your clothes, really.’

‘No, not really. ‘

‘The fleshercouch has finished now; your body’s healed. You can reintegrate whenever you’re ready.’

‘I’m not, though.’ He turned to look at her. ‘I don’t know how it happened, just that knife flashing and slicing and then blood and pain and I was shaking and shaking and…’

He broke off; he’d never spoken of it before and he was afraid to carry on in case he said too much and made her hate him.

‘Flesh and spirit have a natural pull towards each other,’ Mesri said. ‘It takes a lot to sunder them. Extreme physical and emotional distress is usually the cause.’

‘When they send us out,’ he went on. ‘We have these other memories planted in us; it’s so we can fit in better. And it makes you feel it’s not you doing these things, it’s like you’re sleepwalking.  And after, they deprogramme you and you forget it all. Except I haven’t forgotten. That’s why I can’t go back. What they wanted me to do.’

Mesri laid a gentle hand on his arm.

‘The fleshercouch can’t keep your body alive indefinitely,’ she said. ‘Unless you reintegrate, it will fail.’ She shrugged. ‘This is what not-going-back might look like.’

He swallowed.  Looking into the dome always made him feel he was looking at a corpse, like looking at his future.

‘He’s a fair man, my Director,’ he said, turning the subject. ‘When he gets the chance to be.’

‘Mine growls,’ Mesri said with a small smile.  ‘If anyone from outside tries to tell him what to do.  Even if they try to tell me, for that matter.  I actually sort of like him.’

‘What happens? When they get here?’

‘The Sanctuary Director will switch the fleshercouch off with your Director as a witness; your flesh will fail a few hours later, so I expect they’ll try to convince you to reintegrate. But they’ll only be able to interact with the physical part of you. They’re not like me, they’re so anchored to the physical world that they’ve lost touch with the metaphysical.’ She smiled at him. ‘And that’s why you don’t need to worry; they really can’t make you do anything.’

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘To the others who were like this?’

‘Three reintegrated successfully. Two didn’t try.’

‘Did you mind? Did you care for them?’

‘I cared for all of them,’ she said carefully.  ‘That’s my job. But you’re the only one I’ve ever cared about.’

They squandered the hours walking on the pastel sands, through the bright streams, talking and being silent while the beauty of the day dripped from their fingers like water. Late afternoon, the streams swelling with new seas, the bowl of the estuary filled up with the tide and they went back to the sanctuary so as not to see sails growing larger on the horizon. Mesri changed her dress for a formal gown of dark green with long sleeves, high neck and modest hemline. She felt stifled, constrained.

‘It makes you look too serious,’ Jared told her.

She sighed. ‘This is serious,’ she said.

Mesri’s Director didn’t look serous. He seemed far too young to be in charge of anything, and was a huge, shambling figure of a man with hair that grew out from his head as if it was determined to escape him. He guided Jared’s Director ahead of him up the path from the jetty and winked at Mesri where she waited at the door to greet them.

‘Hullo, girl,’ he said, his usual form of address.  ‘Here’s Director Shae come to see our Jared.’

Mesri nodded a greeting, trying to maintain an air of grave calm.

‘This way, please, Directors,’ she said as she led them to the fleshercouch, but shook her head when invited to stay.

‘Jared says there’s nothing to be done, Director,’ she said calmly. ‘Please excuse me; I can’t bear this part of it.’

She went to sit on the doorstep, her shoulders hunched while she waited. Shae’s voice, raised in a last effort to talk Jared back into his body. Geraint’s gruff tones, rumbling and oddly soothing.

And even though she couldn’t possibly hear the noise of the fleshercouch, she was still convinced she heard it stop and she found tears running freely down her face.

‘Come on, girl,’ Geraint hunkered down beside her. ‘He’s not dead, you know that. He’s just… differently alive.  And he’s still got a few hours to change his mind. Well, then. I’ll be back in a day or so to take care of… things.’ Standing up, the man patted vaguely at her shoulder. ‘We’ll leave you to it. Shae! Come on, man! Well miss the tide if we linger!’

Mesri woke in the early hours of the morning; Jared had left her side and was quietly turning the door handle.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ he said. ‘But something’s changed; it’s all right. I feel all right about things again.  I can reintegrate now.’

‘No, you really can’t,’ she said, and, taking his hand, led him through to the fleshercouch. The dome was retracted and Jared’s body looked more empty than ever and utterly still. ‘You feel better because you’re not tied to the flesh any longer; it’s failed, Jared; if you tried to integrate now you’d just get sucked in and die there.’

‘What’s next, then?’

‘You go on. There’s a place, a refuge for the sundered; there are people who can help you.’

‘How?’

‘It depends.’ She shrugged. ‘The others who didn’t integrate; they seem content.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything before? Do you know how scary it was, just letting go of my life, not knowing what would happen?’

‘There’s an… arrangement. The Directors are worried that if it was common knowledge, then no-one would want to try to reintegrate. They’d lose too many people. So I can only tell once the flesh has failed. It has to be a free choice.’

‘Can I come back?’

Her sad smile was the only answer she gave.

‘Next tide, there’ll be a boat,’ she said. ’You can board it, if you like.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘No; but you will.’

In the morning, Mesri turned her face resolutely from the sea until the estuary had filled up and emptied its waters again. The skies darkened outside and rain prickled against the windows. She threw the doors wide and looked out. The sands were brown and muddy, pocked and pitted with the imprint of the hissing rain, and the ribbons of the sea were sultry pewter coils and she stood and watched the clouds empty themselves until tide came back, bringing with it Geraint’s boat.

His hair temporarily subdued by the rain, he shook himself on the porch like an inconsiderate dog.

‘He’s gone, then?’

She nodded.

‘Well, then. Let’s get sorted.’

While Mesri was busy packing up the few belongings that had been sent with Jared, Geraint removed the body from the fleshercouch to take back for proper disposal.

‘You going to come back for a few days?’ Geraint asked as he took Jared’s effects from Mesri. ‘Worry about you, out here alone so much.’

‘It suits me.’ She shook her head. ‘You never give me time to be alone; you know you’ll be sending me someone else in a day or two.’

‘Well, yes. It’s a bad time just now. Lots of nasty things happening in the world. And nice lads like Jared getting asked to sort it out.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Good thing there’s nice girls like you to help them through it. Better run, the tide won’t wait for me. I’ll send word.’

And she was alone again with the sky like milk and the sand fading back to cream and taupe and the water shining like moonlight ribbons in its meandering inevitability to the sea.

Sunday, Sunday...

It may seem odd, but for me, Sunday is one of the busiest days of the week.  No doubt this is because I don't go out to work and so the nine-to-five pattern doesn't exist for me in the same way it does for other people.

Instead, I work at home.  Although it feels as if I'm still in the cast-your-bread-upon-the-waters stage of my writing career, I treat writing as a job, albeit a part-time one, and aim to spend roughly 20 hours a week writing, editing, researching.  But the flexibility of not having to commute to an office somewhere means I can be plotting while I go to the shops, researching and doing the laundry pretty much at the same time; you can get a lot of stuff done in a ten minute microbreak.

My husband works full time, and visits his father on Saturday mornings with his biweekly shop (I do the midweek one) and brings the laundry back for me to tackle.  So his weekend is half a day shorter than anyone else's and as neither of us drive, everything takes that little bit longer to do.

A lot of the weekend is spent making sure everything is ready for when my beloved breadwinner returns to the fray; there is ironing and bread-making and making sure the cupboard has all the clean laundry required for the week ahead so that, in the dark mornings, he can find things easily - he gets up at stupid o'clock, and in the winter, it's very dark.

I don't do a big Sunday dinner - it's not something my husband needs, although I used to enjoy the ritual of the preparation and cooking. Instead, I do a Sunday tea, of sorts; hot cake and custard.  We try, also, to get out to the reservoir and feed the ducks.  It's also really our only time to do Home Improvements.  Today we are moving an upstairs bookcase to downstairs.  Well, I say we...  I'm documenting the event.

It's November and that means NaNoWriMo and that means almost 2000 words a day and hand failure if I type too much.  I'm a little ahead of schedule at the start of the day with 28K (par for yesterday was 26,667) but it's not going as well as I'd hoped.  My plot isn't gelling, my characters, although I like them, are not doing much out-of-the-ordinary.  It's probably a bit late in the day to scrap it and start again and, besides, it may not be riveting stuff, but I am learning about my inventions and how their view of the world works.  And I've just had an idea that may salvage it...

Don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow with the Monday storytime - in the run up to the launch of Writers in the Rafter's third anthology on Thursday, I'll bring you last years story, 'The Sanctuary at Silver Estuary.'

Enjoy your Sunday.  Hot cake and custard. Mmmmm....

Poet's Corner

Good morning.

The sun is shining outside on a lovely autumn morning and I've almost done my NaNoWriMo word count for the day.  So before I dash off and do something vaguely resembling housework, here are a couple of poems I presented at 100 Poets.

Our programme began with a warm-up and after that, we launched into 'If...', which has been polled as the nations's favourite.  Alternatives were permitted and so I wrote my own version just for the event.  It was quite popular and was picked up and performed by other poets, too, which was very flattering...

If, Revisited…

If you can scan a line when all about you

Are losing verse, and blaming it on you

If you can trust your muse when critics doubt you

(but then decide to change a word, or two…)

If you can rhyme and not be tired of rhyming,

Or being published once, don’t fantasize

Or get rejection slips, and do not mind them

And yet don’t stroke your ego to the skies…

If you make verse and not make verse your master

Use assonance, but not make vowels your aim

If you can write a villanelle or sonnet

But not make those constructions sound the same

If you can bear to hear the words you’ve written

Misquoted so it sounds like breaking rules

Or create consonance so bad it’s broken

And stop, remake it so it sounds quite cool…

If you can Open Mike and stay cold-sober

Quote Homer, Shakespeare, Joyce to name a few

If you can face the blankness of the paper

And cover it with words both fresh and new

If you can fill the unforgiving sonnet

With fourteen lines of florid verse full run

If this 100 Poets has your name on it

Then just make sure you make them scan, old chum…

The next act of the performance was Victory and Defeat, but the poem I want to give you next came from the section after that, 'Get Physical', and I presented two poems, one which I wrote a very long time ago and one I wrote specifically for the event.  In part, it was inspired by the work of Mandy Long, a sculptor whose 'On The Edge' exhibition features ceramic figures in dynamic poses; many of the pieces represent rugby players and Mandy manages to capture the power and grace of these big, strong chaps with eloquence and style. And I wish I had the money to buy a few...

Give Blood – Play Rugby

Animal eyes engage.

Whistled signal and the rush

The dance and slam begins. Throw and catch, run

And run again. Crash

And tackle, smashed bodies

Body armour slabs of muscle, invincible, outside.

Within a feral something stalks

in mud and sweat and blood;

Determination

Not to fall, to be

Less frail.

Slams of exoskeleton.   Meet

And grapple; fingers, hands, reach out and snatch.

Slide.  The ground

Tears like tissue. The ball passed.  Dancer’s grace

And bouncer’s bulk

Meet and meld and reach.

Nosing down, the ball touches

Across the line. The crowd roars,

‘TRY!!!’

Can’t they see, they are?

Poetry is sometimes an acquired taste, so I'll leave it at that for the moment.  I may well pop a couple more into the next post.

Feedback always welcome.

Are You Sitting Comfortably...? Then I'll Begin... Monday's Story...

Good Morning.

After the euphoria of Friday evening's events it's back to the more normal routine again... apart from that little thing called National Novel Writing Month.  Not really sure if it's going well or not; I seem to be writing a different story from the one I set out to, but one of the characters is intriguing me - he's in a bit of bother and I'm interested enough to see how he gets out of it to stick around.

We're also not far off the launch party for Writers in the Rafter's year end anthology, this year  called 'In Sight of Fallen Walls', and being based on Kirkstall Abbey, Abbey House Museum and its environs.

So I'd like to reprise for you the story I had in 'A journey Through Leeds', the first  WITR collection.

Enjoy.

The Ghostwalker

Alexandra took a moment to allow the group to gather together in front of her, supremely aware of the impact of the vista behind the place where she stood.  Church Gardens had formerly been a graveyard attached to Leeds Parish Church opposite, and at her back, bedded into the side of the embankment that rose to support the railway line, the flat slabs of dozens of Victorian gravestones tessellated the slope, ran out around her feet like graffitied paving, the dark lettering in stark relief under the winter night’s streetlamp glare.

‘And so, my friends, as our Leeds Ghostwalk draws to its close, I will leave you with one last thought.  Behind me, you see the gravestones of those whose eternal rest was rudely interrupted by the building of the railway; although the stones have been retained, they no longer cover the bodies for which they were intended.  Rumour has it, that these souls no longer sleep quietly, that they wander, looking to find where their markers have gone…’

She paused, allowing a silence to drop between herself and her audience before she spoke again.

‘But as you leave for home, remember this; no matter how terrible the stories you’ve heard tonight, bear always in mind: it’s not the dead we need to fear, but the living. Goodnight and have a safe journey home.’

Inclining her head towards them, a gesture of finality and dismissal, she walked swiftly away and turned abruptly into Church Lane where she ducked into the shadow cast by the arch of the viaduct; someone always lingered afterwards, a local historian or a ghost hunter wanting to cross examine her about the stories and stepping out of sight for a few minutes was the easiest way of avoiding them.

After a suitable time had passed, she emerged from her lurking place.

‘I was beginning to wonder if anything had happened to you in there,’ a voice accosted her.  She whipped her head round and halted, stifling a sigh. Hiding didn’t always work, and now she would have to take a moment to listen; until she got to the office and handed in the tally of the night’s customers, she was officially still working.

The owner of the voice was propped against the low wall of the gardens, eyeing her with a friendly smile.  His long legs were crossed neatly at the ankle and he wore a dark pea jacket with a scarf at his throat.  In the streetlight, his face had a sharp, carved look and his hair glinted pale.  He looked clean and respectable, unlike most of the eccentrics who usually lay in wait.

She smiled, aiming for friendly-but-professional.

‘Was there something you wanted to know about the walk?’ she asked. 

‘It was very… entertaining,’ he said, his mouth working around a smile of his own.  ‘But they know, you know.  When you’re making it up.  They’re not stupid.’

‘Well,’ she began, her voice falling back into crisp, professional tones. ‘We do try to check all the stories before including them.  But absolute evidence is difficult to come by, and so the best we can hope for is to provide an informative glimpse into the mysteries of the city’s past.  Certainly, people do comment afterwards from time to time, but…’

He shook his head.  ‘I meant the ghosts,’ he said.  ‘And while we’re on the subject, you mentioned the Grey Lady who haunts the Palace, over there?’  He nodded his head in the direction of the pub. ‘And you added that it’s been said she could even be the ghost of a man in drag… have you stopped to think about her feelings? Isn’t it bad enough to be stuck here, haunting, without being insulted by a… a tour guide?’

Bewildered, Alex shook her head numbly.

He shrugged.  ‘Well, don’t worry about that now.  Although I was wondering why you didn’t include Tottery Annie?  Or Cornelius Prendergast, crushed to death in a mudslide when the viaduct was built? Not a mark on him when he was dug out, but every one of his ribs had smashed down into his flesh and a look of such peace on his face…  Or Bilious Bill the Butcher of Black Bull Street, choked to death on a chunk of his own black pudding?’

She shook her head again, but this time had an answer ready.

‘Unfortunately, although there are lots of really interesting ghost stories, some of the locations are a little out of the way; it’s a ghostwalk, not a ghost route march, and Black Bull Street’s a good walk, even from here…’

‘Ah, but you could combine it with Jenny White’s Steps…’

‘We could, but there’s never been any suggestion that Jenny actually haunts…’

‘You’ve heard of her, though?  I’m impressed…’

‘Poor Jenny is said to have committed suicide by throwing herself down some steps into the river after ‘finding marriage vows as false as dicer’s oaths’…

‘Tottery Annie, though,’ he said.  ‘Surely you’ve heard of her? No?  Met her end in Pitfall Street…’

Pushing himself away from the wall, he strode off along The Calls, turning his head to call over his shoulder to her.  ‘It’s not far.’

Shaking her head at his back, she began to follow.

‘It had better not be,’ she said, catching him up.

He led the way along the street, past the tired white façade of Atkinson’s Builders’ Merchants, past the mock-old brickwork of Chancellor’s Court, past the New Penny pub. At the corner of the refurbished buildings that made up Riverside Court he stopped.

‘There was a water mill along here, pumping water up to Briggate and supplying electricity in the process; Tottery Annie would have known it as she worked Call Lane and Kirkgate, in and out of the yards…’

‘Was she a hawker, then?’

He gave a twisted smile.  ‘In a fashion.  She only had one thing to sell, though.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. ‘Or, rather, rent, I suppose… It was hard, then, if you weren’t wealthy or healthy. And Annie had one leg shorter than the other, result of a fall when she was younger.  She was lucky, really – you could die of a broken leg, those days.’

‘And that’s why they called her Tottery Annie?’

‘That, and the fact that she liked a sip of gin to keep out the cold. Step back a minute…’

‘Why?’ she asked as she tucked herself into a corner of shadow beside him.

‘Wait,’ he said softly.  ‘Just watch, now. Look. Towards Call Lane, at the side of the viaduct…’

            Something in his voice sent a shiver running through her and it was almost with a sense of dread that she peered out to see.

‘Oh, my… look! There’s… Is that..?’ A chill gripped her as she peered through the dimness under the railway bridge where a small woman was wandering unevenly along.  There was a wide brimmed bonnet, a long dark dress with a shawl over.  The figure was humming or mumbling under her breath and progressed in a series of slow lurches.

In her shock, Alex had grabbed hold of her companion’s arm and now he pulled her gently back even further.

‘Best not disturb her just yet.  She’s not done.’

‘Not..? You mean that’s..?’

‘Hush.  Wait.’

Unsteadily the woman approached, went past. Alex caught a glimpse of straggling hair, the glint of an eye, and she was gone.  Peering out, Alex saw her weave her way round the corner on the left.

‘Pitfall Street,’ her companion said, his voice fraught with tension.  ‘Quickly, now.’

Questions thronging her, Alex followed him along to the corner. Pitfall Street ran steeply down to the river and Tottery Annie was hurrying unsteadily down the slope, keeping up a low monologue as she went, as if her feet were carrying her away.

‘What can we do?’ Alex whispered. ‘It is her, isn’t it? Can we stop her?’

‘Yes, that’s Annie.’ He ghosted a sigh. ‘But we can’t help; we can only witness.’

To Alexandra’s horror, Tottery Annie came up hard against the railing that was all that separated her from the river below with a squawk and a gasp; for a moment she stayed there, hand across her chest as she caught her breath.

Then she spoke, her voice suspicious, anxious.

‘Who’s there? Billy, was that you?’

‘Can she see us?’ Alex asked.

‘Hush.  No; she’s talking to someone else… Billy doesn’t haunt, that’s why we don’t see him as well.’

‘Billy, what..? No, Billy, don’t be daft…’

Annie’s voice trailed off into a shriek and Alex watched with despair as the little woman bent backwards over the railing, teetering for a long moment before she pivoted over and down.  There was a soft, distant splash.

As if released from paralysis, Alex rushed forward down Pitfall Street to peer over the railings. A shore of dark, empty mud sloped down into the glinting black River Aire.

‘She’s not there, she’s gone, Annie’s gone…!’

‘Of course she’s gone,’ her companion said, his voice soft in her ear.  ‘Every night she relives her fall, and then she’s free. Until the next night.’

‘But I heard a splash! But the river’s low here, she couldn’t have drowned…’

‘The levels were different then.  But she didn’t drown, not at first, anyway; the water was too shallow for that. Instead, she broke her neck when she fell, and eventually, when the water mill discharged, it washed her free and she drifted into the central channel where the water soaked into her skirts and dragged her slowly down…’

            Alex shuddered.  ‘That’s horrible!’ she protested.

‘You tell ghost stories for a living and it never occurred to you how awful these stories are until now?’

‘Well, I…’ She faltered.  ‘I suppose I thought of them as just that; only stories.  I don’t - didn’t even believe half of what I… ’

He gave her an odd look and set off back along The Calls; she followed, feeling in some odd way that she ought to apologise, that she’d let him down, somehow, and as she followed him, she thought again about all the ghosts that featured in her walks; the pianist in the City Varieties Theatre, the Bond Street Centre cobbler, said to resemble David Bowie… the unfortunate, man-faced Grey Lady of the Palace public house.

‘Wait.’ She laid a hand on his arm.  ‘It’s just… I’ve never seen a ghost before.  Three years I’ve been doing this and poor Tottery Annie’s my first.’

He gave her a long stare. 

‘Not quite the first,’ he said softly, and strode off again, turning when he got to the wall where she’d first seen him. ‘Has it occurred to you to wonder why this is the first time?’

‘I…’

Gently he took her arm and led her into the darkness of the Church Lane archway. Ahead, to the side of the fire escape attached to the building on the left, a pool of dark liquid was spreading out from a sprawled, coat-covered shape caught underneath a crushed and twisted car. A small huddle of people were shivering and talking in stunned half sentences, trying to give information to a uniformed figure. Snatches of words drifted over to her.

‘…straight down, caught on the metal bollard… flipped over, somehow, and she was under…’

‘Driver just took off…’

‘I know her, it’s the Ghostwalk woman; we only just left her…’

Alex turned horrified eyes on her companion.

‘That’s not…?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice quiet with compassion.  ‘But don’t worry. You never knew what hit you.’

***

Close Encounter of the Kiwi Kind...

Sometimes you have one of those months, or weeks, or days, when everything you've been working towards comes to fruition all at once, and it feels as if something magical has happened.

8th November. This was mine.

An interview with BBC Five Live talking about poetry and rugby and being given the opportunity to debut a new poem on air (airing at five minutes before the end of 'Up All Night' with Dotun Adebayo; publication of a short story on the Facebook page of  'Let's Get Crafting Knit & Crochet' magazine (LGC Knit&Crochet, if you're interested in reading it) which had many, many likes and some very kind comments, and a brief, great, review in the magazine, too.

But the highlight of the day was 100 Poets.

I've mentioned this previously; a poetry installation at the Carnegie Stadium ahead of the Rugby League World Cup match between New Zealand Kiwis and Papua, New Guinea Kumuls.

We gathered in a warm room set aside for our briefing. We rehearsed, chatted, ate cake. And then someone said that the NZ squad were walking towards our building and did anyone have a rugby poem to read to them?

Now, deep at heart, I'm a shy person, although most of the folk I tell this too tend to burst out laughing; I don't come across as shy, I don't look it.  I'm just very, very good at pretending.  But while I may not have confidence in myself, I do have confidence in my writing skills and, having been told independently that my poem 'Give Blood - Play Rugby' was okay, and given that I was about to read out to hundreds of spectators, and given that I knew I would never, ever, have this chance again, I grabbed my poem and ran.

The whole squad, shepherded by coaches and officials, was stalking towards me down the double row of pillars making up the Western Terrace.  They were dark, brooding, their gamefaces stern.  And they were ripped.

I drank them in, delighted, soaking up the spectacle; Sonny Boy Williams leading, flanked by the rest. I walked towards them.

'Gentlemen, I have a poem for you...'

And they all looked at me as I began to read.

Further along the terrace, others from 100 Poets were gathered. They may have been reading their own works; I didn't know; I was too far away, too in the moment.  The timing was perfect; my last line coincided with the last man passing. I took a breath, ducked behind the pillar, and gave a very girly squeal.

I feel obliged to add that, although they looked at me, they looked at me as if I was an alien with two heads. A  mad English lady of uncertain age, probably dangerously stalky.
A madwoman with a poem.
And more than half of them were wearing headphones, so I doubt they heard what I was saying.

But that's what being a poet is; believing that the important things is to say the words you have to say, and not care if nobody hears.

After that, the performance to the arriving spectators was a breeze.  I loved every minute; I had one man stop and listen to all of the poem and thank me. Others listened just for a few seconds.  But we were there, adding to the atmosphere, being a part of it.  100 Poets, the Kiwis, and me.

Yeah.

BBC Radio 5 Live interview; photograph from rehearsal for 100 Poets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMZ-lfZr1X8&feature=youtu.be

100 Poets... Three Days to Go!

Last night was rehearsal for Friday's 100 Poets event at the Carnegie Stadium.  We're assembling near the pillars at the Western Terrace where we will be reading poetry to the arriving spectators.

This may come as a bit of a surprise to them.

What I didn't realise was that we were going to be actually INSIDE the grounds...
Our rehearsal was blessed with a visit from a photographer from Leeds City Council, which was unexpected. More unexpected was that said photographer was a friend of my husband's.

It was a great night, though, and the experience of reading aloud en mass really quite empowering; I've definitely discovered my Inner Performer.

My reworking of the French National Anthem (see post below) went down well. especially the line where it says that France makes England look good...'

Saw a fox foraging in the grounds and had a long wait for the bus, but finally got home to find a cup of tea waiting.

A Story for Monday...

Good morning!

National Novel Writing Month began on Friday and I'm already 5000 words in. At this stage, however, I'm not liking what I've written; it seems self-indulgent and as yet I can't see how it's going to add to the plot.  It's early days, though, and I've discarded NaNo beginnings in the past and started again.

However, I do have other things on my list of Writing to Do.  I have three poems written for 100 Poets on Friday, and two more to write.  Tonight is the rehearsal, so the more I have ready for then, the better.

And tomorrow is Guy Fawkes' night, when we celebrate the fact that a terrorist act failed; that we celebrate with fire and explosions has a certain irony, perhaps.

So with a nod towards tomorrow's celebrations, today's story is a largely autobiographical account of Bonfire Night when I was a very small child.  Some names have been changed, some events have had the order slightly realigned, but mostly it's factual, a memory from long ago...


BONFIREWORKS

You’re four, or you might be five; it’s hard to remember everything.  But you’re little, and it’s getting dark and you’re getting excited. It’s Bonfireworks tonight.

In the kitchen it’s bright and warm and full of Mum. Mum is very, very big, twice as tall as you.  But then, all the other grownups are big, too; Dad, his long bony legs crossed one over the other as he reads his newspaper in the sitting room; AlananJohn, your two very big big brothers (they are sixteen and fourteen and so almost proper grownups now), who are presently trying to get in the kitchen with Mum asking for when tea is ready.  You go and stand by the door to the yard, where there’s a bit of room. There’s also gusts of creepy cold air because the door doesn’t fit properly and you can almost feel the dark coming at you with the draught.

‘Gilly, you go in now,’ Mum says. ‘Tell Daddy it’s tea time soon.’

After tea, which is chips and sausages, AlananJohn get their coats,

‘Tarra, Mam,’ they say. ‘Tarra.’

‘You be careful! Watch out for them boys from Landsdowne Road, you know what they’re like.  No fighting!’

‘Ar, hey, Mam!’ John grumbles.  They don’t really do fighting, you know that, it’s just playing, but Mum tells always them off for it, just in case.

And they go, out of the back door and it clunks against its frame, pushing a huff of cold, dark air into the house.

Time goes slowly and slowly. You’re waiting for Dad, but Dad is reading the paper again.  You look at Mum, who has folded her hands across her tummy as she sits, smoking a sigret in the chair. After another forever, Mum finishes the smoke and heaves herself up out of her seat.

‘Go and find your welly boots,’ she tells you.  ‘It might be muddy.’

You’re glad to be getting ready to go out, so you’re not as scared of the big, dark hall as you normally are; you’re too little to reach the lights and, anyway, ‘Lectrics are not for little fingers,’ Mum always says. You find your wellies and stuff your feet into them to save time.

Mum has your coat waiting and your mittens-on-a-string threaded through the arms for you.

‘This one tonight,’ she says.  ‘Someone might put a firework in the hood of your duffle coat. So you’ll need your hat instead.’

Mum thinks of things like this all the time.  You wonder why someone would want to put a firework in your hood, but Mum never says.  Sometimes it feels like everyone would be wanting to take you off to feed sweets to puppies (or something like that) or put fireworks in your hood or… it’s no wonder you feel so scared of things.

She is buttoning and tucking in and tying your scarf; she smothers your hair with the knitted hat she made for you.  It itches. By the time you are finally ready, Dad has got his cap and his scarf on and is fidgeting with a torch.

‘Batteries are going,’ he says, glum.  ‘Well, come on, Gilly.’

He reaches down his big, bony hand and you reach your mittened fingers up to him, stretching your arm.  The back door sticks.

‘Jack, that door’s getting worse; you really need to sort it out…’

But you’re out of the house now, going down the dark, sloping yard towards the back gate. Dad lets go of you and gives you the torch to hold.

‘Shine it on the bolt for me,’ he says, and you try to. The torch wobbles a bit, but Dad isn’t cross about it.  The back door opens and you both step out onto the cobbles of the entry.  Over the little, narrow street and there’s another entry; behind it is the long concrete lane that runs along beside the railings of the Top Rec where the swings are, to the end of the railings and the start of the Bottom Rec, which is where the boys from school come to do football and which is now full of fire and smells.

It’s an incredible sight.  You don’t have words to express your sense of wonder, but you look and look, and look, filling your eyes up with the colours while your ears explode with the sounds and your nose wrinkles at the taste of smoke and burned-up chemicals from the spent fireworks that hangs thickly in the air.

At least a dozen bonfires punctuate the flat, open landscape.  They are of differing heights, from low, humpy mounds made by other Dads for other children, to the huge, pointy mountain of wood that takes pride of place in the middle of the playing field, the joint effort of the Landsdowne Road boys, the brothers and friends of the Cavanaghs and the Murphys who live, all squashed up, five and six siblings each, in two three-bed corporation terraces opposite each other.  This mountain hasn’t been lit yet, and two of the Murphy boys are on patrol around it, making sure no-one sets it alight before they’re ready, or pinches any of the wood for their own bonfire.

Dad leads you around it, although he stops at one point to kick at something big and flat on the ground, thoughtfully.  Once you’ve gone past, the field opens out and you get a good view of the little family groups everywhere lighting their fireworks; there are reds and blues and vertical rushes of rockets, opening out into bursts of bright stars; there are bangs and flashes of green and the acrid, actinic smell of gunpowder; and near here, not far from the slope up to the top Rec is where AlananJohn have built their bonny, and there they are, waiting for you and Dad. It’s been lit, and is smoking hopefully, the flame catching on one side more than the other, but still, it’s there, orange crackly dancy flames singing to you, it seems, and their brightness is warm on your cold face, even if the smoke makes you cough.

‘Awrice, Dad,’ John says.  Dad nods at him.

‘Watch her a minute, will you? Al, you’re mates with Micky the Bricky’s lad Joey, yeah?’

‘Yeah…’

‘Come with us. He’s gorra door to burn.’

Dad and Alan go off towards the Landsdowne Roaders’ bonfire and John steers me towards our own little bonny, still flickering a bit, but burning better now.  There is a guy on top, he’s made out of one of John’s old jumpers that was too raggy to pull down and knit up into a new one, and he’s stuffed with newspaper. His face is a mask drawn on paper and coloured in by you yesterday, when it was rainy. But it doesn’t look like just paper and old jumpers now, it looks like a real person and he looks at you sadly and you look back at him and feel sorry that you ever made him, just so he could burn. You hope he will forgive you.

John looks up at a shout from Dad and takes you by the hand.

‘Come ‘ead. Cahn’t leave you ‘ere by yourself,  you know.’

‘Joey’s lettin’ us swap their door for ours,’ Dad says.’ Alan and I’ll carry it back, you can mind her a bit?’

John nods. He never seems to mind when he’s left to look after you. You like him, because he’s rude, sometimes, and it’s funny. He makes you laugh a lot.

Dad and Alan are gone ages, and you’re almost bored of bonfires when Dad comes back.  There have been fireworks going off all around, but they belong to other people and you’re scared of trying to see too much in case you get told off, or in case someone tries to put a firework in your hood and when they see you haven’t got a hood, they might try to put it in your pocket instead.  But Dad does come back, eventually, and takes your hand again and you trundle home through the dark, smelly night, and Dad has a cup of tea and it seems to take ages to get your coat and wellies off, and then it’s almost time to put them back on again.  And you have to look at The Door, too.

The Door.  It fills the gap between the kitchen and the yard completely, much better than the old one did.  The old one had a bar that you had to fit across it into holders on the wall both sides.  This door is a dark bluey green colour, it is made of planks that go from top to bottom with diagonal cross pieces and a sturdy middle bit with a place for a lock.  The bolt from the old door has been fitted to the new one at the top.

‘That looks better,’ Mum says approvingly.  ‘All it needs is a lock and it’ll be just like a proper one.’

And then AlanandJohn come back and you all go out to the side of the house to let off your fireworks.  You’re allowed to let fireworks off in the street, John tells you, but only on Bonfirenight or you might get arrested.

And they go up, up into the sky with a Scree! and a Whee! and a Whoosh! and the colours are bright and flashy and not scary at all, not here, under the street light and without the dark of the Rec and all the bonfire flames.  You get a sparkler to hold and you draw in the air with it and it looks like writing as it leaves a trail behind, hanging, in the air. But soon the last one has fizzled out and the firework tin is empty and you go inside for hot milk and it’s bedtime.

And as you lie in your cold bed, snuggling around your hot water bottle and waiting to warm up, you listen to the screech and scream and thunder of the big boys’ fireworks late into the night and you know it’s over for another year.  But that’s all right, because you noticed, tonight, the smell of the night air all cold and now Bonfireworks are over, the next thing on your childhood calendar is only a breath away, it seems, and you go to sleep at last and dream of Christmas.

First written November 2011