Rupert Davies-Cooke, of the Original Writers Group, interviewed me about writing in August 2013.
Scribe Doll
Three Women in the Kitchen
Three women in a South-West London kitchen, on a scorching summer afternoon. The only cool room in the house. Only the red setting sun peers through these windows.
Three women in a South-West London kitchen. One, in the early Spring of her life; the other two in the late Summer of theirs. The first, a fragrant English rose; the second, a translucent shell from the China Seas; the third, a colour-changing orpiment from the Caucasus Mountains.
Three women in a South-West London kitchen, bound together by their different femininities. Laughing, telling stories, counselling, preparing food. A man steps into the kitchen, for a glass of water from the running tap. An honest man, who has nothing to fear from these women, who see him as the brother with whom they share a roof. He shies away from the blaze of this impromptu coven. “Come and join us,” says one. “Pull up a chair,” says another. Yet he retreats, on tip-toe, followed by a chorus of shrill giggles.
“I’ll make Turkish coffee,” says the Caucasus woman, hazel eyes full of tricks. “My grandmother taught me to read fortunes in the cup.”
Limpid blue eyes look up at her with youthful expectation, then she meets the stern gaze of her peer in years. Almond-shaped, jet eyes that say, you should know better than to fill the child’s head with nonsense. The woman from the China Seas stands by the sink, chopping vegetables on a heavy, wooden board. Vermillion peppers, ivory potatoes, emerald spinach and glistening white onions. She takes no part in these childish games. She is the mistress of the house, and a wife.
The copper pot with the long, wooden handle is placed upon the stove. It whispers, hisses, and finally gurgles. The froth slowly curls up from the edges of the pot, and rushes to the middle, like sea foam to the shore. Bubbles brown as earth rise up, boiling. The air is filled with the rich aroma of coffee. “Quick! Get the cups!” the older woman tells the young one, then pours the earthy liquid into the small, porcelain cups, whilst the woman from the China Seas looks on, her steel knife a steady rhythm against the wooden board. Her sisters, seated at the table, purse their lips and blow on their cups, to cool to coffee.
“A tale my grandmother used to tell,” says the woman from the Caucasus. “Three sisters once sat in their kitchen, sewing a tablecloth. The first said, ‘If the King would marry me, I would embroider for him the most beautiful shirt the world has ever seen.‘
‘If the King would marry me,‘ said her sister, ‘I would bake for him the finest bread the world has ever seen.’
‘If the King would marry me,‘ said the third, ‘I would give him an heir – the strongest and handsomest knight the world has ever seen.‘
Unbeknown to the three sisters, the King was riding past their window, and had stopped to listen…”
The English rose and the shell from the China Seas listen, as the Caucasus woman tells the story, then picks coffee grains from her lip with the tip of her tongue. “Now turn your cup upside down on the saucer,” she says. “Like this.” Playful, entertaining her young companion. “I am scared,” says the latter. “What will you see in my cup?” she says, blue eyes clouded with hesitation.
The Caucasus woman avoids the challenging gaze of her peer. “Only good things,” she reassures. “Only the road that lies ahead of you, should you face the direction you’re facing today. Turn away, and a different road lies ahead of you.”
They wait, as the earthy liquid spreads down the sides of the cup, leaving swirls and patterns. The young woman is impatient. “Is it ready, yet?”
The cups are turned up, again. The woman by the sink puts down her knife, and watches, her curiosity attracted. Cups are turned, angled and held up to the light. Patterns emerge. A tall tree bearing fruit, and a song bird spreading its wings. “Freedom,” says the English rose.
“Then be it so,” replies her companion.
A man and a woman, linking arms. A child holding the woman’s other hand. The young woman giggles, the bloom on her cheeks deepens. “A child may represent a fruitful venture,” warns her friend. “Something new and wonderful.”
“Let’s see yours, now,” says the English rose, eager for the game to continue.
It has been a long time since the Caucasus woman has read her coffee cup. A long time since she has known hope. But she knows she cannot allow her hopelessness to taint the excitement in the bright blue eyes that are staring at her. She angles her cup to the light from the window.
A figure standing at the foot of a tall, steep mountain, with sharp, jagged edges. On the peak, the firebird. The prize, if the figure can reach the top, and claim it. A figure sitting at a desk, writing on a scroll. A man next to her. “Angle the cup,” entreats the young woman. The man and woman stretch out their arms to receive something. The English rose claps her hands. “It is, isn’t it? That’s what it looks like,” she says. The woman from the China Seas smiles. The Caucasus woman stares. Then she stands up, picks the cups and saucers from the table, and washes them in the sink.
She cannot tell her sisters what she has really seen in her cup, for she does not dare believe it. She turns her back to them, smiles to herself, and feels her heart quicken in her breast.
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged fairy tales, fortune telling, katherine gregor, magic, scribe doll, women, writing
10 Comments
Sunday at the Globe
Focussing my thoughts is proving impossible, this weekend. Like trying to corral cats. They dart across the room, bounce off the walls, whizz past me before I can catch them, hover before my eyes, teasing, then spiral upwards at vertiginous speed. They nose-dive buzzing into my ear as I am trying to sleep. As I open the fridge door, trying to work out what to eat, they snatch any concrete cooking plan I come up with, and slalom out of the kitchen, out of my reach, at supersonic speed. I slam the fridge door shut, all motivation to prepare food gone.
I consider going to the last service of the Legal Year at the Temple Church, this morning. The perfection of the choral singing always quiets my brain chatter. Today, though, I know my thoughts will be swinging off the organ loft, knocking the choristers’ music scores off the pews, and pulling faces at all the barristers.
I remember I have arranged to have coffee with my friend B. at the usual café near St Paul’s. It’s been B.’s role in our fourteen year-old friendship gently to lure the spooked cat my brain often turns into, down from the tree it runs up, with a saucer full of perspective. I grab my writing notepad, the large tome of The Alexandria Quartet, which I am reading at the moment, shove everything into a rucksack, and run out of the house. My attempt to save time by avoiding the – let’s call it leisurely paced – District Line backfires. I end up taking three different Tube lines. I lose patience with commuters who promenade down the long, Underground corridors. Do people have to walk hand in hand all the time, and block the way?
B. wants to try queuing for returns at the Globe, for Macbeth. I pounce on the prospect of some distraction. “Oh, can I come with you?” I say. That is exactly what I need. Some open-air Shakespeare. I can watch the show, while my thoughts go and play with the Weird Sisters and Greymalkin.
I first tried reading Macbeth on a stormy night, when I was about twelve. I had to check every few words in the dictionary. I think I must have managed the first couple of pages before finally going to sleep – but the sense of mystery, magic and thrill of those powerful words has remained with me to this day.
With only half an hour to go before the show starts, chances of returns are small. Still, the sun is shining, so we rush over Millennium Bridge, and join the queue. We strike lucky. Ten minutes before the show starts, two Groundling tickets. That means standing – something I promised myself, several years ago, I would never do again. However, the theatre atmosphere has just sprinkled a sense of fun and adventure on my head, and I’m game to stand for three hours.
I am in no way nationalistic, but I find something very special, mellifluous and bewitching in the voice of a British stage actor. It is limpid and brilliant, like finely cut crystal. The show starts with a blood-stirring beating of drums and a complaint of bagpipes. Scottish music always tugs at something deep inside me. Words, beautiful words fly across the playhouse. Words rich in meaning and sound. Words that caress the ear and are a feast for the mind. Shakespeare. Did he really write all those extraordinary plays? Or was it the School of Night? My speculations are interrupted. There is a little boy standing in front of us. Suddenly, he faints. B. catches him and, supporting his fall, gently lowers him to the ground, as the First Aiders appear out of nowhere. Within a few minutes, the little boy is smiling, his eyes squinting in the sunlight. I remember fainting a couple of times, when I was eighteen.
During the interval, we go and sit on the steps outside the Globe. I start munching my sandwich, when cold drops of water start falling on my neck and shoulders. They quickly grow harder and more frequent. Then, the skies rip open. “Do you want to go back in?” asks B., casually, but I am already sprinting up the steps, ahead of him, to find shelter, swearing at the BBC weather forecast for not mentioning the possibility of rain. The timing, though, is choreographed to perfection. The rain stops exactly at the end of the show interval, and we go back in. I am feeling a little drowsy. Perhaps I have eaten my sandwich too quickly. I suddenly feel tired. The sun pounds at my eyes, and I wonder where I have put my sunglasses, then realise B. has them in his breast pocket. I am not in the habit of getting my friends to carry my things, but I must have got distracted, and he must have picked them up to keep them safe. Lady Macbeth comes in for her madness scene. Suddenly, her voice grows distant, and her face dark and blurred. In fact, the entire stage is suddenly drowning in dark splodges. The sudden realisation that I am about to slide down to the ground brings me just enough presence of mind to make a conscious effort to keep myself upright. No. I am not going to faint. I don’t want to faint. I whisper to B. that I am popping out, somehow float out of the theatre gates, and manage to sit myself on the bench just outside. For a moment, I am afraid I am about to slide off the seat. No. I don’t want to faint. I am not going to faint. After about ten minutes, I am once again feeling solid enough to go back in, and watch the final battle between Macbeth and Macduff. By the time I pick up my thoughts from the Weird Sisters, they are all tired out, and follow after me willy-nilly, dragging their feet, yawning. On the way home, I resort to the undergraduate dinner solution – a take away. No cooking, no washing up. Yippee. As I eat, my eyelids feel increasingly heavy. My thoughts have dozed off, sprawled on the floor, curled up on my table, and lying across my laptop keyboard. I pick them up gently, one by one, and arrange them so they are more comfortable but taking care not to rouse them again. They do not look so intimidating now. With any luck, they will behave, tomorrow. In the meantime, I see the moon rising behind the oak tree outside my window. Time to sleep, she says.
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged globe theatre, katherine gregor, macbeth, musings, scribe doll, writing
10 Comments
Deciphering the Music Code
Saturday morning. My friend L. and I are on the ‘phone, arranging one of our brunches in Notting Hill. Her soft Irish tone turns businesslike. “Now do you want to come up for your lesson before or after brunch?”
I search my memory for a reference frame. “Lesson?”
“Yes. I promised, over a year ago, I’d teach you to read music.”
I grin from ear to ear. A child about to be given a long-awaited treat. “After brunch,” I say. I suddenly remember I forgot to have dinner, last night. I don’t want hunger dizziness to spoil this moment. A secret is about to be revealed to me, and I need all my concentration.
I have adored music for as long as I can remember. My mother says I could tell tunes apart before I could string a sentence together. I play CDs all the time. I don’t listen to music. I breathe it in and let it permeate through every cell in my body, and every thought in my mind. I need music like I need air. I have no difficulty believing, in Lorenzo’s words as he courts Jessica (The Merchant of Venice), that –
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
I scribble words because I cannot compose music.
Music caresses my soul, balms my wounds, stirs my emotions, feeds my resolutions and inspires my dreams. When, about two years ago, I suddenly developed tinnitus, I thought I would lose my mind. The thought of not being able to hear music was simply unbearable. The fear of such a possibility was so overwhelming, it conquered my deeply-rooted distrust of the medical profession. I went to a surgery. “Take a paracetamol,” I was told in a less-than-sympathetic tone.
“I said hiss – not hurt,” I snapped, containing all impulse to spit some serious venom and wondering, once again, whether I was before extraordinarily evil or profound stupidity.
A couple of weeks later, I resorted to some medically-unapproved complementary medicine diagnostic tools which showed that I had displaced a couple of neck vertebrae. After a few subsequent visits to an osteopath who unceremoniously pulled, pushed, crunched and stretched me, I could hear music again without the interference of any buzzing, ringing or hissing.
While at University, I used to sing at balls and formal dinners, accompanied on the piano by my friend Helen. We called ourselves Champagne Sorbet. Unable to read music, I would memorise the tunes. I have a sweet-sounding pearwood alto recorder, and I play (badly) everything by ear. I watch with envy people who sit on the Tube, leafing through musical scores, the black squiggles on the staves actually translating into music in their heads. I would happily swap one of my languages for the ability to read music.
L.’s studio flat is cluttered with odd pieces of inherited furniture, hand-painted china, embroidered cushions, leaning towers of books in English, French and Russian, and every imaginable ornament – be it glass, plastic, wood or fabric. Against the wall, stands the upright piano. The top and surrounding floor space are littered with books and scores. Chopin, Sondheim, Porter, Bach, Beethoven, Scriabin, Kander and Ebb, Jule Styne. She clears a space on the table, covered in an Estonian linen tablecloth with lilacs, daisies and poppies, and smoothes an A4 sheet of paper over it. Her biro sinks through the paper into the soft fabric as she draws five parallel lines across the page. “This is a stave,”, she says.
Soon, both sides of the paper are covered in treble clefs, bass clefs, quavers, semi-quavers, and pauses. L. explains the mathematical nature of music. I think of the word Harmony. She illustrates the meaning of rhythm, and the term heartbeat comes to my mind. She shows me the pattern of a bar, and I think Perfection. Of Dante’s concept of the Universe, conducted to the beat of all-encompassing Love.
“Now, let’s practise,” says L. We sit by the piano. I am too much in awe of the instrument, to touch it. Eventually, I brush the dark wood lightly with my finger. L. has bought a beginner’s manual on piano playing especially for the occasion, and bends back the spine before sliding it into the score holder. She brings her thumb down and a sound, like an alerted reaction, pings across the room. “This is Middle C,” she says, matter of fact, in charge of the magnificent instrument. She makes me sit on the stool and allocates each of the hesitant, clumsy fingers of my right hand, to an ivory key, then instructs me to play the notes printed on the score. She counts as I push down my fingertips. Sounds result. Oh, joy! My little finger rebels. She tells me off for my lack of control. I finish the page and she gives me encouragement. I have to stop. After barely five minutes, my wrist is aching. L. shows me muscle-strengthening hand exercises. I watch her knuckles spring up and down, like a spider ready to pounce. My own hand refuses to follow her example. There seems to be a breakdown in communication between my brain and the muscles in question. I ask her to play, instead.
L. pulls a score from under the stack of papers, and spreads it open. Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor. She touches the keys with authority, yet something about her manner with them is cajoling. The notes drift up, filling the room in different colours, all pastel and translucent. Ethereal and full of regret. They float up to the ceiling, then slowly fly out of the window, rest on the swaying leaves of the tree just outside, then disappear into the distance, lost amongst the street sounds.
The music pleads with me, like a prayer. I try and think of words to describe it. But I can’t.
Scribe Doll
Trees as Story-Hoarders
Someday, I would like to live near a weeping willow.
“You’re mad! It’ll wreck your water pipes!” My beloved friend S., with her bucketful of sobering practicality. “Their roots are so long, they’ll reach out from the bottom of your garden all the way to the foundations of your house and break the pipes to get to the water.”
I slowly lower my raised back. I did not say I wanted to own a weeping willow but that I wanted to live near one. The very concept of owning a tree is nonsensical, of course. You cannot own something which has stood observing this world long before you were born, and which will keep on observing it long after your visit here is over. I just want to be close enough to a weeping willow, to go and spend time with it as often as I please. Perhaps somewhere by a river, since we both enjoy the healing, gentle flow of its waters.
There is something of the story-hoarder about trees. There they stand, in silence, like an unnoticed piece of stage scenery, while generations of humans play out their dramas. Watching, observing, absorbing, storing it all. Unlike humans, they are not shapeshifting, ever-moving troubadours, sowing their tales the width and breadth of the earth. Rather, their stillness becomes the repository of stories, since trees are the bridges that connect two worlds. Their roots plunge deep into the darkness of the earth core, while their branches reach out into the golden whiteness of the light. And they are willing to whisper a story or two into an ear they deem attuned enough to hear. You must ask, though, or they will just stand there, the seal of silence over their secrets.
Someday, I would like to live near a weeping willow. Something about her ensnares my imagination. Her world weariness, the grace of her springy branches swaying in the wind, her gentle caress on the surface of the river, the playful slap she gives your face if your punt gets tangled up in her mane. Cambridge weeping willows’ breathy voices tell you of bygone times when Magic – not the Varsity – ruled the Fens, and the River Cam giggled on Midsummer’s Night. Long, long ago, before Reason silenced Knowledge.
Again, in Cambridge, I remember a copper beech that glowed, ablaze, in the evening sunlight, in the Corpus Christi College owned grounds of Leckhampton House. She stands between the squat concrete blocks of the George Thomson Building and a sculpture by Henry Moore. On many a summer’s night, I would lie on the lawn, on my back, and stare up at the multicoloured stars until that moment of elation when I felt the world was upside down, and I was falling into the sky. On my way back, when I caught sight of the surreal black form of the Henry Moore, anguish would pounce on me. Then my eyes would search for the living silhouette of the copper beech, and be reassured. Her husky, deep voice reminded me that she stood sentinel over my safety. And I knew that the faceless concrete building and the discordant sculpture were illusions, but that the copper beech was real.
In London, at the start of this Millennium, I befriended a cedar of Lebanon in Bishops Park. I had just moved to Fulham, and had gone to explore the local park. Within minutes, angry, lead-grey clouds crowded over the blue sky, and rain came pounding down on me. I saw the cedar of Lebanon, and ran to shelter beneath his evergreen canopy. I leaned against his trunk, and waited for the rain to stop, while listening to his rich, mellifluous voice, and gossip about the bishops of London.
I was heartbroken when, soon afterwards, they axed off the arms of the cedar of Lebanon, and carved his smooth trunk into a wood sculpture representing two bishops. I know not, nor care, who the bishops are or were. To me, they have not only butchered the cedar, but humiliated him.
My current home stands by a towering oak. Now that the foliage is densely green, I feel as though I am living in a tree house. The leaves rustle in the wind, like a thousand tiny cymbals. They glisten and flutter in the sunlight. Squirrels perform acrobatic turns on the branches, then run and hide in the hollow. A blackbird raised her brood on it, and regularly chased away a coveting magpie. A glossy ivy clings to the body and arms of the oak, in what looks like a steadfast, faithful embrace. There is something of the sorcerer about this oak, of a wise old man, like Merlin. I have not heard his voice, yet. Quietly but undeniably powerful, he watches me in silence. I do not think he has made up his mind about me, yet. I hope that, when he eventually does, he will deem my ear to be sharp and attuned enough to whisper a few tales to me. Perhaps, one night, when the wind is hushed, and the moon is bathing his leaves in silver.
Meanwhile, I am nurturing two twin saplings. A few months ago, during a time of frustration and hopelessness, I buried a few lemon pips into a pot of soil. Hopes against a bleak, bleak winter. They sprouted. Some, I gave away. The two growing in pots on my work table, I decided to keep. Green, glossy young things, straight as an arrow, that have great plans of becoming lemon trees. I want to help them get there.
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged cambridge, cedar of lebanon, copper beech, katherine gregor, lemon trees, magic, musings, scribe doll, trees, weeping willows, writing
16 Comments
Skiving Off
Something woke me up earlier than usual, this morning. It was the light pushing through my curtains. It had a different colour and texture than of late. I switched on Radio 4, negotiated myself out of bed, and approached the window, gingerly at first, then gave the curtain a firm tug. The bright sunlight punched me right in the face and flooded my room. Yes – the sun was actually out. I lifted open the sash window, and leaned out. The wind ruffling the oak branches outside did not carry its usual, insidious chill.
Tempted as I am just to go and bask in the sun, with my scribbling notepad, I just have too much work to do. I am going to act like a responsible adult and not an essay-delaying undergraduate.
Right.
No. It’s no good. I am staring at the same page for ages, and my mind keeps wandering. I feel restless and boxed in. I give myself licence to explore a compromise, and put my work into my rucksack. I’ll go to the Village, and work at a café table on the sunny pavement. My painful tennis elbow needs warming in the sun. I cling to that excuse.
Tennis fans are already spilling out of the Tube station. The shops are all decorated with lime-yellow tennis balls. Tennis balls everywhere. Stacked up in pyramids, hanging from ribbons, or just strewed in the window as if they don’t care. Funny – the championship isn’t actually in Wimbledon proper, but in Southfields, two Tube stops away. I walk up Wimbledon Hill. The Village is not quite awake, yet, and the only café tables out on the pavement are in the shade. Perhaps I can go and sit on a bench on the Common. I get a take-away cappuccino and croissant. On Wimbledon Common, I can’t find an empty bench that faces the sun. Again, something feels lacking.
I miss my favourite London park. I suddenly realise it. I miss my park, by the river. And so I start walking along the edge of the thick woodland, towards Fulham. As I approach a bus stop, the 93 bus slows down but I let it leave again. I’ll catch it at the next stop. Or perhaps the one after that. Along the path, I have to contend with runners. What is it about joggers that seems to expect right of way? Does exercise endow them with a special virtue that states, “Step aside and let the jogger through – you’re only walking”? The sun is caressing the back of my neck, and warming my elbow. I slow down, take a sip of my velvety cappuccino, taste its richness, then take a bite from my freshly-baked, buttery croissant. Yes! Now that feels good. A passing jogger, trainers thumping hard on the path, face twisted in the evident discomfort of excessive physical effort, cheeks all red and floppy, catches the smug expression on my face and darts me a dirty look. I smile back at him, feeling even more unashamedly smug.
Another bus stop. Not yet. I’ll walk a little further. I feel a sense of triumph when, about four miles later, I walk down Putney Hill, along the High Street, and reach the river. The green water ripples glisten in the sunlight. I inhale that unmistakable river smell Rupert Brooke described as “thrilling-sweet and rotten, Unforgettable, unforgotten”. Ducks are grooming on the bank. Canada geese paddle expectantly. The white band under their beaks looks like a bandage for toothache. Above Putney Bridge, the sky is a deep blue canvas brushed with strokes of purple-grey gossamer clouds. At the bottom of the bridge, the Tudor belfry of All Saints church marks the start of Fulham and the entrance to my favourite and, formerly, my local park.
Bishop’s Park does not have the fame of Hyde Park, the elegance of Regent’s Park, or the wide expanse of Hampstead Heath. However, it possesses a unique charm and can cater to different tastes and moods. Right at the foot of Putney Bridge, you can sit in the rose garden, where the breeze carries sweet, heady fragrances, as well as the sound of church bells. There is the wide lawn at the back of the Palace, where you can sprawl on the grass, or have tea on the stone patio of the café. You can venture through the arch into the walled herb garden, gently brush the numerous plants with your fingers which you then take up to your face and breathe in rosemary, sage, lavender or thyme. If it is shelter from wind and people that you seek, then you can take refuge in the courtyard of the Tudor palace that was once the residence of the Bishop of London, and listen to the playful murmur of the fountain, and the tinny old clock chiming every quarter of an hour. Or you can sit on one of the benches on the embankment walkway, beneath the branches of horse-chestnut trees whose trunks are so wide, you would need two people to stretch their arms around them. Old trees with centuries of stories to tell.
I turn around to see what is rustling behind me. A squirrel is rummaging on the ground, trying to remember where the nuts are buried. On the river, seagulls swoop, their cries exaggeratedly strident, like idle threats. Above, the rheumatic caw of a jet-black crow, glossy in the sunlight. I throw a handful of monkey nuts. The crow calls out to its friends then lands next to my offering, stabs the shell with its beak, and extracts the peanut. Deep black eyes make contact with mine. I nod and resume my walk.
Today, I shall go and work in my favourite spot in the park.
No, I’m not telling where.
Scribe Doll
People-Watching in the Village
Six weeks after moving to this South-Western corner of London (well, it’s practically Surrey), I still had not explored its better-heeled district: the Village. It was a warm day, so I decided to take my painful, recently acquired – and oddly appropriately named – tennis elbow, to bathe in the sunshine, at an pavement table of a French pâtisserie on the High Street, and just watch passers by. Watch and scribble in my A4 spiral notebook. And sip dense, luscious chocolat chaud, of course.
At the table next to mine, the fathers of two families are comparing the prices of their properties, and express surprise in what sounds like a competition of whose million-and-something place has increased in value faster. I am told Village residents arrange highly-advantageous home swaps or rent out their properties for astronomical sums during the last week of June and the first week of July. Unless, I imagine, they are tennis fanatics, themselves. That’s right, I’m sitting and watching Wimbledon Village.
Something about the atmosphere reminds me of how Fulham used to be when I first moved there, thirteen years ago. The stripy shirts, Rupert Brooke haircuts, velvet alice bands and strings of pearls have gone, but you can still imagine the passers by being called Miranda, Dorcas, Crispin, Sebastian – and have double-barrelled surnames. The vowels are still glissando and the consonants brushed past. I even catch a few elongated “Yeaaah”s that bring back fond memories of my College days, at Durham, where the term “‘Rah” was the mot du jour. The air is imbued with that unmistakable scent of freshly-printed banknotes. Crisp, perky, not quite worn enough to acquire self-deprecation or soft enough yet to slide into your wallet without sticking out. Fulham, however, had always felt like London, to me, whereas this High Street could run through any picturesque town of the Home Counties.
The High Street is lined with shops displaying designer weekend wear in cornflower blue, aqua green, brilliant white and nail varnish red; boutiques selling printed scarves, silver jewellery and some politically-correct-to-purchase knick-knacks. True to that unexplainable English belief that the first sign of chic is to have a taste for things Gallic, there is a line of French restaurants, bistrots and pâtisseries. I wonder if this is the reason Wimbledon supermarkets have – much to my frustration – such a limited range of Italian wines (pardonnez-moi but I have always preferred Italian and Spanish wines). You can feast your eyes on food shops abounding with French and Italian cheeses, herb and garlic marinated olives, colourful vegetables, crusty-looking bread loaves with purposefully-irregular edges and, I suspect, softer, doughy insides (we don’t want to be too Continental, after all), and fruit cakes with labels proudly stating that they are either home made or farm made. Everything is laid out in that so-called Continental style (which never includes Germany or the Netherlands) which praises that looks-like-it-doesn’t-care rusticity, and which most self-respecting “Continental” hostesses would never bring out for respected Sunday guests.
A man is pushing a baby in a Cath Kidson pram. I wonder how the infant feels about the pattern. There is a striking number of dachshunds trotting from leather leads clipped to elegant collars. In spite of the insidiously chilly breeze, most men are wearing shorts. Shorts and flip-flops. And sunglasses. It seems like some kind of uniform. Some enter the pâtisserie accompanied by their sons, who are striking, four-foot reproductions of their fathers. Same style of shorts, of flip-flops, of sunglasses. Oozing the self-confidence of someone born with a parachute on his or her back. Cars drive down the narrow hill, that are a little too tall and a little too wide for a city, and which I imagine to be ideal when driving through a jungle or a desert.
There are flower baskets swaying from lamp posts, pretty buildings in pastel colours, and everything looks neat and its right place. There is a Hemingways Bar, which I hope to explore as soon as I have a few more banknotes – crisp or limp – in my wallet (meanwhile, invitations welcome).
I love this place. I think I’ll adopt one of cafés, and use it as a regular scribbling haunt. I’ll wear my bright blue Mulberry man’s shirt with narrow red and yellow stripes. Over chinos.
Yes. I can see myself really enjoying this.
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged humour, katherine gregor, people watching, rah, scribe doll, sloane, wimbledon, writing
12 Comments
‘An American in Paris’
It was the only time my mother actively encouraged me to skip school or, rather, ballet school, for reasons other than health. “If you want to be a dancer, you must see this film. It’s as important for your education as your classes.”
As a child, more than anything in the world, I wanted to be a dancer. More than anything else in the world, I loved music, so getting my body to be at one with it in an expression of joyous harmony represented for me the ultimate achievement and boundless happiness. The physical world made perfect by pulsating to the harmony of music.
The moment I could hold a pencil, I drew ballet dancers. When I lost my first tooth, I asked the Tooth Fairy for records of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. I spent hours in my room, listening to Stravinsky’s Firebird, and staging a mental ballet full of colour and thrill. I played Prokofiev’s Cinderella so often, I scratched the record. Even now, whenever I hear it, my auditory memory expects to hear the hiccups of the needle at specific points, and part of me is surprised when the music plays smoothly.
I begged and hassled my mother to send me to ballet school, but we could not afford it. Finally, at the age of eleven or twelve, I was accepted by the Nice Conservatoire. And so began a strenuous, painful and humiliating weekly class. My body was at odds with ballet. I was too stiff, too clumsy and just the wrong shape. Inside, I felt fast, light and agile, but I was trapped in this chunky box that was my body. Only last year, an osteopath dissolved over thirty years of gnawing regret and sense of failure. “You have short tendons,” he said. “You were born that way. You could never have been flexible. There is nothing you could have done.” Strange as it may sound, it was as though he removed a rucksack full of bricks off my back, and gave me permission to stand up straight.
My mother has always loved U.S. musicals, and instilled the same love into me at a very early age. Living in Italy and France, we would sit together and watch them whenever they happened to be on television, in black and white, with most of the songs dubbed into Italian and French. My mother, who had seen most of them on the silver screen and in the original English, would provide a running commentary on the real colours of the set and costumes. Afterwards, she would often sing me the songs in English. I sang songs from South Pacific, The King and I and Carousel throughout primary school (yes, Rodgers & Hammerstein were my mother’s favourites).
I loved ballet, but what really filled me with unadulterated, bank-bursting joy, was tap. I would push brass drawing pins into the heels and toes of my shoes, and try clicking rhythmical patterns on the tiled kitchen floor. Sadly for me, tap classes were not an option. No one really learnt to tap in those days. It was then considered a thing of the past, that had gone out of fashion with the waning of the MGM musical.
I remember walking into the kitchen, one day after school, and my mother looking up from the TV listings magazine. “An American in Paris is on television, tomorrow afternoon,” she said. It was afternoon at the Conservatoire, but the excitement in her voice promised a highly desirable alternative to yet another humiliating session with our ballet teacher, a claw-footed Madame who poked the end of her stick into our knees if we failed to lock them hermetically, and reserved her rare smiles for the one and only boy in our class.
And so, the following afternoon, we sat staring into the small black and white television, swept away by that brand of magic only Hollywood and MGM alchemy could manifest. Luckily, this time, although the dialogue had been dubbed, the songs had been kept in English. My mother did her best to help me imagine the vibrant colours in the ballet sequence. “If you could only see this in colour, on a large screen!” she would exclaim, excited but powerless. I was charmed by Gene Kelly’s shrewd yet heartfelt smile and life-affirming dancing, mesmerised by the imaginative and inspiring choreography, engrossed by (unusually for a Hollywood musical) a good storyline, entranced by Leslie Caron’s versatility in ‘Embraceable You’… And utterly bewitched by the George Gershwin’s happy and yet hauntingly wistful music.
To this day, together with Ziegfeld Follies and Broadway Melody (1940), An American in Paris remains my all-time favourite film musical. It is a masterpiece. In spite of a French schooling and a degree in French literature, I can only think of Paris landmarks as sets for Gene Kelly’s dance numbers. In my early days as an English as Foreign Language teacher, I would show my classes the Georges Guétary-Gene Kelly ‘S Wonderful scene as a prompt for eliciting English love idioms (“So why are they dancing? How are they feeling?”). On my first trip to New York, I strolled down Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, my heart fluttering at the thought that George Gershwin must have walked along those sidewalks. My two favourite composers are Johann Sebastian Bach and George Gershwin. The former reassures me that the world makes sense; the latter makes me happy to be alive in it.
As I have reached my middle years, I relate to a line in the film, spoken by Georges Guétary. In my opinion, it is one of the best film lines ever. When I joined the Red Room, a year and a half ago, I decided to use it as the quote below my photo. It is spoken at the beginning of the film, as we hear the character of Henry Borel’s voice trying to introduce himself, just before we see his reflection in the drinking fountain mirror.
“I don’t mean to imply that I’m old. After all I am only… What’s the difference? […] Let’s just say that I’m old enough to know what to do with my young feelings.”
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged an american in paris, choreography, dance, gene kelly, george gershwin, katherine gregor, mgm, musicals, scribe doll, writing
10 Comments
Corn Chowder and Conversation
I’d asked my friend B. if he liked corn chowder. Living in one room, and sharing a kitchen, I had to think of a lunch that would fit on my small work table. “How about a bowl of steamy corn chowder, with bread and cheese?” I’d texted. Then added, “Unless there is a heatwave.”
A heatwave? With the winter cold and icy winds that have been making a mockery of May in London, this year?
“What kind of wine goes with corn chowder?” asked B.
“Don’t know,” I replied, “but I already have a bottle of Chianti, so don’t worry.”
It is with a mix of incredulity and hope that I leave the house without my jacket. This Sunday lives up to its name. After months of grey, the sudden brightness stings my eyes. On my way to the shops, I question the suitability of corn chowder on what looks like a summer’s day. No. It won’t last. It’s just another tease. The sun caresses my neck and shoulders, which have been stiff and painful for months and feel like they will now continue to be stiff and painful for ever. The warmth seeps through my skin and slowly trickles into my muscles. I don’t dare relax and give in to it. I am not going to allow myself to be lulled into a false sense of security. I don’t trust the cold not to pounce on me around the next corner.
I sing to myself while I chop the vegetables. Since I moved to this house, I’ve taken to singing in the kitchen. Today, I finally realise it’s because I have always listened to Radio 3 or 4 while cooking, but here is no radio in this kitchen.
I’d love to get you on a slow boat to China,
All to myself, alone.
I’ve always liked that song.
I open a tin of sweetcorn and empty it into the pan, and watch the milk start to bubble. I worry the chowder will taste too bland. I reach out for the bottle of cayenne pepper, and shake vigorously. Then I pull the cheeses out of the fridge, and lay them out on a plate.
My mobile beeps. “On my way. What can I bring?”
“Good conversation,” I reply.
Get you and keep you in my arms evermore.
I pull open both sash windows in my room. It’s the first time I’ve done that, since moving here. I lean out as far as I can, the palms of my hands firmly pressed against the windowsill. I search the branches of the oak tree right outside but can’t see the squirrel that I often see vandalising the leaf buds. Somewhere above me, the slightly rheumatic caw of a crow. There is something reassuring in its gravelly sound. Something honest. I lift my head towards the sun, and let its warmth stroke my face. Perhaps I could trust it, after all.
My friend B. arrives. He tosses his hat on top of my row of dictionaries. I knew he would not come empty-handed. Not on his first visit here. He holds out a loaf of crusty, fragrant pain rustique. Bread – for good luck in my new home. Now that’s what I call perfect.
In the white ceramic bowls, the chowder looks colourful, with yellow kernels of corn, and bits of red pepper and green courgettes shining like little gems through the milky soup. I worry I might have overdone it with the cayenne, but B. assures me it’s not too spicy. I hope he is not being polite. I really should learn to cook properly, and not constantly improvise. At least not with cayenne pepper. I spread a generous slice of Dolcelatte on a slice of bread. B. reaches out for the Gruyère and shaves off thin, narrow strips. I pour us more wine.
I tell B. I have finished reading Moby Dick. I’m afraid I skimmed through several chapters in the middle of the book. I couldn’t get myself interested in the technicalities of whaling. I loved the character portrayal, though. I have resolved to read more 19th Century literature. Lately, I noticed increasing difficulty focusing on the language and mind frame and I am scared of losing that ability. B. needs to read more French literature. I tell him about the brilliant translation masterclass I attended, yesterday.
Outside the window, the oak tree leaves rustle in a sudden gust of wind. B. examines the books on the top shelf. I have stacked up there all the ones I have yet to read. He cocks his head to examine the spines. “I’ve never read Christopher Isherwood,” he says.
After a few spoonfuls of Tiramisù, we go into the kitchen to make Turkish coffee. Several years ago, one of my students gave me a beautifully-crafted, copper-coated pot, with a smooth wooden handle. We watch and wait for the edges of the coffee to curl up into small waves of simmering froth.
I ask B. which CD I should play.
He hesitates. “What would go well with this weather?”
“Madrigals?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes and thinks.
“Lute? And perhaps a counter-tenor?”
He starts to nod.
“Dowland?”
“Yes.”
Sitting by window, we sip the coffee and watch the oak tree branches sway. The leaves are glistening in the sunlight. We sit in comfortable silence for a moment. A counter-tenor is singing a wistful Tudor air through the CD player by my bed. “They’re doing To Kill a Mockingbird at Regent’s Park,” says B.
I can’t imagine a show that intimate, in a park.
We continue a brief conversation of half-sentences. Certain things, you don’t need to spell out. Not when you’ve been friends for fourteen years.
The sun moves away from the oak tree, to warm up the opposite side of the street. Left in the shade, the wind grows chilly. We close the sash windows. B. stands up to leave. “Are you going to do some work, this evening?”
“I have to write my blog,” I say. “I have no idea what to write, though.”
B. puts on his hat. “Have you ever written about corn chowder?” He asks, a twinkle in his eye.
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged conversation, friendship, katherine gregor, new home, scribe doll, writing
18 Comments
The Backstory as Defence Lawyer
In a recent post on The Red Room, Orna B. Raz makes a very interesting case for the fiction writer’s ability to rewrite true life events, giving the stories a happier outcome on paper, than they might have had in reality. She set me thinking about the power of fiction writing. We can bestow upon our made-up characters everything we, ourselves, long for. We can change the course of their lives much more easily than our own. We can live through them in the way some parents live their unfulfilled dreams through their children… But without screwing up anybody else’s life.
Some time ago, during one of the Original Writers’ Group meetings, a member read out a chapter from her book; an account of her real-life struggle to save her seriously ill child, and of her success, against all medical odds. A deeply inspiring testimony to courage, tenacity and hope. Keen on being truthful, she had included minutely-recorded details of time, place, etc. As a piece of writing, however, some of us in the group found it a little arid. During the subsequent feedback session, one of the other writers came up with an unexpected suggestion. “Why don’t you write it as a novel?” she said. Seeing everyone’s puzzled expression, she added, “You could tell so much more truth if you wrote it as fiction.”
At the time, I did not follow, but her words took a firm grip in a file in my memory, resurfacing at regular intervals, for me to turn over and examine, like a Rubik Cube. Now, I totally agree with her. The category of Fiction allows you to penetrate and explore dimensions of human emotions that are too unquantifiable to be factualised. That is why I have always been of the opinion that fairy tales take up where History leaves off, providing a degree of insight into the human psyche, which can be gained only with a meta-factual method of observing and learning. Facts, no matter how comprehensive and precise, are limited, while imagination is unlimited. Imagination sets us free to explore realms which our reason would consider out of bounds.
In addition, with sufficient skill, placing your writing under the Fiction banner can put you beyond the reach of law suits. It’s just a story. It’s not real. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, etc.
Another, non-negligible, powerful magic wand we, fiction writers, possess – and, I feel very strongly, have a responsibility to use – is to help build a path towards forgiveness.
How?
With the Backstory.
Every good actor, knows that to make a character credible and sympathetic, you need to give him or her a motivation for his or her actions. Motivation. Another word for Backstory. The reason Iago is one of theatre’s most charismatic and wonderful baddies (and my all-time favourite one), is Shakespeare’s creation of motivations – a backstory – for his wickedness. Yes, what Iago sets in motion in the play, is evil. It would take one talented lawyer to get him acquitted. But why does Iago trigger this bloody tragedy? Iago, is a good soldier, loyal to Othello. He deserves a promotion. Othello meets and falls in love with Desdemona, his brain instantly plummets far South, and he promotes pretty-faced Michael Cassio, instead. The full force of this injustice strikes a wound in Iago, which festers and turns to poison. He then gives out nothing but poison to others. Yes, Iago is cruel but, dramatically, it is Othello who creates the circumstances to which Iago reacts with cruelty. Othello is the unwitting cause to Iago’s – admittedly, disproportionate – effect. His crime is abominable, but not senseless.
“It is what I do,” said a close friend who is a highly intelligent and deeply kind lawyer. “I try and discover why my client committed a crime. It’s called ‘extenuating circumstances’.”
Extenuating Circumstances is the defence lawyer’s word for the writer’s Backstory. The crime was committed. The victim has suffered. The defendant is sometimes guilty. We are not – and must not – deny or invalidate in any way the seriousness of the crime, but I think we should apply some of Atticus Finch’s advice: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” That involves practising a little empathy not just towards the victim, but towards the offender. I strongly believe that if Atticus Finch’s words were inscribed in every courtroom, for juries and judges to see, far fewer people could find it in themselves to condemn an offender to death. Capital punishment is, in my opinion, the ultimate expression of hopelessness. And how do you walk around in someone else’s skin without resorting to imagination? Without filling the gaps between facts with a little fiction?
It goes without saying, that I mean no offence or disrespect towards those people who have suffered injustices so harrowing, I cannot begin to fathom. When you write a piece like this, you inevitably take a stand which leads to rule-of-thumb theories. I would also never, ever, claim that forgiveness is easy.
In her inspiring book, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson writes, “Forgiveness unblocks the future”. Another wise friend I have says that a backstory allows you to shift the focus from yourself as a victim, and create a larger picture in which you can see the dynamic of why something was done to you but also why you, as a person, have reacted to it the way you have. In a way, it can make the unpleasant experience less personal to you. It can help you stop carrying the sense of guilt that, somehow, it is your fault, even if someone else has harmed you. It can allow you to move on.
There are some wonderful, kind-hearted people who possess that precious ability to forgive naturally, straight from their hearts. I envy these people’s generosity. Mark Twain’s words (and I greatly admire him), “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it” makes my heart go “Aww…” but my brain equate it with a mouthful of coffee with cream, five sugars and a dollop of maple syrup. How many people are truly able to forgive without understanding why? Someone is unforgivably rude to me during my working day. I want to retaliate with my own rudeness. I want to know why this person has been so unkind to me. It was uncalled for. I cannot ask him or her. All I can do, is imagine a scenario in which this person had something happen to him or her, which caused so much anger and frustration, that he or she has taken it out on me. It’s not my fault, though. But why have I reacted with so much anger? Is it because this was the last straw at the end of a particularly stressful day?
One of my all-time favourite books is The Loop by Nicholas Evans. In it, there is the character of an old man who has spent his life devising stomach-churning methods of killing wolves, back in the days when there was, effectively, a campaign to exterminate wolves in North America. You hate this character, and wish for him to fall into and be mangled by one of the traps he lays for the wolves. Then, ever so subtly, Evans makes transpire this man’s backstory and, as the novel unfolds, your feelings are transformed. You still hate the cruel act, but you feel genuine pity – even compassion – towards the perpetrator.
Could this be tried in real life? Someone has hurt you, injured you, done you a terrible injustice. But why? What is the bigger picture? In real life, you can rarely discover someone’s backstory, and even if you do, you never truly know it completely.
And if you do not know the Backstory… Why not just make one up? Build a set of imaginary circumstances for your real person, that just might have led him or her to act the way he or she did. You write fiction, right? It does not have to be real – it just has to make sense in your head, and the rest of you might just slide more easily into forgiveness. After all, reality is so often a matter of perspective. Moreover, the advantage of fiction over reality, is that you create the fiction that sits most comfortably with you. Your imagination can be your friend, in that it often feeds you just as much as you can swallow.
And, no, I never said it was easy.
But might it not just be worth a try?
Scribe Doll
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged backstory, extenuating circumstances, forgiveness, iago, katherine gregor, motivation, othello, scribe doll, writing
12 Comments
Scribe Doll 
