April 2006
Fear & winning
I have to say it was probably the most frightening day of my life.
I am still gasping from the nerve-jangling tension of winning the public vote for best read in the Richard & Judy Bookclub – the brainchild of Executive Producer Amanda Ross.
The ceremony will be broadcast on Channel 4 on Saturday 1st April at 17.55pm, with a Sunday repeat on More4. I'll be watching. I didn't trip over anything on my way to the stage, which is a mercy ...
Of course, years of working with the Orange Prize for Fiction taught me that ceremonies like this can be fraught - but I never really appreciated how much authors go through.
Anyway, I am out of my misery. As are the winners of:
Labyrinth creative writing competition 10
The title for entries to this competition was:
Code
Here is the winning story. The author is Barbara Yeomans Lopez, who lives in the Montagne Noire north of Carcassonne - lucky thing!
A footnote to an email, written in Polish, formatted in white text on a white background. She sat at the kitchen table, a printout of the legible body of the message curling in front of her, a page three years old, tangible evidence of the breaching of an eight-year gap in communication.
Dream-possessed, it was she who had broken the silence with a sincere but carefully anodyne birthday message on the occasion of his half century. Born in the same year, she was not likely to forget his age. Since then, they had exchanged occasional text, he now living in Poland, she in Southern France. Both enjoying the play of words, but ever conscious of their significance, they spoke of their new homes, work, interests. Despite a need for frankness, she shrank from writing about her French partner, his lack of words, his quiet three-year struggle with cancer. It would have been a violation. She was determined not to betray the suffering man and feared the detail would unnerve him too. Even sentimentality could hurt, and there had been too much pain. She had to live with her own conscience, and signed her thoughts with just an initial, no familiar name. She suspected the same reticence on his side, too. Sometimes, she felt that he was writing in riddles. Was he being pompous, sharing a joke with her, or mocking her? He had at length admitted the device of white on white, unseen, of course, by her. She understood that he remained vulnerable; they could still wound each other.
There had been one meeting since then, carefully chaperoned at her daughter's house. She curled on the sofa, occupying trembling hands with messy cake, as if the tumbling crumbs would protect her. He sat distant, cups of tea his shield.
Enjoyed the meeting; your offspring are wonderful, he texted her later.
Their first meeting had been while both were still at school. They sensed each other across the din and swirl of a teenage party. He pursued her, and they went out together briefly, until she took fright at his ardour, his desire to kiss her in the bus queue after school; in front of everyone. Afterwards, he would ring her home and her mother, carefully instructed, would say she was not there.
In their early thirties they had been drawn together again, each deceiving a partner, fracturing a young family. He became her second husband, she his second wife, and they knew that they were meant to be together. But grief for her children, and the guilt of betraying them in that way quickly undermined her tranquillity. He, wanting too much for her to be blissfully happy, lacked weapons to fight the sadness, her loss of self esteem. She mislaid the power to read his emotion. They fought with cruel words and actions until finally, she again broke the link. He sobbed that he had hoped to die in her arms as she insisted she was leaving.
Years, and other relationships, passed. A jealous boyfriend, sensing the depth of sentiment in old cards he had sent her, destroyed everything that might possibly hold a memory. He could not wipe her brain clean, however.
She began to dream, rolled up tight within herself. The context was different each time but the theme remained constant. Always she was with him. They were diffident, wary of each other; he did not speak. No great events, and they never touched, but she was happy, suffused with a warm glow, even though he remained somehow distant, inaccessible.
In waking hours, she did not doubt that their particular link persisted, but she feared to break the code of his messages. Perhaps it would be too painful; could she not accept the continuation of their erratic, enigmatic correspondence, absorb the nourishment of his words and thus flourish?
Missing her family, her special people, she planned a January trip to England. He would be there too, her arrival the day he was to start a long drive back to Poland. He proposed to postpone his departure for a few hours, would meet her at the airport; they could have a drink together.
Her nervous anticipation during the days preceding her departure sounded alarm bells. Do not expect too much of this meeting. Think of how you fought, how you felt you were going crazy. She tried to arm herself with reality, to discount the dreams; perhaps the white on white had said you must be joking if you think there could ever be anything between us again. Was she too conceited to see it?
Departure day revealed that, against all probability, Southern France, already frosty, had been clothed in snow overnight. Her local airport was bereft of equipment to clear runways, de-ice aircraft. She stood in the queue of frustrated travellers at the information desk and felt their meeting quietly slipping away, vanquished by nature's own white on white. Back home, her packed suitcase lying beside her like a sad dog, she drank tea, ate cake, and phoned him to explain. She was tongue-tied, wanting too much to tell him how she had looked forward to the occasion; that she was profoundly lonely. Still she feared to bare her soul: she had refused and wounded him twice, had been unable to accept the happiness they had.
Then the dream returned, vivid. She was in a car with him, he driving them somewhere, anywhere. This time he spoke, called her by her name, and she understood that she was loved without question, despite everything. They were at peace, full of hope. The contented warmth enveloped her for days afterwards.
And one morning, when the hellebores decorated the hillsides around her house with the promise of spring, she switched on the computer and read
You apologise for making me sentimental. I do not consider that to be a bad thing. You made me happier than anyone else has ever done. You still can. Take care.
Code cracked.
We were delighted to read this winning story. It has great balance and confidence. The author has judged cleverly how much a 1000 word short story can carry and expressed it concisely, ambiguously, searchingly.
The judges have also selected a runner-up, by Sara Crowley. It is told in a similarly controlled tone. Once more, the story is called:
Code
There was another pornographic picture caught up in the branches of her Mallow. She tweezed the photo out using her thumb and forefinger, curling her lips in disgust. A shudder of revulsion accompanied her as she quickly fairy stepped her way across the front garden and back inside. A winter chill sliced through the mellow autumn light making it cooler than it appeared. Warm indoors, central heating up to 21, toasty. She pumped liquid soap into her reddened palms. She'd dropped it into her recycling box. It'd been automatic to put it there; it was paper, ergo it had to go in the green box. Now worry puffed its way into her, what if the recycling men thought it was hers? Should she take it out and put it in the food rubbish? Would they even notice? Joyce decided to leave it where it was, loathe to touch it again.
Twisting in the duvet covers tepid thoughts dripped like water torture; it was the man next door leaving the photographs, she really had to get a spare key cut, her brush was on the floor behind the dressing table, carrots don't help you see in the dark and too many can turn you orange, that nice blonde boy who used to be in the ARGH STOP IT, turn, plump up pillow, jerk out leg, too hot, too lumpy, too…
Sometimes, when she had stayed home for a while, the outside felt scary. It was easy to get grooved into her own routine. Same brekky, same radio show, newspaper delivered. Joyce liked order; she approached her chores blankly, as she did her treats. Supermarket shopping normalised her somewhat. She favoured the smallest trolleys, as did most others, it was upsetting if there weren't any available and she'd hang around the exit until she got one that was just being finished with. The mundane conversations soothed her, price of these mangos, cold outside, excuse me please.
Halloween had just passed, Fireworks night looming, then Christmas, and already the stores were twinkling silverly. The sinister penis pictures seemed a long way from threatening in the illuminated aisles.
Her living room looked out onto the garden. Joyce rolled her sofa over so it was adjacent with the window, determined to be proactive, a good buzzy word that she'd heard said often by women on the telly. She would watch and discover who was leaving the lewd images. And she would do so in comfort.
She leant against the armrest, propped a cushion into the hollow in her back, feet up, legs stretched, a mug of hot chocolate steaming beside her. Initially she focused on her Mallow, untidy but flourishing, its tiny pink blooms a cheery antidote to the rest of the hibernating flowers. And then she watched people passing, coats buttoned, scarves, some hats, chilled air exhaling from chattering mouths. They carried briefcases, satchels, sports bags, carriers, handbags; all transporting things from one place to another. Cars; headlights and motors, occasionally music, cats, a few dogs being walked. As the night ebbed deeper into the morning fewer people passed. Joyce needed the toilet and twice ran bursting to it. On her return she anxiously sought out the plant but both times it remained undisturbed.
'So maybe it blew there.'
'Yes that's what I thought at first, I've found five so far though, now that's far from a coincidence don't you think?'
Marie agreed but wasn't sure what Joyce should do.
.You can't keep on sitting in the dark night after night; it'll do you no good.'
'It's as if he knows I'm watching.'
'You don't think he can see you surely?'
'I don't like it, it gives me the creeps.'
'I'm not surprised love.'
Once the thought that it was Bert entered her head it stayed there like a puzzle piece satisfyingly inserted. He lived two doors away, a widow with dark, stained trousers. The scent of pipe tobacco stalely surrounded him, and now Joyce supposed the aura of masturbation to cling to him too. She couldn't decide whether he was terrorising her or sexually propositioning her. Mucky bastard.
She had three bookcases, each lined with books higgledy piggledy stacked sideways and lengthways. Yellowing musty pages of church bazaar novels and publisher's seconds and art books from boot fairs, bargains because their printed value was far more than she had paid. They had been untouched for years, papery dust gatherers silent despite all their words.
She sat in the centre of her floor, flicking leisurely, knowing only that she would recognise it when she found it.
The photograph was of a Korean couple, at least that was her assumption, she'd always had difficulty with the oriental types and they could be so touchy if you got it wrong. Anyway, they were Korean, or Japanese, definitely not Chinese. A lovely young couple, wholesome and squeaky clean. Both wore dazzling white t shirts and looked smilingly to the distant right. They looked happy but not ecstatic, like ice skaters without the sparkles, anticipating perfect six point zeros forcing joy at their second place five point nines. The girl wore an oversized stripy bow at the back of her head and held two orange flowers, the boy stood with his hands on his hips. Joyce knew that they would be polite. She ripped the page from the book, feeling empowered.
At 4.33 a.m. she left her house. The night was crisp, soft moon shine beaming all around, lighting the crunch of leaves that littered the pavement. Bert's house was in darkness as she padded through his garden. He didn't care for his plants and they grew strangling each other; a tangle of branches engaging in a Darwinian struggle to survive. She firmly slotted the image between two chunky stems, checking that it was stable enough to withstand autumnal winds by blowing on it with as much puff as she could muster. Then she went home.
The authors of both stories are invited to the Chichester Writing Festival.
Welcome, both of you, to the Labyrinth.
