Secrets and Shadows, page 7
‘Not odd at all,’ said Catherine. ‘It’s an excellent reason. You’d be amazed if you knew all the varied reasons that make people sign up for a course like this. Writing can put us in touch with all sorts of parts of ourselves that we aren’t aware of or have never really examined before and that can be a useful experience in itself – and who knows what may come of it? Look on it as an adventure.’
‘Thank you,’ said Louisa.
Catherine turned to Marnie Donovan. ‘Now, lastly, what about you?’
Louisa glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, wondering what she would learn about this unfriendly young woman to whom she had taken something of a dislike. Would she perhaps refuse to cooperate and tell them nothing? She was surprised to notice that the American girl, having screwed her handkerchief into a long twist, was now winding it round and round one of her fingers with great concentration.
‘I’m Marnie,’ she stated. ‘I’m American by birth but when I was growing up I spent almost as much time in England as in the States.’ She added with an ironic lift of an eyebrow: ‘My mother made a hobby of marrying Englishmen.’
When she wasn’t being aggressive she had an attractive, rather husky voice. She went on, ‘I came up to Scotland for . . . for personal reasons. Then I saw this course advertised and decided to try it.’ She paused for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I hope it may help me find what I’m looking for . . . I guess you could say I’m on a bit of a treasure hunt.’ she said.
‘That sounds interesting,’ said Catherine. ‘Would you like to tell us more about it?’
‘Not really . . . or not at the moment anyway. I’m a pretty useless sort of person and I’ve spent most of my time running away from people and situations. Perhaps I need to take a trip down memory lane as well and try to learn a few things from it. Perhaps writing will help me too.’ She suddenly smiled at Catherine, and the smile transformed her face. ‘I’ll try to do as you suggested to Louisa and look on it as an adventure,’ she said, and shot a cautious, questioning look in Louisa’s direction.
‘Fine,’ said Catherine. ‘That brings me neatly on to something important I want to say to you all. Writing is a very personal business and can indeed be like a journey into ourselves, but I’m hoping that most of you will be brave enough to share some of what you write with the rest of us and that usually takes courage. I’d like you all to agree that anything we hear in the next few days will be strictly between “these four walls” and ourselves. If we’re dealing with personal feelings or getting glimpses of other people’s lives, this has to be a safe environment. Do you all agree with that?’
There was a general murmur of assent. ‘Good. I’ll just outline what we’re going to do in the next few days then. There’ll usually be two workshops every morning and time for personal tutorials in the afternoons – I’ll pin up a list of times on the notice board, and you can put your names down if you’d like to have one. Otherwise afternoons are free and we start work together again at five. We have a guest tutor coming to talk about the rival merits of rhyme and metre versus free verse – which will give you all a break from me – and the well-known author Jonathan Mercer, who lives in Edinburgh, is going to give a talk on crime writing one morning. Friday evening is performance night when you’ll all have a chance to read to the group from your own work – if you want to, that is. It’s entirely voluntary. Finally I know Giles and Isobel have laid on a delightful concert for you on Saturday – your last night. I know some of you have brought samples of your writing that you want to talk to me about. If you give them to me this evening I’ll do my best to look at them before your individual tutorials – nothing too long though, please. Because you all have different needs and wishes I shall be suggesting certain exercises I think you’ll all find useful and then we can have sessions reading out the results and discussing them. Let’s meet in here after breakfast tomorrow morning at nine fifteen for our first session and please bring pens and paper with you. Any questions?’
Bunty put her hand up. ‘But what about writing for children?’ she asked plaintively. ‘I don’t want to do any other kind.’
‘I hope all the exercises we do will help you with any kind of writing,’ said Catherine, ‘and you can use them afterwards in whatever way you like.’ Bunty looked unconvinced, and stuck her bottom lip out like a child herself.
Catherine got up. ‘Enough for tonight, I think. Some of you have had a long journey and may want early bed and some of you may like to follow Giles’s invitation and go to the bar. I’ll see you all in the morning.’
Most of the group followed Catherine’s suggestion and drifted towards the bar. Christopher Piper walked over to where Louisa was standing. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he asked. ‘I feel as if I need one myself and we could do a bit of catching up about our last meeting.’
Louisa was about to accept when Marnie, full of brave resolutions to be friendly, came up to join them both and Christopher offered her a drink too. He certainly has impeccable manners, thought Louisa approvingly, but though she would have liked to have a drink with him she still felt sufficiently antagonistic to Marnie not to relish her company as well, so she changed her mind.
‘It’s very kind of you, but I’ve had an awfully long drive today so I think I might have an early night,’ she said. ‘I’m staying in the main house with the Grants, who are cousins of mine, and though I’ve already had a lovely chat with Isobel, I haven’t had a chance to talk to my host yet so I think perhaps I’d better go over with Isobel now and exchange family news with him before I go to bed. Lucky you,’ she said, addressing Marnie, well aware how unresponsive she had been to Giles’s social efforts at dinner. ‘I noticed you sat next to Giles this evening – I hope you enjoyed talking to him as much as most people do. He’s always fun to sit next to, so easy and amusing and such a marvellous host – so good about taking trouble with absolutely anyone,’ and she looked pointedly at the other woman. ‘I’ll have the drink another time if I may?’ she said to Christopher.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow. Good night then.’ If he was disappointed to have his offer accepted only by Marnie, who had been so uncommunicative at dinner, and not by the engaging Louisa, he was too polite to let it show, but Marnie, thinking he’d got landed with her by default, felt uncomfortable.
‘Night then both of you – see you tomorrow,’ said Louisa and went over to join Isobel, who had just said her goodnights and was about to take Catherine back with her to the house.
Marnie gave Louisa’s disappearing back a distinctly unfriendly look and felt her resolutions to be sociable dissolving like morning mist when the wind gets up.
‘Oh dear, I’m afraid I’ve just been rather horrid,’ said Louisa, not sounding all that sorry, as she and Catherine and Isobel walked across the courtyard, ‘but I hope I’ve evened things up a bit after that ill-mannered little cow was so rude to you when she arrived, Izzy.’
‘Louisa, that’s too bad of you,’ said Isobel, half-amused but aware that despite her charm and usual friendliness Louisa could occasionally cause trouble if she took a dislike to anyone. ‘Please don’t start a feud. It’s very kind of you to take up the cudgels on my behalf but I assure you I can fight my own battles and I’d much rather try to win Marnie over and get her to enjoy the week and shed her prickles.’
‘I think she might prove interesting, that one,’ said Catherine thoughtfully.
‘Oh dear – well I’m sorry then,’ said Louisa, pulling a face. ‘I can see you neither of you approve, so I’ll try to be nicer to her, but I don’t promise anything if she goes on being such a pain . . . and anyway I feel much better for having said what I did! I could see she knew exactly what I meant.’
‘Yes,’ said Isobel, laughing. ‘Knowing you, I bet she did! You’ve never gone in for the Mona Lisa approach, have you? What did you both make of Christopher Piper? He’s our mystery man – rather a dishy one though.’
Louisa grinned. ‘Hmm – dark and smooth, like expensive chocolate!’ she said. ‘I bet he’s got a little notice stamped on him somewhere saying Guaranteed not less than 75% cocoa solids. I’ve actually met him before but I was going to ask you to fill me in about him because I don’t really know much about him – but you obviously know even less than I do.’
‘But I think you fancy him rotten,’ teased Isobel, who had noticed Louisa’s manoeuvre before dinner.
Louisa laughed. ‘He certainly seems very charming, but I’m generously giving Marnie a chance to get to know him first!’ she said lightly.
Giles and the dogs were waiting for them in the kitchen, a tray with a decanter of whisky and glasses on the table and the kettle simmering away on the Aga for hot drinks.
‘Now tell me how you got on and what everyone was like,’ said Giles, ready to have a discussion about the evening. ‘And guess what, darling.’ He grinned at Isobel. ‘You’re going to be very pleased with me! I’ve remembered what it was that I read about the Donovan woman.’
‘What?’ they all asked.
‘I think she recently inherited a lot of money,’ said Giles. ‘I knew her name rang a bell. At least we know we have one participant who can afford to pay her bill!’
And he looked at their surprised faces with satisfaction.
Chapter Five
The following morning by half past nine, the group had once more assembled in the conference room, this time seated round two oblong tables, which had been pushed together to form a square. Catherine was already seated when her class started to arrive.
There was already a much less constrained atmosphere than there had been the night before. Several people had chatted over drinks in the bar before going to bed, and they had all met again at breakfast. There was beginning to be a sense of camaraderie and a feeling that they were here with a common purpose, no matter how disparate their ages, backgrounds and talents might be. If there was not exactly a stampede to sit next to Stanley Heslington, this was something of which he was supremely unaware as he settled himself confidently next to Louisa.
‘Aren’t I the lucky one then?’ he enquired, eyeing Louisa in a way that set her teeth on edge. ‘I’ve stolen a march on the other chaps and landed myself next to the bonniest young lady in the room. Maybe I’ll be able to give you a hint or two – seeing as I’ve had previous experience,’ and he winked at her knowingly, though whether he was referring to his writing skills or his success as a self-styled Romeo, Louisa dreaded to think.
His wife went over to Marnie, who had sat herself down on the far side of the table with an empty chair on either side of her. ‘Can I come and sit by you?’ she enquired, unfazed by Marnie’s unapproachable air. ‘Catherine particularly told Stanley and me not to sit together.’
‘Oh yes, please do. Of course you can.’ Marnie treated Win to the smile that had so transformed her face when she had turned it on Catherine the previous night and she made room for Win to pull out the chair next to hers.
Across the table Christopher Piper noticed the smile and wondered what it required to receive one. He had certainly not been favoured with one the evening before, and although Marnie had been perfectly civil she had remained ill at ease and he had not managed to break through the barrier of her reserve. Since he was sometimes considered aloof himself he regarded her reticence with some sympathy but couldn’t help thinking that the engaging Louisa would have been much more enjoyable company. He’d had his own reasons for not wishing to encounter any previous acquaintances at Glendrochatt and had been extremely surprised and far from pleased to bump into someone who knew him. However, now that it had happened and there was nothing he could do about it, he must make the best of it; he remembered how attractive he had thought Louisa when they’d met before. Marnie might prove to be interesting if you got to know her, he thought, but Louisa certainly looked as if she’d be a great deal more fun.
Louisa had also noticed Marnie’s smile and been surprised. Though she had no particular desire to befriend the young American, she too was intrigued by her – and especially since Giles’s revelations of the night before. Being one of those fortunate individuals who have never suffered agonies of shyness, Louisa didn’t really understand the strange ways it can make sufferers behave, and she still felt a little piqued by what she considered Marnie’s uncalled-for antagonism. She and Catherine and the Grants had enjoyed a happy time over mugs of tea in the kitchen, discussing all the course participants and especially Marnie, who didn’t match their idea of a wealthy heiress. Giles had been unable to recall who it was that had left her the fortune or what the circumstances were, only that it had been unexpected. Louisa determined to discover more about her.
‘Good morning everyone,’ said Catherine when they were all settled. ‘I thought we’d have a general talk about what we mean by creative writing and then I’m going to suggest that you all do an exercise which I think you’ll find interesting – the first of several that we’re going to try over the next few days.’
‘But do we all have to do the same one?’ enquired Bunty mistrustfully.
‘Well, that’s the idea. The point is that though you’ll all start off with the same brief, I can guarantee that what you produce will be entirely different. That’s the excitement of it and the challenge. I hope to encourage you to give yourselves permission to “go with the flow” – your flow, your thoughts, not anyone else’s. I want you to cast aside preconceived ideas of what you ought to write, even what you want to write, and let whatever thoughts and memories come up take wing. I don’t want you to say “I’m going to write a poem this morning” . . . or a children’s story, or a piece of political reasoning. Later you may find you can use what you have written to become part of any of those things. To quote from a book on “freeing the writer within” by an American author called Natalie Goldberg, I want to get you to “write down the bones” of what you are and who you are and the interesting thing is that you will find it much easier to do if you don’t have too much time to think about it.’
One or two people looked wary. The Colonel gazed down at his highly polished shoes and cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid I’m a feet-on-the-ground sort of chap,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t think letting imagination take wing is quite my sort of thing.’
‘Ever tried it?’ asked Catherine.
‘Er . . . no. No, I can’t say I have.’ He looked rather shocked at such a suggestion and Catherine thought she might as well have asked if he’d ever taken part in a sex orgy or snorted coke.
‘Well, don’t worry about it; it’s not as dangerous as you think,’ she said, giving him an amused and not unsympathetic smile. ‘Try to reserve judgement until you’ve had a go. Look on it as a training exercise for your writing troops. A toning of unused muscles – a drill.’
Everyone laughed, including the Colonel.
‘Hmm,’ he said dubiously, ‘I can see you’re a very persuasive woman. Dangerous!’ But he smiled back at her.
Bunty leaned earnestly towards him, displaying a good deal of crêpey cleavage in the process: ‘I’m sure you must once have had lots of little imaginary friends to play with,’ she said encouragingly.
The Colonel hastily averted his eyes from her bosom and returned to the safety of contemplating his shoes. Louisa had a vision of him in tweed jacket and tightly knotted tie, skipping round a fairy ring with a lot of pixies, and wished Isobel had been present to enjoy this exchange. Glancing up she was surprised to catch Marnie’s eye and see a flicker of laughter there too. Perhaps a thaw was setting in?
‘Do I take it then, Catherine, that you’re of this modern school that doesn’t hold with grammar, punctuation and rhyme and all the well-tried rules that my generation was raised on?’ queried Stanley. ‘Now when I was a lad at school . . .’
‘Not at all,’ said Catherine, interrupting hastily before Stanley could get up a full head of steam and start huffing on about every detail of his education. ‘Of course all those things are very important too and we’ll come to that in a later session, but this morning’s exercise is not about rules. It’s about finding a way to get past that inner censor that so often inhibits us from writing freely – or even writing at all.’ Privately she thought that by the end of the week she might wish that Stanley’s inner censor – if he had one – would shut him up completely. ‘But before we actually start writing,’ she went on, ‘let’s go round the table, name some of our favourite authors and think what it is that makes us enjoy them.’
Bunty said coyly that she still liked to read the Little Grey Rabbit books in bed and added roguishly that she’d always seen herself as Squirrel: ‘I used to be a redhead too.’ Colonel Smithson professed a preference for military history and Stanley said he wasn’t much given to reading other people’s writing, as he didn’t want it influencing his individual style. ‘No plagiarism for me,’ he announced loftily. ‘I don’t hold with it.’
Jane Austen, Tolkien, Ernest Hemingway, Georgette Heyer, C. S. Lewis, Patrick Leigh Fermor and John Buchan all received mention, as did William Boyd, Anne Tyler, John Grisham, J. K. Rowling, both the Trollopes – Anthony and Joanna – and Dickens.
After some general discussion about books – a useful way of getting everyone to contribute, Catherine found – she asked them to get their pens and paper ready.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘I call this exercise “I remember” and some of you may even like to start with those words, but the whole point is to go with what feels right to you. Again you may find it helpful to write in the present tense – some people don’t like that, but it often has the effect of making your writing very immediate, very live. If you’re not comfortable with it, then that’s fine, don’t use it, but it’s a powerful tool. What I do want you all to do is to relive some defining moment in your lives – it could be a vivid early memory, nice or nasty; an encounter with a particular person; a moment of extreme happiness or fear; it could be something quite inconsequential. Use whatever springs immediately to mind no matter how surprising or even trivial. Don’t stop to think, just dive in. I want you to keep your hand on the page and keep it moving. Don’t stop to re-read what you’ve put or allow your inner editor to take over. Plenty of time for that later. You’ve got about twenty-five minutes, but forget about the clock because I will tell you when to stop, and when I do ask you to stop please put your pens down. Then I’ll give you another few minutes just to finish a sentence but nothing more – we’re not looking for polished work at the moment. If something scary or difficult or unexpected comes up – go with it. Right. Start now please.’
