Writing can be
full of ups and downs – which is no different from life itself, of course.
Just in the last
couple of weeks, my YA novel was rejected by a publisher – although that could,
perhaps, be counted as half a tick, as I had got as far as having the full
manuscript read.
Then came the
launch of ‘Secondary Character and other stories’, the WSSN anthology, which
included my PENfro-winning story, ‘Ingrid, Audrey and Jean.’ This was definitely an ‘up’ moment,
though there I was again, reading in illustrious company.
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| 'Secondary Character' book launch, Swansea (Photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
However, I was lucky enough to have a
few old friends to support me, and I think it went well – it was certainly an
enjoyable night. The book is
available on Amazon, if anyone wants to buy it!
A couple of days
after that, I was emailed the results of a competition, with my entry nowhere
to be seen. Always a bit
depressing, when you believe the story to have been a good one…
But following
swiftly after that, came the results of the PENfro memoir competition, and I
learnt that my work, ‘Revenant’, had been commended. I was really
thrilled by this, both on a ‘professional’ and a ‘personal’ level. From the writing point of view, this
was a form I had never tried before.
Indeed, I have never studied, or even read, memoir. So it was a particularly satisfying
result – all writers tell themselves short-listing is what counts!
On a personal
note, this was the first time I had written about having breast-cancer (I don’t
intend to make a habit of it.) It
was difficult – in a way, I was using the competition to shape my thoughts…
using writing to shape my thoughts.
Therapy, perhaps, but I still wanted to produce a good piece, and I
think the commendation tells me that I did.
I’m including
the whole memoir here – I’m not sure where else it could go, anyway. It’s meant to be positive, so, family
and friends, thank you, as always, and don’t be upset! And thank you, also, Pembrokeshire.
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| Pembrokeshire (Photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
‘Revenant’
Coming here… I was going to chase ghosts. To run after tattered wraiths of memory, and make them live
again.
Coming here… was bound by a
dream-catcher. A web flung far, to
trap ‘finding a home’, ‘building a garden’, ‘connecting with nature’ all
together, and making them real.
It was about living in a place where land
met sea, and saints met stones, in provocative confusion. A landscape of
contrasts, dramatic enough to shake awake any idling spirit. All washed in an Atlantic light, that
was said to inspire the work of artists.
Writers, too? Maybe. Perhaps.
Instead, there was darkness. Fear,
needles, blood, pain. Black. Black, again. The spun dream become the worst of nightmares, holding me
fast.
On the day we arrived, it started to
rain. Not unusual for the far west
of Wales. But it carried on
raining for thirty days and thirty nights, a span of biblical proportions.
And then it began to snow. The first snow in a decade, we were
told by our new neighbours – and that was strange.
Still, it didn’t matter. Spring was coming; soon, there would be everything we’d
hoped for. The walks along the
coast path, sharing its unique wildlife; the beginning of the garden, a novel
finally finished. That ‘home’.
And then came the dark. ‘Black’, the word they use for
depression. ‘The black dog’. But for me, ‘black’ is the time around
my diagnosis of breast cancer, and the treatment that followed. All woven together with coming here…
‘Here’ was Pembrokeshire. The ghosts I
looked for varied in substance and form.
My great-grandparents haunted a lonely valley to the north of the county
– or perhaps the next, or even another, its location shape-shifted across
boundaries by men in distant council offices. And the church where my great-grandfather preached had long
been demolished, the manse turned into a farm, abandoning them entirely to a
place that did not exist. Yet,
from ‘somewhere’, my grandmother walked ten miles to school in Llandysul – so
she said – and rode her horse, and flirted with the curates, who visited that
lost vicarage.
There was another vicarage to the south,
where a hundred-year old woman, dressed in deepest black, sat, unseeing,
unmoving, in a pose stolen from a Victorian daguerreotype. She was the
mother-in-law of my god-mother, descended from the ancient princes of
Wales. The house was a haphazard
of rooms – a scene from a fairy-tale, to the eyes of a child. And this was the revenant I craved most
of all – my childhood self, as if, found, it would conjure the magic of the
past into the promise of the future.
For Pembrokeshire was about ‘holidays’ –
those interludes from the long passage of days, that stay locked in memory, and
thus, most likely to keep that innocent wonder safe.
So I searched for an eight, nine,
ten-year old girl, walking along the beach at Newport, and on to the cliffs
beyond, where she would sit, gazing at the sea. In St. David’s, alone with her father – a rare treat. In Tenby, she almost drowned, though
no-one else will acknowledge it.
At Ceibwr, she frowned at the wrinkled cliffs. In Nevern, someone said
there was a tree that bled, and she believed it.
And then, with the coming of illness,
none of this mattered. ‘Here’
became no more than a bed, in a room still full of unpacked boxes. Family and
old friends wrapped me in comfort and love. But the new friends I had hoped to make were reduced to an
ever-changing circle of women, with tubes in their arms, and fear in their
eyes. Writing was forgotten – reading was hard enough. And the exotic wildlife spawned by the
ocean was diminished into the most common garden kind.
Mostly, I saw crows. Or rooks, to be more precise. Lying there, recovering from the latest
dose of chemotherapy, they were the only things I could see, as they nested in
my neighbour’s trees. I came to
love them – my only animal companions.
And I learnt something about crows. When Pandora’s box was opened, and all the evils of the
world let loose, only the crow remained, clinging to its edge. And so the bird became a symbol for
hope. Of what might be. With luck.
The early summer slipped through my
fingers, always out of reach, but as Autumn approached, I was able to get out
more. The cliffs were difficult,
steep slopes defeating me. But there were plenty of flatter areas – the
beaches, Newport estuary, Cwm-yr-Eglwys to Pwllgwaelod. Solva harbour.
As I walked, I gave my hair to the birds
of Pembrokeshire. Golden
filaments, stroked out and left in the bushes for them to collect. Looking back, I see it was the wrong
time, the nesting season finished.
Still, it gave me comfort then.
I picked up white pebbles from the
beaches, and slipped them in my pocket, to scatter about home and garden.
Quartz, to counter negativity. For
health.
And I decided to keep a wildlife
diary. My ‘proper’ diary was full
of appointments, treatments, scans.
I wanted something else. I
wanted to reclaim Pembrokeshire.
August 22nd. Newport. Spotted a gold crest, smaller
than a wren. An egret flew over
the estuary.
September 12th - seals, at Strumble Head! A mother
suckling her baby, the youngest I have ever seen! Pure joy!
And then,
18th September,
Porthgain. Walked up to the beacon
for the first time since...
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| Porthgain Beacon (Photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
Onward, upward, became one of my many
mantras. I carried on. And on.
It’s five years ago, now.
Sometimes, I still see ghosts. Perhaps some of them are real. There must be some in that room, who
didn’t make it through. But others
are dimly recognised shades, their hair grown back, their faces filled out,
their eyes determined. ‘Do I know
you?’ I think of saying. ‘Were
you..?’ But I let it go, and move
on. Just as I’m going to do, when
I finish writing this.
I’ve been officially discharged. I walk the cliff path all the time,
even the highest points. I’ve seen
dolphins, porpoises, dozens more seals, puffins, guillemots. I’ve finished that novel – and another,
and made friends through the writing of them. The garden this summer is the best it’s ever been.
Pembrokeshire is the best it’s ever been.
Being here … that’s all there is. Just that.
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| Pembrokeshire Wildlife (Photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
