Attended my first ‘OutWrite’ to-day in Southsea and what a wonderful day it was. Southsea always seems to be sunny and to-day was no different. Six budding writers joined Chris and Rob Richardson for a day of literary indulgence. Starting at Portsmouth Museum, we were given forty-five minutes to find an exhibit or museum space which captured our imagination and to use this as inspiration for a story. The challenge then was to find a quiet space, write and then return to base having completed a literary masterpiece – kind of. Next stop was Portsmouth Cathedral where we were given time to roam the Cathedral and wander through the gardens and write from the heart as Rob would say. After a lovely lunch in Twig’s Cafe, we walked to Kings Road to the last venue where, over tea and biscuits, we read back our pieces and voted on our favourites. Such a lovely, creative way to spend a sunny Saturday in June.
My story from the museum is posted here and is called ‘Coming of Age’ The idea came from watching some black and white newsreel showing people walking along Southsea seafront on a hot, sunny day. The story is pretty rough but is as I wrote it in the time allowed with a little tidying up on the train on the way home.
Coming of Age
It was hot that August of ‘39. So hot, the women stopped wearing stockings and the men rolled their sleeves up over their elbows. That was before the war came and changed everything.
One Sunday afternoon, we walked along the seafront – Mum and Dad in front – me dragging behind; part of me wanting to walk with them; part of me wanting to be apart. Dribbles of ice-cream from my cornet wept like tears between my fingers, staining the white cuff of my sleeve.
I was fifteen – no longer a child – not yet a woman.
The summer before, Mum bought me a new pair of sandals and I was still wearing them a year later; tan leather with a cut-out flower punched into the toe – a slim strap fixed with a tiny buckle.
And I was still wearing them now. How I loathed them. Hated that mean little strap – the creamy crepe soles – the ridiculous cut-out flower now ragged round the edges. They were for younger girls – the ones who huddled in little groups giggling together – their bottle-green school berets jostling together like a pack of agitated beetles.
But I was an only child. Much loved and cherished – and that was how they wanted to keep me.
When we’d bought the sandals last June in Clarks I’d secretly admired the lace-ups with the high heels – the ones I’d seen the girl who worked in our corner shop wearing. But I hadn’t the heart to point them out to Mum when she’d pulled down the flat summer sandals from the shelf marked ‘Girls’.
‘They’re lovely Mum,’ I’d said, ‘they’ll do me fine.’
How pleased she been. Relieved. Another year to keep me as a child. But it couldn’t last for ever – we both knew that – the clock was ticking.
That day on the front, as we passed the pier, a lady sat on a bench by the sailor in the glass box – the one you put threepence into to make him guffaw like a laughing policeman.
Her long black coat was patched and threadbare – a straw hat with purple flowers – like the ones donkeys wear on the beach – made her look like a scarecrow. Nearly eighty degrees and she was wrapped up for winter. She was talking to a seagull – it’s beak jabbing at a discarded chip. Between her lips a woodbine – wheezy breath dragging nicotine into phlegm-filled lungs.
I slowed my pace to peer at her and as I did a group of boys stopped to stare. One of them bent down and grabbed a handful of shingle washed in by the tide and flung it at her skirts. She shifted position to avoid the cascade of tiny stones.
Confusion washed over me – I was uneasy but didn’t understand why. It was hot and my sandals were too small – my feet stinging and smarting in the heat. They no longer fitted. Caught between the old woman and the boys I felt out of place.
‘Come on lady – give us a smoke,’ one of them taunted as he stooped to pick up a pebble.
‘Go on Stan – lob it at her,’ his friend laughed.
I winced as the stone skittered across the ground, sending the seagull flapping to one side indignantly.
‘Give it a rest boys. I’m just an old woman – leave an old girl to enjoy her fag eh?’
I shuffled my feet – pushing the toe of my sandal into the crack between two paving stones – hot leather biting into thin skin as the strap tightened against my heel.
And then I decided.
‘Leave her alone. She’s not hurting you – let her have a fag in peace.’
The boys turned to stare at the overgrown girl in a green gingham dress, clutching an ice-cream and wearing children’s shoes.
‘Go on.’ I braved, ‘hop it – go and pick on someone else.’
As they shuffled off, the lady in black turned and grinned at me, a dog-end hanging from her bottom lip.
‘Thanks lovee – they’re only kids eh? Just boys being boys.’
Smiling back, I ran to catch up with my parents.
‘Those sandals pinching you love?’ Mum asked. ‘You’ll be sixteen next birthday – time we got you something more grown up. They had some lovely lace-ups in Clarks with quite a dainty heel.’
I decided against writing a story in the Cathedral and settled instead for a poem – new territory for me. I sat in the remembrance garden which was paved with memorial stones – a kind of grey mosaic. So here’s the poem – again pretty rough due to time constraints – but that’s the name of the game.
Past lives
Spread out like patchwork made of stone,
I know that I am not alone.
The names and dates beneath my feet
of people I will never meet.
You long to speak but silenced now
I understand you cannot tell,
of lives lived in another time
so different then to that of mine.
Yet you knew love and sadness once,
fear and pain and dissonance.
But while I continue with my plight
you no longer have to fight.
And as I sit I feel ashamed
and dread that I will find my name.
Another square as yet unlaid,
I know not in which year or day.
