A work in progress
This is what happened when I gave in to the urge to write. And resisted the compulsion to edit.
For the last part of the drive she had turned off the satnav. She hadn’t really needed it as she’d done this journey so many times, but she liked having someone tell her where to go and which turn to take. She liked the certainty that there was an end and knowing how long it would be before she got there. She liked the assured instruction to ‘Continue’.
A handsome customs official beams her a smile that she allows herself to imagine is just for her. She takes her passport, flipping shut the page with the photo taken ten years ago when her hair wasn’t grey and her eyes hadn’t sunk like snooker pockets. She puts the car in gear and drives under the barrier, taking her place in the line of British cars neatly organised on the tarmac, with their childlike Comic Sans numberplates and pink-faced passengers.
A less attractive port official in a high-vis jacket removes the cone in front of her line and the cars trundle towards the ferry’s gaping mouth. The cars stop on a ramp and she finds the biting point with the clutch, that crucial stasis between propulsion and rolling backwards.
A bearded man enthusiastically motions her into a parking spot. She rummages in her basket for her sandwich and now-warm yoghurt, and checks she’s got everything for the crossing. For some reason she feels like writing – a feeling that has eluded her for the past few months. She puts her laptop into the basket and walks up the stairs and through the cafeteria to the back of the boat. Some people have already got food and are tucking into curry and chips. Truck drivers, she thinks, for no real reason.
She finds a table on the lower deck, where she always sits. There is only one other person sitting alone – the other tables are taken up by groups of middle-aged couples drinking white wine, playing cards, reading the newspapers, talking about the Parish council. She had craved solitude before this trip but then when she arrived at her empty cottage she found the evenings too quiet. She had gone to bed early each night to avoid the loneliness, knowing she would wake at 3am as usual, filled with inexplicable dread.
Now she is grateful to be on her own, observing and thinking. The couple next to her unpack little Tupperware boxes containing identical bread rolls, two apples, and two small pots of nuts and raisins. She is struck by the realisation that her future will quite possibly not involve sharing travel picnics with another person. That she might have chosen to travel with only her own company for the remaining years of her life. There’s both a joy and a terror in that thought.
The ferry judders slowly away from the shore. The sea looks flat. She is sailing into limbo, a grey-blue sea between her family and the little house she’d bought last year as a retreat. What was she retreating from? Marriage, yes. The daily shit stain she scrubbed away from the same spot in an ever-swelling rage, yes. Her children, no. But the grind of motherhood, maybe. Though she realises you never really escape that, and she doesn’t want to, not really. Just to put it all on pause for a moment, to catch her breath before diving back into the undertow.
On the three-hour drive to the ferry she’d listened to an interview with a man who had been trapped in an air pocket on a capsized boat on the sea bed for three days. His crewmates had all died when the boat sank, but he had survived. Just as his air was running out he was rescued by a shocked diver who had been expecting only to find bloated blue bodies. The rescued sailor had to spend three more days decompressing before he was able to set foot on land. Coming up too quickly can be lethal.
Recently she had found herself repeatedly watching videos of huge seas, small ships hurled and tossed on unimaginable waves.
The ferry stops shuddering and begins to glide quietly away from the brown-stained cliffs and grand seafront. The picnicking couple share an amiable silence, gazing out at the sea as they eat, occasionally smiling at each other. There is an easy comfort that now seems unimaginable when she thinks about the prickly conversations she and her not-quite-ex-husband have. They are still living together – partly out of a desire to cling on to some form of family unit, and partly out of economic necessity. They take it in turns to sleep on the sofa and to misconstrue the other person’s comments.
It was a quiet ending. Tender, sad. Quick. In an hour’s conversation they had closed the door on twenty-five years of their lives together. Just like that, it was done. When is the moment you know a marriage is over? She thought it was like the end of summer, when you suddenly notice the swifts have gone. You don’t know that the last screeching swoop above your head will be the last until next year, you only notice their absence. Just like she doesn’t remember the last bedtime story she ever read to her children – it happens without the forewarning of an ending. There isn’t really a definitive moment. It’s a process. Like dying.
She goes out on the deck, blasted by wind and diesel fumes. She feels like she’s constantly in between things, her heart split in two, always wanting to be in the place she’s just left. She remembers a conversation with a friend who told her how he was holding his baby son in his arms on a ferry deck and was overcome with the sudden urge to hurl the infant overboard. He didn’t, of course, but she shared that random pull to oblivion, the occasional urge to do the unspeakable. Her son shared this too, but his thoughts had become an overwhelming disorder where his will and desire were blurred with these impish, malevolent thoughts. She couldn’t bear to see him in such pain. He was a man now but to her he was always the little boy with blond curls, running down the street pulling a paper plate on a string behind him like a pancaked dog, or a kite that would never take off.
The sun is setting on the other side of the deck. People hold their phones up to capture it, refracting its beauty through their screens. France recedes in the distance. Soon her phone signal will drop off and she’ll be properly out of contact for two hours.
She goes back inside, smoothing down her hair. A woman has taken a seat on her table, laying out some crackers, cheese and a glass of red wine on the dented lozenge-shaped wooden table. They both hope the other doesn’t try to make idle chit chat. She opens up her laptop and begins typing.
The sky and sea have become the same washed-out dishcloth colour. It is hard to see where the horizon is, where water becomes air. She closes the screen and starts eating her warm yoghurt.
But her story doesn’t start here, with this voyage. Where to begin?
Thanks for getting to the end. Or the beginning.
Since working full time, launching another book and dealing with family stuff I haven’t been able to make any space in my life for writing for sheer pleasure. This is what happened when I finally had some time to scratch that itch.
It’s not great. I’m not sure where it’s going. And it’s very unpolished. But I wanted to share it anyway, because it’s good to put work out into the world.
I need to remind myself that I have other writing muscles, and they need stretching sometimes.
Now for something different.
(pic credit: Susan Bell)
Words and Pictures workshop
My super-talented photographer friend Susan Bell and I are running a one-day workshop for business owners who need help creating compelling copy and beautiful images for their brands.
We’ll be covering everything from writing website copy, crafting social media posts, shooting great images and using lighting effectively, to styling images and telling your story.
You’ll leave with words and pictures you can use straight away to bring your brand to life. And bring customers into your world.
It’s on 18th November, 9.30am-5pm, in Lewes, East Sussex. A delicious lunch from Seven Sisters Spices, plus refreshments, is included.
Sign up in before 5th November for the early bird discount.
Find out more and sign up here 👇
And if you’re still reading, don’t forget you can now sign up for my next Write Your Memoir course, starting 17th January.
We’ll cover all aspects of writing a memoir, with techniques, tips, inspiring texts, writing prompts and group feedback. You’ll also be able to draw on my experience of the publishing industry - I’m very much an ‘ask me anything’ kind of gal.
In the meantime, I hope your days are gentle and kind.
L x
Ah your words are so easy and soothing to read ❤️ I too am still with the cohabiting post break up (17 years for us) so I hear you! It’s quite the navigational challenge. Here if you need someone to chat to about it! Clara x
Pulled me right in, thank you for such an enjoyable diversion.