Ending the story

This week, I discover that have not been long-listed for the Curtis Brown Discoveries award. Surprise, surprise. There were over 3,000 entries so what were the odds? And, anyway, rejection is beginning to feel almost comfortable. I see the subject title in an email – your submission . . . – and can barely be bothered to open it. I feel a familiar dull thud in my stomach and then put it out of my mind; get on with something else. Still, I suppose I should question my continued pursuit of publication in the face of failure. ‘You have to be thick skinned,’ I agree with a writer friend of mine. But of course, I’m anything but.

I mention this because it’s easier to talk about the frustration of trying to get the attention of publishers than to talk about the thing that has been taking up most of my headspace over the last ten days. After a rapid decline, my mother died this week at the age of 97. My own emotional reaction has left me drained, slightly unhinged and just a bit bewildered. Because of this, I keep putting it out of my mind (like all those rejections). But I know, at some point, I’m going to have to deal with it.

Our usual rhythm of life has been interrupted lately by the renovation of our bathroom and the subsequent redecoration of the bedroom. I’d forgotten just how exhausting sanding and painting can be. We do these things ourselves because we don’t like having other people in the house and, anyway, we know we can do the job better than they can. And at less expense. I’d like to say we work particularly well together, but we don’t. We’re both of us rather exacting and it means several days of two tired grumpy people struggling to be polite to each other. 

However, we’re also sensible enough to take time out, walk the downs and remember that there’s a whole world outside of that one disrupted room. We meet the new resident of the recently converted art studio on the development site next door. He’s the subject of a conspiracy theory circulating about the developer’s tendency to develop by stealth. The conspiracy, like so many, turns out to be founded on a piece of misinterpreted information. We like our new neighbour – he’s a pleasant academic and keen cyclist – and Adrian offers to take him on some of his favourite cycling routes. 

Then our neighbours take us on an eight and a half mile walk that they particularly enjoy. It starts in the pretty village of Alfriston, carries on around the winery of Rathfinny, then descends to the Cuckmere River valley and back to our starting point. It’s a perfect day for it and the best of distractions. Spring has definitely sprung and brought with it clear blue skies without a sign of rain. Our water butts empty and our new plants look forlorn. The evergreen climbers we planted to cover an uninspiring fence refuse to raise so much as a new leaf. “Until it rains,” they say, “we’re on strike.” The terrace pots look like chicks that have fledged too soon. But later in the afternoon, we finally get the soaking we’ve been waiting for. Not just a bit of drizzle, but a proper downpour. 

The middle of Kent is a long way to go for a short play, but this is what we do on the evening I have news that my mother is semi-conscious and failing fast. I quickly respond to the message and return my attention to the toga-ed Pontius Pilate, performing on the tiny stage in the medieval Ellen Terry Barn. The one-act drama by Michael Punter is an imagining of the man’s recall to Rome; his explanation of why he did what he did and why he is what he is. 

All the while, my brain flicks back to my mother being what she is: a very old woman, single-minded and always determined, who has finally lost her fight. “I’m not giving up,” she tells me on the phone, a few months before she dies. But then she loses the language to articulate the feeling and the decline is rapid. It’s as if, without constant repetition, the story no longer exists and nor does she. After all, what are we, if not the stories we tell? 

It’s probably why I keep writing.