It was one of those beautiful days that come in late September where the evening sun bathes everything orange and pink. Sylvia was sat on the back step outside her house with her blue tea-dress and big wooly cardie to keep off the chill. She'd just lit up a cigarette when her eyeline was obstructed by a tall, dark figure.
"Robbie!" She budged up to make room for him on the step and blew smoke in his face. He coughed, politely. They sat in comfortable silence. They'd been doing this for 18 years, ever since their respective mothers had had babies next door to eachother in the same month. Beautiful, noisy Sylvia and pale, bookish Robbie had grown up with and in spite of eachother.
"I've joined up." Robbie said it in a rush, as if he couldn't hold it in. He looked jangly and strung out, his grasshopper legs bouncing up and down. Sylvia dropped her cigarette and made a strange 'oof' sound, as if she'd been winded. She picked it up and tried to light it again, but her hands were shaking. In the end Robbie did it for her.
"You're joking, aren't you? I mean, who'd want a skinny little spec like you?"
He blushed. "The navy. I'm going to read maps and that sort of thing - navigation."
"The navy? The bloody navy! What on earth do you want to go in the navy for?" She was trying to laugh but it wasn't coming off. "I thought you were leaving me to be all la-di-da at University - not leaving me to go play boats!"
"There's a war on, Sylvie."
"And don't I bloody know it! It's all I've heard for days and it's only been three weeks!" er voice cracked. "It's all a lot of fuss about nothing." She rested her head on his shoulder, it fit just exactly in the space between his neck and his shoulder. "Will you wear those trousers like that film we saw? Do you remember that one? The one with the naval officer and his girl in the Congo?"
Of course Robbie remembered that film. He'd spent the whole picture trying to pluck up the nerve to kiss her, but had lost it when all she could talk about on the way home was the handsome lead actor.
"Robbie?" She moved her head slightly so the tip of her nose pressed into his neck.
"Yeah, I remember. I'm not sure what I'll be wearing to be honest."
"Oh Robbie. Why do you have to go? Couldn't you have just waited for them to call you up if they'd needed you?" Sylvia pulled her arms up and around his shoulders so the cigarette smoke blew through his brown hair.
"If I wait for draft - and draft's coming - then I'll get put in the army straight away. You know I'd be no good as a private, Sylvie. This way I can be useful and still make sure I don't get myself killed."
Sylvia began to cry quietly. "Shut up! Please don't say anything like that."
"You sound like mum."
She sighed. "When do you leave?"
"Two weeks."
She took another drag over his shoulder and he coughed again. "You'll have to start smoking if you're going in the navy. And you'll need tattoo's. Tattoo's and prostitutes - one for every port."
"Lay off it Sylvie."
They sat for a while like that, her arms around his neck and her lips and nose pressing into the skin between his collar bone and chin.
"Don't forget me. I don't care how pretty the whores are in Calcutta. You've always got to come back to me." He could smell the smoke on her breath as she lifted her head up and looked at him, very seriously.
"Sylvia Jones, you are the most beautiful girl I will ever see - even more beautiful than the whores of Calcutta." They both laughed nervously as their heads drew closer together.
In the end she kissed him. Everything was about to change for good. This last golden September of 1939 would be remembered as the calm before the storm of the next six years. It would be the memories they made in this moment that would carry them through the horrors they had yet to face, and Sylvia seized on this moment to make her own.
Robbie reached out for hand and held it tight. "I'm always going to be coming back for you, Sylvie."
Showing posts with label Writer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writer. Show all posts
4 Sept 2010
"Homecoming."
This is another story. I imagine that the stories I will be posting at the moment could be organised into some kind of collection.
Life continued exactly as if a war had happened. Husbands returned to wives who had lived new, independent lives for six years. Pretty, quiet girls who liked reading and listening to the wireless had turned into beautiful women who smoked and drove vans and worked salvaging war-torn London. Whereas once they had been happy to practice recipes they had learned at a cookery class on their husbands, they'd got used to cooking meals for 10 families at WVS Shelters on rations. When they tried (and they did try, every single one of them) they discovered they couldn't go back to a life before Woolton Pie and careless talk costing lives and air raid sirens. They'd seen horrors too. They might not have been in Africa or Italy but they'd seen children lying dead in the street after bomb blasts. They'd spent nights sitting awake in Undergrounds listening to aeroplanes and doodlebugs. They had had their own war.
Their husbands, their men, their boys, their heroes - they were having trouble too. Blighty had been so idealised in their absence it could never match up to what it really would be; tired, grey, damaged and altogether older than it had been when they'd left. Some of them returned to houses without rooves. Others returned to houses without wives.
It was hard to explain why they had been changed irrevocably. When you are asked across the dinner table what's wrong, how can you tell your wife that the reason you feel sick and dizzy is because burnt pork fat smells exactly like a burnt man in a plan? How can you explain why you don't want to go to church and plays God's benevolence anymore? How can you lie in your marriage bed and admit the nightmares you have are about the man you killed?
It wasn't just the memories of war, either. It was the routine of civilian life. Men who had flown spitfires and left with a perfect record were rewarded by returning to bank jobs. Where were the card games, the dirty jokes and where was the adrenalin? Living every day for six years with the fear of dying had given many men an edge and a hardness that couldn't translate back to life in England. If boredom was depression then the whole of the country was suffering badly.
Yes. The war changed everything all over again when it ended. Life continued as if it had happened.
Life continued exactly as if a war had happened. Husbands returned to wives who had lived new, independent lives for six years. Pretty, quiet girls who liked reading and listening to the wireless had turned into beautiful women who smoked and drove vans and worked salvaging war-torn London. Whereas once they had been happy to practice recipes they had learned at a cookery class on their husbands, they'd got used to cooking meals for 10 families at WVS Shelters on rations. When they tried (and they did try, every single one of them) they discovered they couldn't go back to a life before Woolton Pie and careless talk costing lives and air raid sirens. They'd seen horrors too. They might not have been in Africa or Italy but they'd seen children lying dead in the street after bomb blasts. They'd spent nights sitting awake in Undergrounds listening to aeroplanes and doodlebugs. They had had their own war.
Their husbands, their men, their boys, their heroes - they were having trouble too. Blighty had been so idealised in their absence it could never match up to what it really would be; tired, grey, damaged and altogether older than it had been when they'd left. Some of them returned to houses without rooves. Others returned to houses without wives.
It was hard to explain why they had been changed irrevocably. When you are asked across the dinner table what's wrong, how can you tell your wife that the reason you feel sick and dizzy is because burnt pork fat smells exactly like a burnt man in a plan? How can you explain why you don't want to go to church and plays God's benevolence anymore? How can you lie in your marriage bed and admit the nightmares you have are about the man you killed?
It wasn't just the memories of war, either. It was the routine of civilian life. Men who had flown spitfires and left with a perfect record were rewarded by returning to bank jobs. Where were the card games, the dirty jokes and where was the adrenalin? Living every day for six years with the fear of dying had given many men an edge and a hardness that couldn't translate back to life in England. If boredom was depression then the whole of the country was suffering badly.
Yes. The war changed everything all over again when it ended. Life continued as if it had happened.
1 Sept 2010
"The Flight Jacket."
This is something new that I wrote. I'll share it with the Internet ether for your viewing pleasure:
She's wearing his flight jacket - and he's nearly as proud of that item of clothing as he is of her. It's standard issue in the RAF; brown leather and sheepskin to keep them warm out on the airfield or up in the planes. It's about as cold today as it has been on base, but he's more than happy to give it to her. His Marilyn, his best girl. He'll marry her once this damned war is over and she'll make him the happiest man in the new England they are all fighting for.
They're walking around Holland Park in the January drizzle and she's turning every head. London is gray and gritty, but Marilyn has got on her red lipstick and her best stockings and she's curled her beautiful black hair into ringlets. They make a handsome couple; the beautiful young WVS Volunteer and the boy in blue, the hero of the skies. They've already had a woman approach them and tell him that her son is in the RAF too, that she wishes him every will in the world. An old man on a bench has called "good luck, lad! We're all behind you m'boy!"
It's true, everyone is behind him, and when he leaves that afternoon the station is full of people clapping him on the back and telling him he's a brave young man. He kisses her through the train window and he ends up with her tears on his face as they are pulled apart by the train and by duty and another countries greed and ambition.
*
He died, of course.
He became one of the few to who the many owed so much. Marilyn got a standard issue letter telling her that Reginald Hythe had been gunned down somewhere near his base by a German plane. She wondered who Reginald was - her fiance had been called Reggie. She had a number of his posses ions forwarded to her. He'd been mad for Sherlock Holmes and she got back some well-thumbed Conan Doyle paperbacks. Inside A Study In Scarlet there was a photograph of her from the day of the engagement. His St. Christopher went to his sister badly grieving and heavily pregnant with a husband in the navy. Marilyn got his flight jacket back too. For some unknown reason he hadn't had it on when he'd gone up in the spitfire for the last time - had the alarm gone off too suddenly for him to do the buckles up? Or were his hands shaking too badly?
It smelled of cigarettes and cold weather and engine oil. Marilyn wrapped herself up in it and found a rollie in the left pocket with a playing card - the five of diamonds. In the inside pocket was her last letter to him. She told him how much she loved him and how she had heard on good authority Mr. Churchill had struck a deal with the Germans to end the attacks on British skies.
Bloody Hitler, Marilyn sobbed. Bloody, bloody war.
She's wearing his flight jacket - and he's nearly as proud of that item of clothing as he is of her. It's standard issue in the RAF; brown leather and sheepskin to keep them warm out on the airfield or up in the planes. It's about as cold today as it has been on base, but he's more than happy to give it to her. His Marilyn, his best girl. He'll marry her once this damned war is over and she'll make him the happiest man in the new England they are all fighting for.
They're walking around Holland Park in the January drizzle and she's turning every head. London is gray and gritty, but Marilyn has got on her red lipstick and her best stockings and she's curled her beautiful black hair into ringlets. They make a handsome couple; the beautiful young WVS Volunteer and the boy in blue, the hero of the skies. They've already had a woman approach them and tell him that her son is in the RAF too, that she wishes him every will in the world. An old man on a bench has called "good luck, lad! We're all behind you m'boy!"
It's true, everyone is behind him, and when he leaves that afternoon the station is full of people clapping him on the back and telling him he's a brave young man. He kisses her through the train window and he ends up with her tears on his face as they are pulled apart by the train and by duty and another countries greed and ambition.
*
He died, of course.
He became one of the few to who the many owed so much. Marilyn got a standard issue letter telling her that Reginald Hythe had been gunned down somewhere near his base by a German plane. She wondered who Reginald was - her fiance had been called Reggie. She had a number of his posses ions forwarded to her. He'd been mad for Sherlock Holmes and she got back some well-thumbed Conan Doyle paperbacks. Inside A Study In Scarlet there was a photograph of her from the day of the engagement. His St. Christopher went to his sister badly grieving and heavily pregnant with a husband in the navy. Marilyn got his flight jacket back too. For some unknown reason he hadn't had it on when he'd gone up in the spitfire for the last time - had the alarm gone off too suddenly for him to do the buckles up? Or were his hands shaking too badly?
It smelled of cigarettes and cold weather and engine oil. Marilyn wrapped herself up in it and found a rollie in the left pocket with a playing card - the five of diamonds. In the inside pocket was her last letter to him. She told him how much she loved him and how she had heard on good authority Mr. Churchill had struck a deal with the Germans to end the attacks on British skies.
Bloody Hitler, Marilyn sobbed. Bloody, bloody war.
26 Apr 2010
15 Mar 2010
I got this new thing:
It's called a Tumblr.
I'm going to try and do a 365 - a year of writing or a phrase or a quote or a picture which means a lot to me that day. I don't know if I'll manage it.
http://likeawhoreunpackmyheart365.tumblr.com/
If you fancy it.
I'm going to try and do a 365 - a year of writing or a phrase or a quote or a picture which means a lot to me that day. I don't know if I'll manage it.
http://likeawhoreunpackmyheart365.tumblr.com/
If you fancy it.
29 Nov 2009
Look who's writing again!
I'm busy. I've started my job, and I have homework and coursework and revision and a crush and many other things that are making my life rush past far to fast.
But, in the little bit of spare time I have got, I've managed to write this. And... (this needs to be in small letters, just in case someone out there wants to jinx me for thinking it) And I'm quite proud of it. It might not be the best thing I've ever written, but it's got a little something I like. It's not autobiographical, except for the Dylan Thomas being amazing bit. It's not current - it harks back to the 50's or 60's in my imagination.
Would you like to read it?
It's here, if you do.
---------
The Winter of My Content.
I remember when I was sixteen and we used to skive off physics and go down to the park to smoke roll-ups and flirt and drink flasks of tea.
Our physics teacher was new that September, and he had a phd – he made us call him Doctor. He had a little black beard and hairy hands, and was probably very clever. He was a terrible teacher though, and he never told the headmistress that two thirds of his class went missing every lesson. Looking back, I think he was just too scared of losing his job.
It was an especially cold Winter that year; it seemed to always be frosty or snowing. That’s why we brought the tea in flasks – to stop ourselves catching hypothermia. I wore two pairs of thick woollen tights for months, and my mum was always saying that if I was cold I should just wear a longer skirt. I think she’d forgotten what it was like to be a teenager.
It was during those stolen hours that I first heard Dylan Thomas, read to me by a tall, earnest boy called Mathew. I would lie on the read tartan rug he’s bring and eat apples while he’d sit above me and the recite the most beautiful poetry I’d ever heard. In between poems he’d smoke half a cigarette and give the rest to me, and I’d let him kiss me. I quite enjoyed the kissing, but that’s not what I had come for – much in the same way as Matthew enjoyed the poetry, but it wasn’t why he was sharing his smokes and apples with me.
Sometimes he’d ask me to meet him outside the fishbowl of our physics lessons, but I always refused. If I had discovered, for example, that at home he wore a cardigan I would never have been able to let him kiss me again. And I expect that he had found out that I had a stuffed teddy bear on my bed called Gregory, he wouldn’t have seen as the mysterious and alluring girl that he said he did.
So we muddled along in the cold Winter of my content, and when I dropped physics at A-Level, I rarely saw Matthew anymore except to smile at in the school corridors. My brief encounter with Matthew may not have been the great passion of my life, but Dylan Thomas certainly was.
----
Now I'm not someone who begs for comments, but I wouldn't mind a comment for this, if you liked it. Or if you didn't. I'm always dying for constructive critiscism.
But, in the little bit of spare time I have got, I've managed to write this. And... (this needs to be in small letters, just in case someone out there wants to jinx me for thinking it) And I'm quite proud of it. It might not be the best thing I've ever written, but it's got a little something I like. It's not autobiographical, except for the Dylan Thomas being amazing bit. It's not current - it harks back to the 50's or 60's in my imagination.
Would you like to read it?
It's here, if you do.
---------
The Winter of My Content.
I remember when I was sixteen and we used to skive off physics and go down to the park to smoke roll-ups and flirt and drink flasks of tea.
Our physics teacher was new that September, and he had a phd – he made us call him Doctor. He had a little black beard and hairy hands, and was probably very clever. He was a terrible teacher though, and he never told the headmistress that two thirds of his class went missing every lesson. Looking back, I think he was just too scared of losing his job.
It was an especially cold Winter that year; it seemed to always be frosty or snowing. That’s why we brought the tea in flasks – to stop ourselves catching hypothermia. I wore two pairs of thick woollen tights for months, and my mum was always saying that if I was cold I should just wear a longer skirt. I think she’d forgotten what it was like to be a teenager.
It was during those stolen hours that I first heard Dylan Thomas, read to me by a tall, earnest boy called Mathew. I would lie on the read tartan rug he’s bring and eat apples while he’d sit above me and the recite the most beautiful poetry I’d ever heard. In between poems he’d smoke half a cigarette and give the rest to me, and I’d let him kiss me. I quite enjoyed the kissing, but that’s not what I had come for – much in the same way as Matthew enjoyed the poetry, but it wasn’t why he was sharing his smokes and apples with me.
Sometimes he’d ask me to meet him outside the fishbowl of our physics lessons, but I always refused. If I had discovered, for example, that at home he wore a cardigan I would never have been able to let him kiss me again. And I expect that he had found out that I had a stuffed teddy bear on my bed called Gregory, he wouldn’t have seen as the mysterious and alluring girl that he said he did.
So we muddled along in the cold Winter of my content, and when I dropped physics at A-Level, I rarely saw Matthew anymore except to smile at in the school corridors. My brief encounter with Matthew may not have been the great passion of my life, but Dylan Thomas certainly was.
----
Now I'm not someone who begs for comments, but I wouldn't mind a comment for this, if you liked it. Or if you didn't. I'm always dying for constructive critiscism.
20 Oct 2009
I Write Because I Am.
I've just remembered to tell you all about my Cheltenahm Literary Adventures! Here goes:
Sunday 11th of October 2009, I went to see Michelle Paver (author of the Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness) at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. By the way - you should ALL read those books. They make you want to run off to Finland and live in an elk-hide shelter and run around howling with wolves. [actually, I'm doing that. But more about that later.]
She was very, very good. She talked all about writing the books and all the cool travelling things she has done to research the books. Then we got to ask questions and I asked whether she had any advice for aspiring writers. When she answered she seemed very earnest and looked me in the face the whole time.
She told me:
1) To always keep a notebook with me
2) To always eat breakfast
3) To re-write. She showed me one of her manuscripts, and it was covered in adjustments.
4) To write what I like, not neccisarrily what I know.
It's really useful stuff that. Honestly, it's been very helpful. I always kept a notebook with me anyway, but the thing about re-writing has made me go bcak on loads of old stuff and be really ruthless.
And that thing about writing what I like?
It's so true.
Then, we queued to meet her and me and Amelia waited at the back so she would talk to us for longer. We waited about an hour and a half – because she spent a lot of time with everyone. She seemed so genuinely pleased to have us there. When we got to her, we both had our photo taken and then she said to me
“I’m so glad you waited, I wanted to talk to you a bit more about the writing.” And then she talked to me a little bit about structure, and said that although she thought I would already know it, the main structure of any story is...
A main character wants something, and there are obstacles along the way.
It’s true, you know.
And then she was talking to me a bit more, the she asked my name and I told her it was Charlotte ------. And she said
"Well, that’s a name I’ll remember; I expect to see you sitting here one day, signing books for people.”
It was sooooo exciting! She seemed so interested in everyone and what they had to say and asking them questions and answering there’s. She also said she liked my nail-varnish, which was my dark-purple winter-time fare.
Then, she wrote in my book:
“For Charlotte,
With very best wishes, and good luck with your writing.
Michelle Paver.”
And then she stamped it with her cool wolf print stamp.
It was a very good day, and it really re-enforced my ambitions. It’s hard work, but I’ll do it.
Thankyou Michelle Paver.
Sunday 11th of October 2009, I went to see Michelle Paver (author of the Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness) at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. By the way - you should ALL read those books. They make you want to run off to Finland and live in an elk-hide shelter and run around howling with wolves. [actually, I'm doing that. But more about that later.]
She was very, very good. She talked all about writing the books and all the cool travelling things she has done to research the books. Then we got to ask questions and I asked whether she had any advice for aspiring writers. When she answered she seemed very earnest and looked me in the face the whole time.
She told me:
1) To always keep a notebook with me
2) To always eat breakfast
3) To re-write. She showed me one of her manuscripts, and it was covered in adjustments.
4) To write what I like, not neccisarrily what I know.
It's really useful stuff that. Honestly, it's been very helpful. I always kept a notebook with me anyway, but the thing about re-writing has made me go bcak on loads of old stuff and be really ruthless.
And that thing about writing what I like?
It's so true.
Then, we queued to meet her and me and Amelia waited at the back so she would talk to us for longer. We waited about an hour and a half – because she spent a lot of time with everyone. She seemed so genuinely pleased to have us there. When we got to her, we both had our photo taken and then she said to me
“I’m so glad you waited, I wanted to talk to you a bit more about the writing.” And then she talked to me a little bit about structure, and said that although she thought I would already know it, the main structure of any story is...
A main character wants something, and there are obstacles along the way.
It’s true, you know.
And then she was talking to me a bit more, the she asked my name and I told her it was Charlotte ------. And she said
"Well, that’s a name I’ll remember; I expect to see you sitting here one day, signing books for people.”
It was sooooo exciting! She seemed so interested in everyone and what they had to say and asking them questions and answering there’s. She also said she liked my nail-varnish, which was my dark-purple winter-time fare.
Then, she wrote in my book:
“For Charlotte,
With very best wishes, and good luck with your writing.
Michelle Paver.”
And then she stamped it with her cool wolf print stamp.
It was a very good day, and it really re-enforced my ambitions. It’s hard work, but I’ll do it.
Thankyou Michelle Paver.
13 Oct 2009
Who Wants A Fairytale Anyway?
I had to write a monolgue of a fairytale character for English Language, and I thought I would show you. For no other reason than I'm bored and want to post. It's about Cinderella after the Happy Ever After. I think it may illustrate my doubt about lasting love and, well, marraige.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happily ever after wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Happily ever after is beautiful and sparkling. Happily ever after is... ever after.
It’s not sitting on the floor of the castle you called your home, in the finery you’ve just been told ‘isn’t really yours’, because you never bought it, watching the footmen – the footmen you used to command – carry your trunks out the door. It’s not watching your husband avert his gaze from you as you weep into the sleeve of your dress.
It’s the dress I was wearing when I met him. It’s my fairytale dress. One of the only things I can call my own, because it is my own. I had it when I was still a silly little girl from the sticks, still cleaning and cooking and dreaming of a handsome prince all of my very own. I had it the night my fairy godmother found me and turned me into a girl with glass slippers who felt invincible, who could do anything; even enchant the heir to the kingdom.
D’you know what? I wish I could have a word with Little Miss Fairy Godmother now. She’d have a few things to answer too, I can tell you. The last time I saw her was at the wedding – actually, I was allowed to keep that dress too, as a ‘sign of the Prince’s kindness’ – then she disappeared. What a cow. She was supposed to stick around, so, when things started to go wrong (and they did) she could wave her magic wand and tell me what to do to make it all better.
I mean, isn’t that a Fairy Godmother’s job? To stop me making it all go wrong.
I guess, if I think about it properly, it stopped being happily ever after right after the honeymoon. Yes, we came back all tanned and glossy and relaxed. The Prince had even got dreadlocks. They looked a bit silly, actually, but... well, I didn’t really want to tell him. He was so proud of them. I think he had visions of becoming some sort of new-age hippy prince. Anyway. Once we’d got back, he started working again – and he did have an awful lot to do, ‘cuz, well, he’s a prince – and I had to settle into the life of a princess. The thing is... and I know it’s not what people would expect... but, being a princess is pretty dull. You sit around all day waiting for someone to come and visit, so you can write them a thankyou note after.
I had to practice all that, too. I had to make my handwriting all fancy, and learn to speak like a princess. That meant a man told me I had to start saying Had, instead of ‘ad, and use big words. I can’t stop now. Had. Had. ‘ad. There we go. It’s nice to know I could go back to being how I used too. You know. If I wanted.
I wonder what I’ll do now? Now he’s gone off with his secretary. His secretary! It’s just such an insult, it’s such a cliché! Can you imagine what everyone will say? Bad blood. That’s what everyone will think – that he should never had married me in the first place. A little commoner who turned up to the palace one evening and passed herself off as someone with class.
Well. More fool me. That’s a warning to every girl, I suppose. You shouldn’t try and better yourself, ‘cuz that’s where all your problems’ll start.
I wonder if my Stepmum will ‘ave me back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happily ever after wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Happily ever after is beautiful and sparkling. Happily ever after is... ever after.
It’s not sitting on the floor of the castle you called your home, in the finery you’ve just been told ‘isn’t really yours’, because you never bought it, watching the footmen – the footmen you used to command – carry your trunks out the door. It’s not watching your husband avert his gaze from you as you weep into the sleeve of your dress.
It’s the dress I was wearing when I met him. It’s my fairytale dress. One of the only things I can call my own, because it is my own. I had it when I was still a silly little girl from the sticks, still cleaning and cooking and dreaming of a handsome prince all of my very own. I had it the night my fairy godmother found me and turned me into a girl with glass slippers who felt invincible, who could do anything; even enchant the heir to the kingdom.
D’you know what? I wish I could have a word with Little Miss Fairy Godmother now. She’d have a few things to answer too, I can tell you. The last time I saw her was at the wedding – actually, I was allowed to keep that dress too, as a ‘sign of the Prince’s kindness’ – then she disappeared. What a cow. She was supposed to stick around, so, when things started to go wrong (and they did) she could wave her magic wand and tell me what to do to make it all better.
I mean, isn’t that a Fairy Godmother’s job? To stop me making it all go wrong.
I guess, if I think about it properly, it stopped being happily ever after right after the honeymoon. Yes, we came back all tanned and glossy and relaxed. The Prince had even got dreadlocks. They looked a bit silly, actually, but... well, I didn’t really want to tell him. He was so proud of them. I think he had visions of becoming some sort of new-age hippy prince. Anyway. Once we’d got back, he started working again – and he did have an awful lot to do, ‘cuz, well, he’s a prince – and I had to settle into the life of a princess. The thing is... and I know it’s not what people would expect... but, being a princess is pretty dull. You sit around all day waiting for someone to come and visit, so you can write them a thankyou note after.
I had to practice all that, too. I had to make my handwriting all fancy, and learn to speak like a princess. That meant a man told me I had to start saying Had, instead of ‘ad, and use big words. I can’t stop now. Had. Had. ‘ad. There we go. It’s nice to know I could go back to being how I used too. You know. If I wanted.
I wonder what I’ll do now? Now he’s gone off with his secretary. His secretary! It’s just such an insult, it’s such a cliché! Can you imagine what everyone will say? Bad blood. That’s what everyone will think – that he should never had married me in the first place. A little commoner who turned up to the palace one evening and passed herself off as someone with class.
Well. More fool me. That’s a warning to every girl, I suppose. You shouldn’t try and better yourself, ‘cuz that’s where all your problems’ll start.
I wonder if my Stepmum will ‘ave me back.
1 Oct 2009
I JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM MARKUS ZUSACK!!!!
I wrote to him, months ago, at christmas, telling him how much I loved his books (especially The Book Thief) and then never heard anything back. Now, my email was long and adoring, as he is my ultimate writing inspiration of the modern age. Seriously, if you've never read The Book Thief, buy it. Infact, I'll buy it for you. It will have you weeping so hard at the end. God, it's truly spectatcular.
So, I didn't hear anything back, and then I forgot. But THEN...
I logged onto my email this morning, and LOOK WHAT I FOUND:
Dear Charlotte,
I know this comes so so late, but...
THANK YOU!
I've been a bit of a recluse this year, writing and failing, failing more and writing more to get a new book done. And your email has really made my day. I'm so honoured that you would let me know what my writing means to you, and that you like the images especially. That's what I love most about reading and writing - seeing visions of things that give us the world in a new way.
All my very best and thanks for taking the time to let me know all those months agao.
Markus
I'm sorry. Call me a wimp, but I burst into tears. I mean, he's an incredible writer, and he said that I made his day. And he's honoured I wrote to him.
Wow.
So, I didn't hear anything back, and then I forgot. But THEN...
I logged onto my email this morning, and LOOK WHAT I FOUND:
Dear Charlotte,
I know this comes so so late, but...
THANK YOU!
I've been a bit of a recluse this year, writing and failing, failing more and writing more to get a new book done. And your email has really made my day. I'm so honoured that you would let me know what my writing means to you, and that you like the images especially. That's what I love most about reading and writing - seeing visions of things that give us the world in a new way.
All my very best and thanks for taking the time to let me know all those months agao.
Markus
I'm sorry. Call me a wimp, but I burst into tears. I mean, he's an incredible writer, and he said that I made his day. And he's honoured I wrote to him.
Wow.
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