Emotional Geology

by Linda Gillard

  Kenny gapes. ‘But I havna’, sir!’

  ‘You’re not going to let a wee bitty thing like truth stand in the way of your literary career, Ken, are you? It’s called fiction, man, and you wrote the book.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Any time, Kenny. Aberdeen has one B, mind.’ Calum stands up and with a certain theatrical flourish produces a kitchen-timer from his drawer. A hush falls, pupils open jotters and rifle through pencil cases. ‘Okay everybody... It will not have escaped your notice that we have a visitor this morning. Ms. Rose Leonard is a textile artist who has recently moved to Uist and later on she’s going to talk to you about her work and you, I hope, are going to talk to her about yours. Jean and Helen, I already have one lad in detention at lunchtime, but if you want to make it really worth my while missing my lunch-break you just carry on chatting, okay?’ There is a deathly silence and Calum continues. ‘Timed writing, then. You know the rules but Ms. Leonard doesn’t. Who’d like to explain? Mairi?’

  A bespectacled girl in the front row turns to Rose, smiling. ‘Mr. Morrison sets us a topic and we all write as fast as we can for five minutes, sometimes ten. We mustn’t cross out, we mustn’t correct and we mustn’t stop until the timer goes. That’s the hard part, keeping going! We just write whatever comes into our heads. If we get stuck we write, “What I really want to say is this...” and usually something comes. And we don’t have to worry about spellings.’

  ‘Very good, Mairi. And why do we engage in this exhausting activity? Alex?’

  ‘It’s a warm-up sir. It develops our writing muscles.’

  ‘Indeed, it does. And it’s a great way of tapping into the subconscious where all your best ideas live. You get down to the bare bones of your thoughts and you can write without all the usual inhibitions. What happens to these timed writings? Ken?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘Explain, Kenny, for our visitor’s benefit. Do I mark them?’

  ‘No, sir, because they’re private. We can keep them or we can bin them.’

  ‘But sometimes we use them, Miss,’ Mairi pipes up again, her face shining. ‘We use them for poems and stories. They’re our raw material.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right, Mairi. Okay - enough explanation. Down to work.’ The pupils bow their heads and hold their pens poised over their jotters, like runners on starting blocks. Calum too opens a notebook and unscrews a fountain pen. Setting the kitchen-timer he announces, ‘Ten minutes timed writing, please folks, on...’ He pauses for effect. ‘Lost in the desert.’

  ~

  Twenty pens, including Calum’s, start to move across the page. Even little Kenny is writing, albeit slowly. I become aware of a texture of sound: the scratching of pens; feet shuffling; a persistent sniff; high-heeled footsteps in the corridor, first approaching, then receding; the flap of turning pages; a heavy sigh from Mairi; a sudden chesty cough that shatters the silence like a gunshot.

  Calum looks up at the timer, then back at his notebook and continues to write. ‘You’ve had five minutes. Keep going...’ Some of the children write even faster, as if they are worried that the timer will go before they have finished what they want to say. Kenny is flagging now, his head down on the desk, but he’s still writing. The timer rings, loud and long, accompanied by a communal groan, a mixture of relief and frustration.

  ‘Finish off your sentence everyone. Time’s up.’

  The pupils sit up and stretch, flex their fingers, pull faces at each other and laugh. Several look back over what they have written, counting the pages. Mairi is still writing.

  ‘I said finish your sentence, Mairi, not the page.’

  ‘Aw, sir...’ She scowls at Calum who is grinning at her. He turns to me, the smile intended for Mairi still on his face. I see a different Calum. A man transfigured, completely happy, replete, so in his element that he has become the element and the element is joy.

  ‘We’re ready for you now, Ms. Leonard.’

  I am not ready for them but I know I never will be, so I stand up anyway.

  ~

  ‘Hello, everyone. My name’s Rose Leonard and I’m a textile artist. Before I tell you about my work I just wanted to say how exciting it was to see you all writing like that. It reminded me of when I was at art school. You could walk into a studio and all the students would be drawing or painting the same thing, a model or a still life and there would be a working silence. I think it’s a wonderful sound! And that’s what I was listening to just now - a working silence. Except that it isn’t really silence, is it? It’s a texture of small sounds that we register as silence unless we listen really hard. I’m fascinated by textures, which I suppose is why I became a textile artist. Now, I don’t know if you know what I mean by textile artist so I’ve brought some of my work along to show you. I’m not going to tell you anything about it - not yet, anyway - I just want you to look at it. Mr. Morrison, could you give me a hand?’

  Calum and Rose arrange wall-hangings and the contents of a portfolio around the room and as they do so a whisper builds to a buzz. Rose looks anxiously at Calum and mutters. ‘Oh, dear, I think they’re going to be bored.’

  ‘No way. They’re just simmering nicely. Relax. If there’s any problems I’ll step in with a big stick.’

  Rose takes a deep breath. ‘Right, everybody, I’d like you to get up and take a closer look. If you have very clean hands you may touch gently.’

  Calum looks alarmed. ‘Are you sure? They will.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I don’t believe in making textiles that can’t be touched. What’s the point?’

  As the children gather round, Calum raises his voice above the excited murmur. ‘If you need to go and wash your hands, go now.’ Kenny stands beside him staring at his palms, in an agony of indecision. ‘They look okay to me, Ken, but check with Ms. Leonard.’

  Kenny thrusts his hands in Rose’s face. ‘Yes, they’re fine. Grease is the killer. Grease attracts dirt, you see, then the dirt eats its way into the fibres.’ Kenny lopes off and pushes his way to the front of a group gathered around a vivid 3D rainforest scene. Rose has selected a traditional patchwork quilt, several fibre landscapes, an abstract wall-hanging and some working designs, complete with fabric swatches showing the gestation of a piece. For several minutes the children mill around, pointing, touching tentatively, then with more confidence, exclaiming, discussing. Calum joins them, shadowing a couple of the livelier boys who clearly don’t know what to make of it all. He looks back at Rose and asks, ‘Would you like them sitting down again for questions?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  At a word from Calum the groups disperse and sit at their desks again. Rose stands at the front of the class, nervous, exposed, hoping that they liked something. She clears her throat. ‘Are there any questions?’

  A forest of hands. Rose points.

  ‘How long does it take you to make one of your pictures?’

  ‘What qualifications did you have to get?’

  ‘Why don’t you use paint?’

  ‘Do you cut up your old clothes?’

  ‘Why aren’t there any people in your pictures?’

  ‘Do you make a lot of money?’

  ‘Where did you get your jacket?’

  When there is a lull in the questions, Calum asks, ‘What kind of choices do you have to make as a visual artist, Ms. Leonard? As writers we choose the words, the order we put them in, how many of them.’ He turns to the class. ‘Can anyone remember the poet Coleridge’s definition of poetry?’ A few hands go up. ‘Alex?’

  ‘ “The best words in the best order”, sir.’

  ‘Aye, that's right. Makes it sound pretty straightforward, doesn’t he? D’you think the guy was maybe out of his head on opium when he wrote that? We all know writing poetry’s not that simple. Choosing - that’s the hard part. Tell us about the decisions you have to make, Ms. Leonard.’

  ‘Well, I suppose there are quite a few... I have to think about scale - I might be making a
miniature or something huge for a cathedral. I have to think about colours, of course... Context, by which I mean where the work will be seen. I wouldn't make a cream and white wall-hanging with dangly bits for a nursery school foyer for example! It wouldn't be practical or appropriate... I have to think about texture and that involves all sorts of decisions. There are so many possibilities with modern materials.’

  ‘What’s the hardest decision?’ Calum asks.

  ‘One of the hardest decisions is knowing when to stop! You can overdo something, work it to death, add too many colours, too many textures, so that the person viewing ends up with visual indigestion.’ Some of the children laugh. Rose is thrown, but continues nervously. ‘But I suppose the absolutely hardest decision is knowing when to wait.’ She swallows.

  Calum prompts gently. ‘Can you explain a bit more, Ms. Leonard?’

  ‘Well, sometimes you think nothing’s happening. You think you’re blocked. Everything you try doesn’t work, or you think it’s complete rubbish.’

  ‘Aye,’ Calum says ruefully, looking round the class, ‘I think we’ve all been there.’ Kenny, his eyes fixed on Rose, nods.

  ‘I think sometimes you just have to wait. You have to accept that something is happening, but it’s happening on the inside. You go for walks, doodle in your sketchbook, drink too much coffee, turn out boxes of fabric scraps and swatches, but you wonder all the time if you’re really getting anywhere, or if you’re just wasting your time. It can be really miserable! But when you’ve been doing it as long as I have, you get to recognise patterns. You know there are certain times of day - times of year even - when you can work well and others when it’s hopeless. You get to know your moods and what things inspire you, what gets your creative juices going. You learn to look after yourself as an artist. I can't work on dull, dark days. I need a lot of natural light - which is one of the reasons I came to live here. I also know now that I operate a bit like a computer. I feed in all the data, all my ideas, sketches, colours, samples and scraps and then when I’m ready I press a sort of mental button and it all starts to print out. When I’m up and running like that I might work eighteen hours at a time. Sometimes I’ll work right through the night and into the next day - although I wouldn’t recommend that, especially not if you use sharp cutting tools like I do. You can have horrible accidents if you’re tired.’

  ‘Is that what happened to your arm, Miss?’

  Mairi points. A button from the cuff of Rose’s jacket has popped off while she has been handling the quilts. The tight black sleeve has ridden up exposing the slug-trails of silvery white scar tissue criss-crossing her inner arm and wrist. In the silence that follows Mairi’s question, Rose is aware that Calum has stood up and is about to say something. She tugs her sleeve down.

  ‘Oh, damn, I’ve lost one of my buttons! They’re made of jet, you know, a semi-precious stone... No, it wasn’t a work accident, Mairi, it was a car crash. I was in the passenger seat and there was a head-on collision. I put my arms up to protect my face and they were showered with broken glass. It was awful.’

  ‘You’re lucky to be alive, miss,’ Mairi says solemnly.

  Rose’s voice falters. ‘Yes... I suppose I am. Very lucky.’

  Calum steps forward. ‘Could you all have a quick look now under your desks for that button? Helen, would you fetch Ms. Leonard a glass of water, please.’ He smiles at Rose with his mouth, his eyes concerned. ‘You must need it after all those questions.’

  There is a general commotion in which Rose retreats to her chair. Calum stands over her, placing himself between her and the children so they cannot see her. ‘Are you okay? Do you want to leave now?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting— Do you think she believed me?’

  ‘Oh, aye, you didn’t miss a beat.’

  She stares up at him. ‘I’m not ashamed, Calum. I mean I would have told the truth but it would have spoiled the lesson! The truth wasn’t relevant. It would have been terribly... distracting.’

  ‘Aye, well, I think truth often is.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘What is it, Ken?’

  ‘I've found Miss Leonard's button.’

  ‘Kenneth Angus MacNeill, you are a man of many talents. I tell you, Aberdeen would be lucky to get you! Right, everybody, settle down, the button’s been found. Listen carefully to what I want you to do next...’

  ~

  After the lunch-time bell Calum helps Rose load the car allowing Kenny, hero of the day, to assist. When everything is packed Calum turns to the boy. ‘Thanks, Ken. You’ve worked hard this morning so I’m letting you off your detention. But I’d like to see that letter to your Granny in as homework tomorrow morning, first thing, okay?’

  ‘Aye, sir. ’Bye, Miss. Thanks for showing us your pictures. They were brilliant.’

  ‘Thank you, Kenny, for finding my button. Good luck with your essay.’

  He saunters off, hands in pockets, in search of chips.

  Calum turns to Rose. ‘Will you let me buy you lunch?’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t think I could cope with the noise of the canteen. I’m feeling a little wobbly.’

  Calum looks aghast. ‘Canteen? What kind of a cheap date do you think I am? I meant The Stepping Stone, round the corner. D’you know it? It’s not exactly the Savoy Grill, but it’s pleasant enough - and quiet.’

  ‘Have you got time for that?’

  ‘I don’t teach on Wednesday or Friday afternoons. That’s when I do my shifts in the Poem Factory.’ He clutches his temple and adopts a pained expression. ‘But I feel a severe case of writer’s block coming on...’

  ~

  The Stepping Stone is bright and cheerful, the musak not too loud, the seating comfortable. Sitting opposite Calum at a secluded corner table, Rose begins to relax.

  ‘The timed writing is a brilliant idea.’

  ‘Not mine. It’s derived from Zen Buddhist meditation. A climbing pal of mine was into that sort of thing. But children can do it too. They love it.’

  ‘Evidently. Your Kenny is a dear.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a good wee spud. Wee Ken’s had some hard knocks, but he’s one of my success stories. He used to be a school-refuser but now he comes in most days. I just had to persuade him that coming into school was more fun than sitting in the dunes with a half-bottle of whisky. Which wasn’t that difficult. He told me recently that he can’t decide whether to become a professional footballer or a writer.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told him to relax, sit back and wait for the offers to come rolling in.’

  ‘You must feel very proud.’

  ‘Aye, sometimes. Christ knows, there are few enough perks in this job. Turning round the Kennies of this world is one of them. Are you wanting more coffee?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘I hope you’ll come in to school again. I’d like to do some follow-up work on their reactions to your work. They’ve all made Word Banks this morning. Using them to write poems will be the next stage. Maybe you could come and hear them read their poems. They’d like that.’

  ‘So would I. We could maybe include them in our exhibition?’

  ‘You’re still up for that?’

  ‘Yes. Are you?’

  ‘Aye! I’m really excited about the whole idea.’

  Rose laughs. ‘You are, aren’t you? Excited, I mean. The kids excite you too... and teaching... I don't think I’ve ever seen anything quite like what I saw this morning. Was it like that in Glasgow?’

  ‘It was more like being a stand-up comic there. I once suggested we get Billy Connolly in to do a training-day on classroom management. And I wasn’t joking. You had to keep their interest, stay ahead of the game and not be afraid to come down hard sometimes. Och, the boys were all pussycats underneath the “hard man” exterior. The girls were tougher in a way. Lots of them had no resident father, some had never known anything other than an abusive relationship with men. They weren't used to a guy
being nice to them, treating them with respect. Some of them thought I was after sex. Some of them offered me sex.’

  ‘The boy who knifed you—’

  ‘Davy didn’t knife me, I just got in the way! He didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t think he even saw me. He was out of his head. I didn’t press charges.’

  ‘But you had to stop teaching.’

  ‘Aye, for a while... Look, can we change the subject? We’re getting into an area of discussion where I’d need the best part of a bottle of whisky to continue.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn't mean to pry.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it sometime. Not now, I’m enjoying myself too much. Did you enjoy yourself this morning?’

  ‘Oh, yes, thoroughly. Apart from the hiccup. Did it go all right - the lesson, I mean?’

  ‘They were eating out of your hand. You relate very easily to young people but you also take them seriously. It’s a good combination.’

  ‘I have a twenty-two year old daughter. Not so very long ago I had a house full of teenagers. It was fun.’

  Calum looks surprised. ‘You must have been very young when you had her.’

  ‘Twenty-five. Not particularly young.’

  Calum frowns. ‘So you’re...’

  ‘Mental maths is obviously not your forte. I’m forty-seven.’

  ‘You look years younger! I thought you were about the same age as me.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Thirty-nine. Forty next month.’

  ‘Really? I thought you were younger too.’

  ‘Well, this is Tir nan Og - Land of Eternal Youth.’ Calum leans forward and peers at Rose. ‘You look as if you’re doing a major mental adjustment in there. Have I just become more eligible? Or less?’