‘Realistically.’ I think of the word. ‘Rea . . . Rea . . . Rea . . .’ moving as the sea, like the tide coming in. ‘Rea . . .’ The waves rushing to shore. ‘Listic . . . listic’ they smash on the tocks, ‘ally . . .’ the spray flying high into the air. ‘Realistically!’
No other adult I know would have used such a long and complicated word when talking to me. They all use small words, short sentences and speak slowly. They think I won’t understand the big words because I’m clumsy, and make mistakes when reading and writing.
We go for our walk.
Now we’re outside and on the path behind the school leading into the woods. There’s an early moon in the sky, a pale piece of watered silk. We go by the river to where the new bridge with its triple arches spans the water. We sit on the grass at the shingly edge and watch a family of ducks calling noisily to each other. Red fire from the setting sun making the surface molten glass.
A beautiful evening.
‘I’m leaving,’ she says.
My brain stops. Just like that. One second I was thinking about ducks and water. Then the next second, nothing.
‘The headteacher gave me a terrific reference. Remember our experiment in the gym hall that day with the parents of the new intake? Well, the man in the brown suit wrote and told the Head that he was incorporating my ideas into one of his staff training modules. I’ve been offered a promotion,’ she hesitates. ‘In another school.’
‘Yeah?’
What’m I gonna do. Do. Without you. You.
Who cares? I don’t.
‘Please don’t look at me like that, Solomon.’
She’s the only one who ever called me that.
Solomon.
I shrug. ‘No problem,’ I say.
She looks as though she might either cuff my head or put her arm round my shoulders. I start to get up.
‘Wait,’ she pulls my sleeve. ‘It’s better for you. Believe me. You’re already beginning to rely on me too much, and I won’t be here for the rest of your life. You’ve got to do it on your own, and the sooner the better.’
Now I look at her desperately. I can hear the tears in my voice. ‘I need help.’
‘I’ll get you help,’ she says gently. ‘I’ll arrange for another tutor.’
‘I don’t want another tutor.’
‘I know, and that’s one of the reasons I’m going.’ She points at the river bank. ‘See the ducklings there. Eventually they swim by themselves. If I don’t go soon, then you might not learn to swim by yourself. I couldn’t do that to you. You’re too important to me.’
Words like pebbles plopping in the water. Stones falling, down, down in the darkness, to lie on the river bed.
Same as Peter had said, I thought suddenly. My rock. Telling me it was better to do it on my own.
‘You’ve faced up to your dyslexia, Solomon,’ Ms Talmur went on. ‘Now you’ve got to keep moving forward. The unique individual that you finally become you will have made yourself.’
She leans forward and traces in the shingle with her forefinger.
‘See,’ she says, ‘how the river flows. It curves as it leaves the town. ‘S’ like a snake.’ She tilts her head back so that her face is turned towards the sky.
‘Then, a circle for the sun. The sun by day.’
‘o’
‘Now, the tree by the water’s edge. A silver birch, tall and straight.’
‘l’
‘The moon by night.’
‘o’
‘Start to cross the bridge, until you reach the second arch.’
‘m’
‘Again the sun and moon.’
‘o’
‘The last arch of the bridge. Now you are safely at the end.’
‘n’
She has written my name in the earth.
Solomon.
‘It will be difficult for you, very difficult. There will always be people who won’t understand. And others seeking a focus for their own frustration. They’ll come after you, Solomon. You are an easy target. You’re going to have to be strong.’
I stare at the ground. ‘Sometimes, it’s too hard. The struggle, too difficult.’
‘You are strong. You resisted whatever evil force tried to seduce you and Amy. You fought back. And all those years before, in school. The torture and frustration. You didn’t do drugs or hide yourself in drink. You can do it. And it will make you better. Like the furnace flame. The hotter the forge, the sharper the edge.’
She puts her arm around my shoulder.
‘Please, Solomon. Don’t ever be the same as anyone else.’
CHAPTER XXX
I have to cross the bridge to get to the town hall. The sound of running water is reassuring. I stop in the middle of the bridge and look around me. In my hand is the gold wedding ring. I thrust my fist through the railings, unclench my fingers and let go.
The river, dark brown and silent, flows swift and thick under the arches. There is a part on the far side, just by one of the supports, where the water stagnates. Dead fish float there, belly up, and nothing grows on the muddy verge. I don’t go there. The water is greasy and the air hangs over it, dank and cold.
Down deep is where the chest lies.
Gathering strength.
Waiting.
For another time.
I run on.
The evening is creeping softly across the sky, the air cool on my face. I wait at the intersection for a gap in the traffic and then dodge across the road. It starts to rain, a light falling of water that lies as fine mist on my hair and cheeks. The cars hiss quietly as they pass. The colours of the traffic lights are reflected from the pavement back to me. A coat of many hues spread out on the ground for me to tread on.
I might go and visit my mother. Talk. Find out about her properly. The sort of stuff she likes to do. What makes her laugh. Ask her things.
I always thought that if I saw her again I would ask her why she left. Now I don’t need to ask her that. Now I know.
It was too much. She couldn’t handle it any more. Maybe I won’t be able to either.
If he doesn’t go to the meeting tonight . . .
It’s the first step. Admit what you are. Accept that your problems are part of yourself. Know them. Know yourself. Then deal with them.
Ultimately it is yourself you face. If you can.
Truth comes in all sorts of ways. A great surge of self-knowing, like a chasm opening up under your feet, or a slow dawning of realisation. Shapes fitting piece by piece. Life . . . doing a jigsaw with the picture missing. Fumbling for the correct piece. Will you ever really know for sure that you got it right?
The mirror I held up in the graveyard boiled and disintegrated because there was nothing truly there to see. To behold itself incomplete and without hope, would mean self-destruction. How many others, every drab day, avoid their own reflection?
Now . . .
I wait for him outside the meeting hall. In the grey smirring drizzle. My hands are cold. I pull the sleeves of my jumper down over my fingers. Can he do it? Will he come?
I don’t know. I step inside. Into the orange glow and the smell of stewed tea.
Deep within the building the notes of a ratchety piano sound. A voice calls out dance steps. A cleaner’s bucket clatters and I hear laughter. The small tattered notice on the green baize board says the alcoholics meeting is downstairs.
I lean against the door and peer outside through the window, up the street. My breath condenses on the etched glass panel. I start to write. Slowly, awkwardly, I trace my fingers on the steamed-up surface.
First, the curved letter, slithering from top to bottom.
S.
Next . . . a circle.
The sun by day, and the moon by night.
Now I have to cross my bridge.
I make the letters.
Carefully and complete.
Solomon, my name.
Turn the page for special bonus material . . .
; The language of grave symbols
Solomon’s father teaches him to read grave symbols. Here is a guide to some of the most widely-used symbols so that you can uncover their meaning for yourself.
There are marks which signify that the deceased belonged to a trade guild, some obvious, some more obscure, like the leopard (see the list, opposite). Particular carvings are universal and occur across centuries, for example gloves, as the art of glove making is very old and gloves are worn worldwide. But not all marks have been decoded – there are symbols on ancient stones whose meaning we have yet to discover.
Rowan trees in myth and folklore
The rowan tree is important in Whispers in the Graveyard – it protects the graveyard, and when it is removed terrible forces are unleashed. The rowan is said to be a very magical tree, and there are many myths about its origins.
In Norse myth, the rowan tree is the tree from which the first woman was made, and it also saved the life of the god Thor, when it bent down over a river in the Underworld and pulled him out.
In Greek myth, the goddess Hebe had the magical cup which she used to feed the gods youth-giving ambrosia stolen by demons. The other gods sent an eagle to bring it back, and in the fight with the demons it lost feathers and drops of blood. Each one became a rowan tree, its berries from the blood and its leaves from the feathers.
In the UK and some other countries the rowan tree is thought to shield against dark magic and is often planted near the outside door of a house. It’s believed that the red berries symbolise fire, the secret of which man stole from heaven. There are marks on its stems that look like the pentacle, the five-pointed star, and its white flowers are a symbol of purity. The tree guards the place where it grows (in Solomon’s case, the graveyard), and there is an old custom of tying up twigs from the rowan with red thread and hanging them over the doorway to protect a house.
Q&A with Theresa Breslin
Where did the inspiration for Whispers in the Graveyard come from?
As a librarian I was becoming more and more aware of parents asking for story tapes to help their children with class reading books, of information enquiries from adults seeking help for reading difficulties, of parents asking for books about dyslexia, for names of help groups, and names of special tutors. In addition, our own reading promotion in the library showed up certain things. I noticed that some children could read and enjoy a book, but could not cope with writing a review about it. Some needed to have the book read to them, yet they could understand the meanings of words and complex emotional issues within the story. They could even discuss these freely, but could not form the letters to make the words to complete their book reviews. I became interested . . . interested enough to go along to the meeting of the Area Dyslexia Association . . .
I went with my notebook and a vague idea in my head that I could get a story out of this. I like to write books that are relevant to children’s lives. I very quickly slid my notebook back into my bag as I felt that I was being rude taking notes in the circumstances in which I found myself. I have never been in a room where there was so much pain. I was moved by the frustration, anger, and despair of parents, adults, children, teachers, social workers, and others trying to access help. I came out and had to sit for a few moments to recover myself. I drove home determined to write a book about it.
What was behind your choice of main character, and how did it affect the story?
I decided on a boy as the main character as it seems to be that more boys have reading problems. I chose to write in the first person because the problem is so individualistic that I wanted to get right inside the head of the sufferer, and I wanted to put the reader there too. I decided to write in the present tense because it was . . . is . . . happening at this moment.
Tell us about your research process – it seems as though you did a lot!
I did an enormous amount of research into dyslexia. Printed documents, academic papers, and information on the internet. But crucially I spent a lot my time making personal contact: librarians, teachers, parents and, most importantly, the people directly affected.
I then researched gravestones and symbols, designs, codes . . . and I thought: This is it! A graveyard is the perfect place for my hero to hide out, a boy who loves stories. Solomon imagines his own stories from the language of the stones. As I began to write and I did more research on both my main subjects, the whole thing locked. It meshed together unlike anything else I’ve ever known – the solitary grave, Solomon’s father, the stories, the presence of evil inside everyone, the power of words, the infinite resource of the human mind – it all came together.
Is it important to tackle dark themes in children’s fiction? How does fantasy help cope with reality?
In Whispers in the Graveyard, the main character, Solomon, is on a journey. As in many fantasy stories where the main character has to choose between different paths, Solomon is faced with difficult choices. Caught up in the awakening evil of the newly opened grave in a derelict graveyard, with his own personal life becoming more troublesome, he could go for the easy way out: ignore what he knows is happening and leave.
Like many of the protagonists in this type of tale, Solomon’s character is flawed. He is capable of human frailty, and this is, I think, why many people find fantasy stories so appealing. They see the hero as being similar to themselves, liable to make mistakes, prone to weakness. Solomon’s problem is his illiteracy, and the deceit he employs to keep the fact hidden.
The story is essentially a quest. Like tales of fantasy, it is a voyage of discovery, but also of self-discovery, where heroes and heroines are put to the test, find out things about themselves, and ultimately win through. There is the struggle of evil against good, and all that stands between the triumph of evil is Solomon. Whispers in the Graveyard explores the concept of evil within the imagination, and how people’s emotions can be manipulated by circumstances and events. The boy’s struggle in the graveyard becomes a gripping metaphor for his relationship with the world in general.
A lot has changed since you wrote the book in 1994. Do children like Solomon still face the same problems today? Could the book still be written today – and if it was, what would you keep the same, and what might you change?
I think the fundamental issues remain the same, and in these times of increasing austerity it is becoming increasingly difficult to access the crucial support needed.
What other books would you nominate to become modern classics?
There are too many to choose from. Present day children’s literature is a cornucopia of fabulous books.
Understanding Solomon’s world
Solomon struggles with dyslexia. This is a specific learning difficulty that is much better understood today than it was when Whispers in the Graveyard was written – but it is still difficult to diagnose, and many children and adults do not realise that they have it. Understanding dyslexia helps explain why Solomon has the problems he does in Whispers in the Graveyard.
• It affects the ability to learn to read and spell.
• It involves difficulties in dealing with the sounds of words, which makes it especially hard to learn to use phonics to read words.
• It can affect short-term memory and speed of recalling names.
• Other kinds of difficulties, for example with maths or with co-ordination, sometimes go alongside dyslexia, but they do not always.
• Dyslexia is not the same for everyone:
• it can be mild or severe;
• it varies depending on other strengths, or difficulties;
• it varies depending on the kind of support and encouragement that is given at school, at home and at work.
• There is strong evidence that dyslexia runs in families: if someone in a family is dyslexic, then it is very likely that other members of the family are dyslexic to some degree.
From the charity Dyslexia Action’s definition of dyslexia, used with permission. For more information on dyslexia, please v
isit the Dyslexia Action website, http://www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk/.
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