by Ruth Skrine
Since the end of the MA course a small group of us has continued to meet at my house every four to six weeks. The company has dwindled to four and I am deeply grateful to the others, who arrive through all weathers and at whatever personal inconvenience. After a shared meal we workshop our writing in a disciplined way. The critical edge of our eyes and ears has sharpened over the years. Without their company and belief in my work, their encouragement and critique, I could easily have given up the struggle.
My second novel Parallel Journeys was eventually published, but not under ideal circumstances. After many refusals I was put in touch with an agent who suggested a publisher in the north of England. I was excited of course, and when he explained that I would have to pay a considerable amount of money I did not demur. His letter, which arrived with the formal agreement, was very explicit about the number of copies I would have to sell to cover my costs, the many people worldwide to whom he would send review copies and the amount I might expect to make per copy. I was totally naive and saw the arrangement as somewhere between vanity publishing, or to use a kinder word self-publishing, and the real thing. I did not even realise that the book would be published ‘on demand’.
I have no evidence that any review copies were sent out. I enjoyed working with the sub-editor and the production team. The Bath branch of Toppings bookshop arranged a launch party to which I asked friends and ex-colleagues. This gathering was the highlight of my publishing career. Ninety people turned up to listen as I read some extracts, a tribute to the loyalty of my friends rather than the literary quality of the novel.
Since then few copies have sold and my fiction publishing has ground to a halt – but I have continued to write. Despite the disappointment, and the financial loss, I am glad I got something into print. My stories are about human relationships, with an underlying serious idea. In the published novel the theme was the temptation for businesses to cut corners to make money. I set it in the research and development department of a drug firm. Unfortunately one of my friends thought I was getting at all such companies and she pointed out, quite rightly, that without them we would have no drug research. My intention had been to show that unscrupulous people are to be found in many different settings.
I have enjoyed researching for the books, especially one about an environmentalist who believes the only way to influence people would be to blow up the Thames river barrier. One icy day in January the barrier was expected to rise for its routine check, and I set off at 6 a.m. wearing five layers of woollies and carrying my grandmother’s walking stick. By this time I was in my mid-seventies and not too happy on slippery ground. I travelled on the Docklands Light Railway for the first time, and arrived on the north bank of the river. Entering the Thames Barrier Park I found an imaginative place that had been opened in 2000. It has a sunken green area to represent a dry dock. It was still early but I ignored the cold, being on a high, feeling like an explorer, my senses heightened by the need to look, listen, smell and feel for the sake of the book. The writing that followed that visit has etched the experience into my mind, enhancing the power and enjoyment of the memory despite the fact that the barrier never rose. My one human contact, a man walking his dog, told me it had been used for a high tide the day before and the routine check was not needed.
I also consulted a friend I had met on my first birding trip who was a waterman’s daughter and had lived close to the barrier all her life. She knew every craft that had ever travelled on the Thames and had helped with some of the surveying for the barrier. When I sent her a draft of my story she felt I had used her experiences in such a way that she might be confused with one of the characters. I hastily made some changes.
My anti-hero swims down to attach limpet mines beneath the water. I wrote to the Imperial War Museum and had a most helpful answer about how limpet mines could be disguised in a variety of objects including boat fenders. These mines were used during the Second World War to blow up enemy ships moored off Bordeaux. That story has been immortalised in the fictional film Cockleshell Heroes. I also had a lesson with the Bath Sub Aqua Club, where the instructor was friendly and helpful. The equipment was heavy, especially out of the water. I managed to float for a few minutes between the surface and bottom of the pool and the freedom was intoxicating. If I were younger I could become addicted.
My fifth novel started differently, sparked by the terrorist incident at Glasgow airport. A group of doctors and other medical personnel had driven a car into the terminal doors. I had no ideas in my mind apart from my horror of fundamental religious belief. I can imagine I could become a violent terrorist if I had suffered great deprivation, or my family had been killed or tortured. But I could not, and still do not, understand how such privileged people could have been radicalised in this way. I decided that I did not know enough about Islam to write about it, so I chose a Church of England vicar for my main character. I had no idea what was going to happen and was greatly surprised when he got severely beaten up in the second chapter. I still have hopes that some publisher might be interested in this story in the future, but I need to re-write it to make the characters more realistic; not so ‘naïve and nice’, as Heather says.
Writing has filled a part of my life that I believe is occupied, to some degree, by religious practices or meditation in those who cultivate their inner life. Within a minute or two of taking up my pen, or re-reading something I have written, I am detached from my surroundings. The immediate buzzing in my mind is stilled. The discipline cannot take over if I am really worried or depressed – or if there are other people in the house – but given a moment of reasonable stability and isolation, the magic works. The concentration needed to find the best word, something that Lindsay Clarke says can take him half the morning, becomes an absorbing task. I do not claim to be so dedicated, but exploring the thesaurus has become a very important part of the work. The height of excitement comes when I find an image or a form of words that carry a metaphor or meaning that I had not consciously put in when I first wrote the text. That demonstration of my unconscious mind in action is the highlight of the experience, providing as it does an access to a deeper layer of my psyche – although I do not understand why it should evoke such overwhelming joy.
As I begin on the downward path towards real old age I treasure the extended boundaries that writing has provided. My day to day experiences are richer, I look more closely and make more effort to remain open to new people and ideas. Reserves of energy, unavailable for other occupations, are released in a surge that only occurs in response to this itch that needs to be scratched – by the act of writing.
20
Mining the Past
Indian philosophy divides life into three parts. The first is spent growing up and fitting oneself for life in work and family. The second is devoted to earning one’s living, taking an active part in society and raising one’s children. During the last third one has to learn to let go of precious things and prepare oneself for death. When I first came across this idea the divisions each lasted twenty-five years. Given the length of modern training, and our increasing life span, thirty years might be more appropriate for the present day – at least for those of us living in the west. However, many of the activities that have brought me greatest satisfaction – editing the later psychosexual books and writing my own, followed by the world of fiction – have taken place since I was sixty.
As I admit that fact, I feel a stab of disloyalty. Ralph died when I was sixty-one. I am loath to admit that being forced to live alone has freed me in any way. My marriage was not easy, but I know it was a good one.
A friend recently asked me if writing this memoir was therapeutic. The question feels strangely irrelevant. The inner thirst to free myself from early constraints was quenched during my analysis. Yet I am still searching to understand my marriage. While writing these chapters it has felt increasingly like writing a love story, although there is quite a lot of complaint about Ralph and I am sure there are places where he does
not emerge as a very sympathetic character. I need to understand how my marriage worked, to find some basis for my conviction that it was good, for the devastation I felt when he died and for the changes that have taken place since.
Ralph was not naturally gregarious. Once I was alone I could take chances. I was more hospitable and invited people to stay with less caution. If they were not congenial I was the only person who had to tolerate the discomfort. These varied visitors have enriched my life. My younger American nephew, Will, is a maths professor who took a while to get his PhD, for his passion lay elsewhere. He put me in touch with his amazing world of jugglers. If any of them want a bed, in any town in the world, they ask on the net and someone responds. He sent four to stay with me. They arrived on bicycles from Heathrow, their juggling clubs on trailers behind. They had camped on the way and arrived in the pouring rain, grateful for my hot soup and cheese. Although they were all charming they were very different characters, held together by their dedication to their craft. I was astonished that they had no idea Will was a professor. They knew nothing of his family or background but admired him because he could juggle six clubs. It is the most classless society I have ever encountered, its hierarchy determined by nothing but the skill of its members.
For a fortnight, in three consecutive years, I hosted a different Spanish teacher. The organiser of the trips was born in Leicester of Cypriot extraction, and now lives in Pamplona teaching English. He brings groups of children on exchange visits to a school near my home. The children lodge with the families of their exchange partners, while the staff find other accommodation. I have delighted in the company of these teachers and hope to make a return visit.
I have also hosted various interns working in the Liberal Democrat office. Living in Bath, where the Labour party is very small, the Liberal Democrats offer the only challenge to the Conservatives. Although I am not very politically active I am a member of the Liberal party. My sympathies have never been as left wing as my mother’s in her early days, but like her I have, during the ageing process, swung slightly to the right – but I have never voted Conservative. Within any capitalist system the population as a whole is said to become wealthier, but whichever party has been in power in this country during my lifetime, they have not been able to prevent the gap between rich and poor becoming wider. In a world with finite resources, any system based on continued growth will be unsustainable. My hope is that, as this realisation spreads, a more egalitarian system will emerge without excessive or heavy-handed state control. Probably a vain hope, but I am an optimist. Meanwhile, despite its weakness, I remain loyal to a party that attempts to follow a rational, middle way. I am frightened by the extremes of both left and right to which, in an uncertain world, more people turn.
My varied visitors have been stimulating, but thinking back I see that my belief that I am freer now I live alone is flawed. On at least two occasions during our marriage we invited young people to lodge with us for several months. When we were in Maidstone, the daughter of a medical colleague got a job in the area and Ralph encouraged me to invite her to stay until she found somewhere to live. Earlier, during our second stay at Pollington, one of the prison officers was moved away. His son stayed with us until he had taken his O levels (GCSEs for today’s reader). The boy had lived a fairly restricted life but when he was offered a chance to camp for a weekend on the Yorkshire moors, Ralph encouraged him to go. We were both amazed at the changes when he returned full of excitement. His world had been transformed by his taste of the wild countryside. Ever since, I have subscribed to an organisation called CHICKS – Country Holidays for Inner City Kids.
Ralph had been aware of my need for company since the early days of our marriage. Christmas in the prison service could be difficult for families. We could never go back to our parents for Ralph was always on duty. At the time when family ties are most keenly felt, he was especially concerned for the men and tended to bring their misery home. He was aware of my loneliness and encouraged me to invite a young French woman, living in Britain but alone over the holidays, to stay for the festivities. Marie Therese came many times, bringing her husband with her after her marriage. Helen’s first trip abroad without us was spent with them in Paris.
After Ralph died I spent one Christmas in that city with my friend Elizabeth Forsythe. We stayed in a hotel near the Gare du Nord, sharing a small double bedroom. We were not used to such close contact and we pushed the beds apart.
‘How will we know when it is morning time?’ she asked.
‘That won’t be a problem,’ I assured her.
In the event, it was. I woke in the dark, excited for her to open the small stocking of presents I had brought. I went into the en-suite bathroom to turn on the light without waking her, only to find I had shut the door with the light switch on the outside. To try and see my watch by the glimmer from a high window I stood on the toilet seat – which broke.
At breakfast I apologised to Madame in my inadequate French. She shook her head as, with a serious expression, a stream of words that I could not follow flowed out.
Elizabeth translated. ‘On Christmas morning, in France, we only dance on the toilet seats in the country, never in Paris.’
Madame would accept no money for its repair. The story served to break the ice at the lunch party to which Marie Therese had invited us.
But this freedom to travel was nothing new. Ralph had been happy for me to go to Greece for a week with the Matthews, while he stayed to manage the house, Helen and the animals. He never tried to influence my actions. He believed in individual autonomy and I can still hear him saying, ‘You must do what you want.’ My problem was that I seldom knew what I wanted, or if I did, I could see no way to fit it in with my first concern – to keep him happy. I am convinced that this feeling was not culturally determined, but an inner need. My mood went up and down with his happiness or misery. At the same time I wanted the impossible, for him to realise what I wanted and bend to my unspoken wishes with enthusiasm.
Looking back I find the psychological concept of projection helps me to understand my sense of being to some extent fettered. From a distance I can see that I pushed some of my internal constraints onto Ralph and resented them in him. But the one area where I felt completely free was in my professional life. The messages imparted by my parents, about the importance of training to work in a profession, had been built into my psyche with enough force to withstand all uncertainty. I always chose when to work and in what field of medicine. Although, in keeping with the values of those times, Ralph expected me to run the house, he supported every decision I made about the balance between my domestic and professional life. Only now is it clear that, when I was certain what I wanted, he did everything in his power to help me obtain it.
In John Daniels’ book Looking After he says, ‘Memory is not a record of the past, but an evolving myth of understanding the psyche, which spins from its engagement with the world.’ My thoughts about the restrictions and freedoms in my marriage feel like an evolving explanation of the truth of the love that grew between us.
Very late in our life together – for the first and only time in the whole marriage – I lost my temper. I learned then that when I could voice my own needs Ralph was freed to be different.
Being a diabetic he had occasional attacks of hypoglycaemia, ‘hypos’ we called them, when his blood sugar dropped too low. It happened if he did not balance his insulin with enough food or if he had taken an unusual amount of exercise. Personality changes are known to occur and a story is told of how a loving man killed his wife when he was in this state. When Ralph became hypo his normal wit took on a sarcastic, almost cruel edge. The change was subtle, not usually noticed by strangers. But Helen and I knew; and both hated it. This was not the man we loved. I was frightened, not because I thought he would be violent but just by his strangeness. I sometimes wondered if he did it on purpose so that he could let out some of the negative feelings towards me that he never showed.
&
nbsp; On two occasions he needed intravenous glucose and I had to send for the emergency doctor, for I never gave him an injection myself. The first time was after playing cricket all afternoon and evening with his borstal boys. He was too tired to eat much and became unconscious during the night. On the other occasion he had been travelling up to London from Coulsdon and somehow forgot to eat. Again, he became restless during the night and I could not rouse him.
The day I lost my temper was after we had retired to Bath. I found him slumped in his car, but managed to get him into the house where he collapsed onto the floor in the corner of the dining room. He could still swallow so I fed him peppermint creams, a form of glucose that he enjoyed, followed by tea laced with sugar. Once he was almost back to normal I looked down at him in fury and shouted, ‘I cannot bear it any longer. You frighten me when you’re hypo.’
He made no response and I had no idea whether he had registered my anger. But something changed. He continued to get occasional hypos but after that explosion his behaviour was different when they occurred. Either he realised that he needed sugar sooner or he controlled his speech and behaviour more carefully. Whatever the mechanism of the change, he never frightened me again. We did not talk about it, but both of us had discovered that if I could allow my real feelings to show he could change, even when he was in the altered mental state caused by low blood sugar.