“This is a blue-badge area,” he says tetchily. “Blue badge. Disabled.”
“Yes.” Nell steps forward. “I’ve got a blue badge. As you can well see. You, on the other hand, do not have a blue badge.”
“The point is, my flat is right there,” he says testily, pointing to the window behind Nell’s car. “In the absence of any genuinely disabled persons, I should be able to park in this space. It’s common sense.”
“She’s got a blue badge!” exclaims Sarika.
“You’re disabled?” He scoffs at Nell. “Young healthy woman like you? Do you mind sharing the nature of your ailment?”
I can see him taking in her appearance, and I look at Nell through his eyes for a moment. Her squat, determined body, her jutting chin, her six earrings, her pink hair, her three tattoos.
I know Nell would rather keel over in the street than have this guy feeling sorry for her. For a few moments she’s silent. Then, with the deepest reluctance, her face like thunder, she says, “I have…a chronic condition. And even that’s none of your bloody business.”
“My friend has a blue badge from the authorities,” says Maud, her eyes flashing dangerously. “That’s all you need to know.”
“The authorities can be mistaken,” persists John Sweetman, undeterred. “Or hoodwinked.”
“Hoodwinked?” Maud’s voice rises in rage. “Hoodwinked? Are you seriously suggesting—”
But Nell raises a hand to stop her.
“Don’t waste your energy, Maudie,” she says a little wearily, then turns to John Sweetman. “Fuck. Off.”
“Seconded,” says Maud briskly.
“Thirded,” I add.
“Fourthded,” puts in Sarika, not to be outdone.
“Spider-Man!” yells Bertie from the top of the 4X4, and lands with an almighty thump on John Sweetman’s shoulders. John Sweetman gives an agonized yell and I clasp my hand over my mouth.
“Bertie!” exclaims Maud reprovingly. “Do not thump the man and call him ignorant.”
“Ignorant!” yells Bertie at once, and punches John Sweetman. “Ignorant!”
“Children these days,” says Maud, rolling her eyes. “What can one do?”
“Get him off!” John Sweetman’s voice is muffled and furious. “Argh! My leg!”
“Harold!” squeals Romy gleefully, and I realize that Harold has dashed out to join in. He’s grabbed John Sweetman’s trousers between his teeth and is snuffling with excitement, and any minute now we’ll be paying for a new pair of gray flannel slacks.
“Come here.” I grab Harold’s collar and with a supreme effort manhandle him away, while Maud reclaims Bertie. Somehow we all make it back inside, close the door of Nell’s flat, and look at one another, breathing heavily.
“Fuckers,” says Nell, which is what she always says.
“Onward,” says Sarika firmly, because she’s all about eyes forward, stay tough.
“Drink?” says Maud, which is what she always suggests. And now it’s my turn to pull everyone in for a group hug.
“It’ll be OK,” I say into the dark, cozy warmth of us, our foreheads touching; our breaths mingling. The rest of the world is shut out; it’s just us four. Our squad.
At last we draw apart, and Nell pats me reassuringly on the back.
“It’ll be OK,” she says. “It always is. Ava, go and have your hot date. Go to Italy. Write your book. And do not give that bad dog a single thought.”
Two
Hot date. What a joke. What a joke.
The most humiliating thing is: I’m still thinking about it. Here I am at my expensive writing retreat in Italy. Our instructor, Farida, is giving her introduction to the week, and my pen is poised dutifully over my notebook. But instead of listening properly, I’m having flashbacks.
It felt wrong from the first moment we met in the pub. He was different from how I expected—which, to be fair, they always are. All online dates. They walk differently from how you imagined, or their hair’s longer, or their accent isn’t what you conjured up in your head. Or they just smell wrong.
This guy smelled wrong and drank his beer wrong and sounded wrong. He also had a lot to say about cryptocurrency, which…you know. Is only interesting for so long. (Ten seconds.) And the more I realized that he was wrong, the more I felt like a fool—because what about my instincts? What about the look in his eyes?
I kept peering at his eyes, trying—but failing—to find the life and intelligence and charm that I’d seen in his profile photo. He must have noticed, because he gave an awkward laugh and said, “Have I got foam on my eyebrow or something?”
I laughed, too, and shook my head. And I was going to change the subject—but I thought, Sod it, why not be honest? So I said, “It’s weird, but your eyes don’t look exactly like they did on the website. Probably the light or something.”
Which is when the truth came out. He looked a bit shifty and said, “Yeah, I’ve had some problems with my eyes recently? They went a bit septic. Gunky, you know? This one was kind of greeny-yellow.” He pointed to his left eye. “It was bad. I went through two lots of antibiotic cream.”
“Right,” I said, trying not to heave. “Poor you.”
“So hands up,” he continued. “I didn’t use my own eyes in my profile picture.”
“You…what?” I said, not quite following.
“I photoshopped in someone else’s eyes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Same color, so what’s the difference?”
In disbelief, I got out my phone and summoned up his profile picture—and at once it was obvious. The eyes opposite me were flat and dull and insipid. The eyes on the screen were crinkly and charming and inviting.
“So whose eyes are these?” I demanded, jabbing at them. He looked even more shifty, then said with a shrug, “Brad Pitt’s.”
Brad Pitt’s?
He lured me into a date with Brad Pitt’s eyes?
I felt so angry and stupid, I could barely get out another word. But he didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. In fact, he suggested that we go on to a restaurant. What a nerve! As I left, I nearly said sarcastically, “FYI, my boobs are Lady Gaga’s.” But that might have sent the wrong message.
I should complain to the website, only I can’t be bothered. I can’t be bothered with any of it. I’m having a pause from men. Yes. That’s what I’m doing. My instincts can just have a holiday—
“The most important thing, of course, will be for you to stay focused.” Farida’s voice penetrates my thoughts. “Distraction is the enemy of productivity, as I’m sure you know.”
I look up, to realize Farida’s gaze is resting appraisingly on me. Shit! She knows I’m not listening. I feel a tremor, as though I’m in fourth-form geography and have been caught passing notes. Everyone else is listening. Everyone else is concentrating. Come on, Ava. Be a grown-up.
I glance around the ancient, high-ceilinged stone room we’re sitting in. The retreat is taking place in an old monastery in Puglia. There are eight of us, sitting on well-worn wooden chairs, all dressed in the plain linen kurta pajamas we were given this morning. That’s one of the rules of this retreat: You can’t wear your own clothes. Nor can you use your own name. Nor can you have your phone. You have to hand it in at the start of the week and you only get it back for half an hour a night, or for an emergency. Plus there’s no Wi-Fi. At least, not for guests.
On arrival, we were given lunch in our own bedrooms so that we wouldn’t meet before this afternoon. The rooms are old monks’ cells with whitewashed walls and paintings of the Madonna all over the place. (They’ve also been knocked through, if you ask me. Don’t tell me monks had enough room for king-size beds, writing tables, and hand-embroidered ottomans, available for purchase in the gift shop.)
After lunch I sat on my linen bedspread, trying to focus on my plot and only occasionally scroll
ing through photos of Harold on my laptop. Then we were individually ushered into this space and asked to remain silent. So I’m sitting with a group of utter strangers with whom I haven’t exchanged a single word, just a couple of shy smiles. Five other women and two men. They’re all older than me, apart from a thin bony guy who looks to be in his twenties and a girl who looks like she’s a college student.
It’s all quite intense. Quite strange. Although in fairness, I knew it would be. I read a stack of online reviews before I booked this course, and 90 percent of them described it as “intense.” Other words that cropped up were “eccentric,” “immersive,” “challenging,” and “lot of bloody nutters.” But also “sublime” and “life-changing.”
I’m choosing to believe “sublime” and “life-changing.”
“Let me now explain to you the philosophy of this writing retreat,” says Farida, and she pauses.
She pauses a lot as she speaks, as though to air her words and consider them. She’s in her fifties, half-Lebanese and half-Italian. I know this because I’ve read her book about dual heritage, called I and I. At least I half-read it. (It’s a bit long.) She has sleek dark hair and a calm demeanor and is wearing the same kurta linen pajamas as the rest of us, except they look far better on her. I bet she’s had hers tailored.
“This week is not about how you look,” she continues. “Or what your background is. Or even what your name is. It is purely about your writing. Remove your self, and your writing will shine.”
I glance at the skinny, dark-haired woman sitting next to me. She’s writing Remove your self and your writing will shine, in her notebook.
Should I write it down too? No. I can remember it.
“I have run writing retreats for many years,” Farida continues. “In the early days, I had none of these rules. My students began by introducing themselves, sharing their names, backgrounds, and experiences. But what happened? The conversations grew and mushroomed. They chatted about publishing, children, day jobs, holidays, current affairs…and none of them wrote!” She smacks one hand against the other. “None of them wrote! You’re here to write. If you have a thought you want to share, put it into your writing. If you have a joke you want to make, put it into your writing.”
She’s quite inspiring. If a little intimidating. The thin bony guy has raised his hand, and I admire his guts. I would not be raising my hand at this point.
“Are you saying this is a silent retreat? Can’t we talk?”
Farida’s face creases into a broad smile. “You can talk. We will all talk. But we will not talk about ourselves. We will release our minds from the strain of small talk.” She eyes us all severely. “Small talk depletes creativity. Social media stifles thought. Even choosing an outfit every morning is needless effort. So, for one week, we will let all that nonsense go. We will engage instead with big talk. Character. Plot. Good and evil. The right way to live.”
She picks up a basket from a heavy carved side table and walks around, handing out blank name badges and pens.
“Your first task is to choose a new name for the week. Liberate yourselves from your old selves. Become new selves. Creative selves.”
As I take my name badge, I feel quite excited by becoming a new creative self. Also, she’s right about the outfits. I knew in advance about the kurta pajamas, so packing was easy. Pretty much all I needed was sunblock, hat, swimsuit, and my laptop to write my book.
Or, at least, finish my book. It’s a romantic story set in Victorian England, and I’m a bit stuck. I’ve got up to my hero, Chester, riding off on a hay wagon in the golden sunshine, exclaiming, “When next you see me, Ada, you will know I’m a man of my word!” but I don’t know what he does next, and he can’t stay on the hay wagon for two hundred pages.
Nell thinks he should die in an industrial accident and help to change the archaic labor laws of the day. But that seems a bit gloomy to me. So then she said, “Could he be maimed?” and I said, “What do you mean?” which was a mistake, because now she keeps googling horrendous accidents and sending me links with titles like, Could he lose a foot?
The trouble is, I don’t want to write about Chester being mangled in a thresher. Nor do I want to base the evil landowner on Maud’s old chemistry teacher. The thing about friends is, they’re very helpful, but they’re almost too helpful. They all suggest their own ideas and confuse you. That’s why I think this week away will be really helpful.
I wonder what Harold’s doing.
No. Stop.
I blink back to reality as I notice the woman next to me putting on her name badge. She’s called herself “Metaphor.” Oh God. Quick, I need to come up with a name. I’ll call myself…what? Something literary? Like “Sonnet”? Or “Parenthesis”? Or something dynamic like “Velocity”? No, that was a team on The Apprentice.
Come on. It doesn’t matter what I call myself. Quickly I write Aria, and pin my badge onto my pajama top.
Then I realize Aria’s almost exactly my real name.
Oh well. No one will ever know.
“Well done.” Farida’s eyes gleam at us. “Let us introduce our writing selves.”
We go round the room and everyone says their “name” out loud. We’re called Beginner, Austen, Booklover, Metaphor, Aria, Scribe, Author-to-Be, and Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise—the bony guy. He goes on to inform us he’s writing a graphic novel, not a romantic one, but his screenwriter friend told him this course was good, and you can learn from anything, right? Then he starts on some rant about the Marvel Universe, but Farida gently cuts him off and tells him we’ll call him “Kirk” for short.
I already like the look of Scribe. She’s got cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a tanned face, and a mischievous smile. Beginner has cotton-candy white hair and must be eighty at least. Author-to-Be is the guy with gray hair and a paunch, and the student is Austen. Booklover looks about forty and has exchanged a friendly smile with me—meanwhile Metaphor has already shot her hand up.
“You say we shouldn’t talk about ourselves,” she says a bit snippily. “But surely we’ll reveal elements of ourselves in our writing?” She sounds as if she wants to catch out Farida, thus demonstrating how clever she is. But Farida just smiles, unruffled.
“Of course you will reveal your souls as you write,” she says. “But this is a romantic-fiction writing retreat. The art of fiction is to present reality as though it’s unreality.” She addresses the whole room. “Be artful. Use disguises.”
That’s a good tip. Maybe I’ll change my heroine’s name from Ada to something a bit less like Ava. Victorienne. Is that a name?
I write down Victorienne in my notebook, just as Farida resumes speaking.
“Today we look at the principles of story,” she says. “I would like each of you to say what story means for you. Just one sentence. Beginning with Austen.”
“Right.” Austen colors bright red. “It’s…um…wanting to know the end.”
“Thank you.” Farida smiles. “Author-to-Be?”
“Crikey!” says Author-to-Be with a throaty chortle. “Put me on the spot, why don’t you! Er…beginning, middle, end.”
“Thank you,” says Farida again, and she’s about to draw breath when there’s a rattle at the huge wooden door. It swings open and a woman I recognize as Nadia, the course administrator, beckons Farida over. They have a hurried whispered conversation, during which we all glance at one another uncertainly, then Farida turns back to address us.
“As you know, there are three different retreats taking place in the monastery this week,” she begins. “Writing, meditation, and martial arts. Unfortunately, the leader of the martial-arts retreat has been taken ill and a replacement has not been found. Those guests have been given the opportunity to join one of the other retreats instead—and three have chosen to join our writing group. I would ask you to welcome them.”
We all watch, agog, as the door widens. Two men and a woman walk in—and my heart jumps. That taller, dark-haired guy. Wow.
He smiles round the room and I feel my throat tighten. OK. So it turns out my instincts don’t want a holiday, after all. My instincts are leaping up and down and pulling in the extra emergency-instincts team and yelling, “Look, look!”
Because he’s gorgeous. I’ve been on thirty-six online first dates—and not one has sent a streak of electricity through me like this.
He’s got to be in his late thirties. He’s well built—you can see that through the fabric of his kurta pajamas. Wavy black hair, faint stubble, a strong jaw, deep-brown eyes, and a fluid, easy motion as he takes his seat. He smiles at his neighbors a little uncertainly as he takes a name badge and pen from Farida and regards them thoughtfully. He’s the most good-looking person in the room by a million miles, but he doesn’t even seem to have noticed.
I’m blatantly gobbling him up with my eyes, I realize. But that’s OK, because you’re allowed to be observant if you’re a writer. If anyone asks, I’ll say I’m making mental notes for a character in my book, and that’s why I’m gazing so intently at his thighs.
Kirk seems quite taken by one of the other new arrivals, I notice, and I swing round to survey her quickly. She’s pretty attractive, too, with tawny hair and white teeth and amazingly toned arms. The second guy is incredibly pumped up, with mammoth biceps—in fact, our whole group is suddenly about 50 percent more good-looking on average. Which maybe says something about martial arts versus writing.
The entire mood of the room has lifted, and we watch, rapt, as the newbies choose their names. The girl goes for Lyric, the super-muscled guy is Black Belt, and the dark-haired guy chooses Dutch.
“It was the name of my childhood dog,” he says as he introduces himself—and I melt. His voice is good. It’s deep and resonant and honest and ambitious but noble and humorous, too, with a hint of past sadness but rays of future sunshine and a thread of rare intelligence. And OK, I know I’ve only heard him utter eight words. But that’s enough. I can tell. I can feel it. I just know he has a big heart and integrity and honor. He would never photoshop in Brad Pitt’s eyes.
Love Your Life Page 3