Susan Green

I’ve just been on a 3-day writer’s retreat with Meg Dunley – writer, editor, creativity coach and all-round amazing woman – in beautiful, green, cool Kinglake. A workshop each day, a one-on-one coaching session, readings and group chats every night. Plus lots of lovely food and lovely time to just be. Which was (for me) breathe, walk, think, read…and I actually got quite a bit of actual writing done, too.

I had been on one of these Retreats with Meg before. This one was even better than the first. Having my own little cottage instead of a private room in a shared house meant that I could be in my own blissful little bubble all day if I wanted. It was called ‘Silver Princess’ – of course.
And the smaller group meant the evening conversations went wider and deeper. My fellow writers were an accomplished and generous and just generally lovely pair; I’ve come back full of ideas, energy and a much more playful approach to my work. Meg is an expert at creating these nourishing experiences and opportunities; I hope I can be a repeat retreater next year, too.

On the last evening, instead of reading from my crime novel, I read this story which was placed second in one of the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto competitions in the ‘Body in the Library’ section. I know you shouldn’t laugh at your own jokes, but I had tears running down my cheeks. And I was drinking non-alcoholic bubbly, too.

It’s called:

CREATIVITY NOW!!!!

The response to the Bessborough Writer’s Circle Festival Outreach grant application was extremely pleasing.
No. Boring. Marian pressed the backspace key and started again.
We were all extremely pleased that our Festival Outreach grant application was successful.
Still not right. Marian shook her head. Her writing, she knew, tended towards the bland and conventional, but lately she’d been trying to change. To make her language vivid, arresting and immediate, as advised in all the writerly websites and how-to books. Though this was just a short article for the newsletter, she knew she could do better.
I’m so excited, she began, and then stopped to look up at the poster above her desk. In big bold type it read:

CREATIVITY NOW!!!!WITH EILISH O’CONNOR

And below that was Eilish O’Connor herself, looking down with a pensive smile via the publicity shot Marian had sourced from her website. With tumbling auburn curls and proudly poised head, Marian thought it was not entirely fanciful to say Eilish resembled a Celtic queen.

A Masterclass with the internationally renowned Booker Prize long-listed author!

‘Masterclass’ was much better than workshop. So professional and dignified. The word had gravitas. Which contrasted with the liveliness of Creativity Now!!!!  She’d been so chuffed with that phrase. Vivid? Tick. Immediate? Tick! Though she had agonized over the exclamation marks; they were her particular weakness. But the Writer’s Circle had let her have her way, especially as she’d offered to host Eilish O’Connor.

Who was arriving at Marian’s house soon. In – Marian checked her watch – ten minutes. Eilish O’Connor, author of The Stone Farm and The Rain in My Village, was about to be offered tea, home-made shortbread and literary conversation before drinks in the library and an invitation-only Writer’s Dinner at the Farmer’s Arms.
Literary conversation… A second’s disquiet pierced Marian’s joy. The thing was – embarrassingly – she hadn’t actually read either of Eilish’s novels. She’d bought them online as soon as the Masterclass was confirmed, but it seemed that every time she sat down to read, something interrupted her and she had to start again. Or else she fell asleep. However she’d read all the reviews on Goodreads and two or three interviews on the net and so she felt she could truthfully compliment Eilish on the ‘raw’ and ‘gritty’ quality of her writing.

But what about her own writing? Would there be compliments or criticism for The Body in the Cricket Pavilion? Some of the Circle members had protested that two thousand words was not nearly enough for Eilish to judge the plot, the characterization, the potential – but Marian informed them that wasn’t the point.
“It’s simply that the organisers, on Miss O’Connor’s behalf, have to insist that all the participants have certain standard of proficiency. That’s why they wanted her to look at our W.I.P.’s.”
“What is a W.I.P.?”
That was Melissa Delbard, a sweet person but quite unworldly and still really struggling with that new laptop her nephew had given her to replace the electronic typewriter.
“Work in progress,” said Marian.
Oh yes, some of them were mere babes in the woods when it came to the writing life.

She’d finished the first draft of The Body in the Cricket Pavilion earlier in the year, but she was still polishing. It was her third attempt at a crime novel, and by far her best. Her protagonist, amateur sleuth Susan Soames, was like an old friend; so much so that at times Marian felt as if Susan was actually dictating her own adventures, exclamation marks and all. Would she seem real to Eilish O’Connor? Marian recognized that Susan was in the Miss Marple mould but (she hoped) with a twist. Susan was a widow, for a start. Marian was especially proud of Susan’s witty one-sided conversations with her departed husband, which helped her sort the clues from red herrings.
There was the crunch of tyres on the gravel outside, and Marian sprang to her feet.
“I’m so excited,” she said to herself. “!!!!!!”

It was nearly midnight by the time Marian removed her reading glasses and turned off the bedside lamp. It was past two before she fell asleep.
Ros from the Regional Arts Council had tried to warn her.
“She’s a bit of a handful,” she’d whispered.
At the time, Marian thought it was rather unprofessional of her. Now, she wished Ros had been more forthcoming.
At first, she’d thought Eilish was simply tired. She was certainly an attractive woman (though Marian hadn’t expected her to be quite so short) but less glamorous in the flesh than she appeared in her photograph and rather red in the face. She’d refused afternoon tea and gone straight to her room for a lie down. Though disappointed, Marian understood the artistic temperament. Naturally, Eilish would have that exquisite sensitivity to mood and ambience that marked the writer out from mere ordinary mortals.

At five o’clock, she knocked on the bedroom door and invited Eilish to join her for a drink.
“In here,” she said, opening the door with an inner glow of pride. “I call this…” She did the quote marks thing with her hands, because she didn’t want Eilish to think she was being pretentious. “… the library.”
Floor to ceiling bookshelves, deep maroon velvet curtains drawn already against the chill spring night, a gas heater with pretend flames and two cosy armchairs. Marian loved this room; since Len’s passing, she often just sat, quietly communing with him and plotting murder mysteries.
“Library?” Eilish looked around. “So – actually your parlour, living room, lounge, drawing room, what have you?”
“Well yes, I suppose so. I mean, it isn’t an actual library, obviously, because the house is too small, that’s why I did the quote marks with my fingers. It’s what Len and I called it – it was a bit of a joke between us…”
Eilish made no response, and feeling a bit desperate, Marian gestured towards the decanters, glasses and pre-dinner snacks which were placed on the side table.
“Sweet or dry sherry?” she said.
But Eilish, a look of horror on her face, pointed like Lady MacBeth to Marian’s carefully arranged platter of hors d’oeuvres.
“Nuts!” Her voice throbbed with emotion.
“Yes, they are nuts,” faltered Marian. Surely they had smoked almonds in Dublin?
“Didn’t Ros tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“For the love of Christ, woman, allergies! Nuts.”
She should have been told!
“Seafood and fish. And sesame seeds.”
Marian had only recently renewed her First Aid Certificate with CPR, and she knew not to fool around. For some people, the facilitator had told them, just being in the same room with the allergen could trigger potentially fatal anaphylactic shock. Acting decisively, she picked up the platter, opened the window and threw the whole thing outside into the garden bed below.
“Do you have an Epi-pen?”
“No need.” And indeed, now the moment of drama had passed, Eilish did look remarkably calm. She patted her handbag. “I have two, in case. Always in my bag. Always close by.”
“Very good,” said Marian.
The first rule of Epi-pens, the first aid facilitator had told them, is you have to keep them with you! They’re of no use in your bag or your jacket if you can’t get to them in time. It could mean the difference between life and death. Her guest showed no sign of distress, no swelling of the lips, laboured breathing or skin rash but she resolved to keep a close eye on her anyway.
“Ah, I’ll be fine,” said the author, dabbing her mouth with one of Marian’s hand-embroidered napkins and tucking a small silver flask back into her handbag. She must have taken it from her bag while Marian was getting rid of the allergy-laden platter. Was it brandy?
Compassion flooded Marian as she considered the stress of living with the constant threat of death. Though as a first aider she knew that alcohol was in fact a depressant, she was a woman of the world and understood that to one of the artistic persuasion, any brush with mortality must give rise to existential angst and an element of self-medication was only to be expected.
Eilish helped herself to a glass of sherry, and Marian did the same.
“Slainte.”
“Ditto,” said Marian, recognizing the famous Irish toast.
Eilish swigged her drink, poured another and launched into a long and no doubt fascinating discussion of…Well, of something. The trouble was, though her Irish heritage gave Eilish a beguiling accent and soft lilting delivery, most of the meaning escaped Marian. She supposed it could be mutual. Was Eilish perhaps struggling with Marian’s own pronunciation, her Australian accent, her vernacular?
So she spoke very clearly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Are you deaf? Jesus, Joseph and Mary!”
Marian had been brought up not to discuss disability, sex or religion, so she was not sure what was expected of her. Conversation lapsed. They sat there together in silence until Marian could stand it no longer. Her precious chance of an in-depth one-on-one literary conversation was slipping away.
“Please,” she burst out. “What’s your essential advice to an emerging writer?”
Eilish responded immediately with a couple of words and a ripple of laughter like little tinkling bells.
Marian could feel her eyes almost cross with the effort of comprehension. She thought the famous writer had said ‘apply arse’.
“You mean..?”
Eilish also spoke slowly and with care, and Marian’s internal translator kicked in with great clarity.
“I mean apply arse. To the seat of your chair. I mean sit there. You have to turn up, woman, and sit there, and write.”
“Ah.”
Eilish poured yet another sherry. “For feck’s sake,” she said.

Nor was the dinner at the Farmer’s Arms the success Marian had hoped it would be.
For a start, the local footy club was holding its traditional cross-dressing fundraiser; raucous singing filtered through to the bistro and the occasional lingerie-clad athlete staggered to the gents. It was not conducive to sparkling conversation. Or any conversation, really. It didn’t help that the committee members were somewhat in awe of their famous guest.
Eilish had no doubt experienced this kind of tricky situation before and so she filled the awkwardness with a kind of monologue, which would have been fine had she not been (understandably) quite so tired and emotional.
“What the feck is a parma?” she lilted. “Chicken and cheese? That’s fecked.”
“Melbourne? It was feckin’ awful.”
“This year’s Booker? That was fecked.”
“And for feck’s sake – who came up with ‘Creativity Now!!!!’? Of all the lame-arsed – ”
Marian took a deep breath, preparing to confess but dear, unworldly Melissa got in first.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, Eilish …but what does ‘fecked’ mean?”
“What?” She stabbed angrily at the potatoes that accompanied her steak. “Well, these taties are, to start off with. What is it, instant feckin’ mash?”
“But…fecked. What does it actually mean?”
Eilish stared at her as if she’d been asked a trick question. “It means…fecked.”
Ed Markov, the Secretary, spoke up. “I think it means ‘fucked’, Melissa.”
Silence, during which the team song, accompanied by animal noises, could be heard.
“Goodness,” said Melissa.
Eighty-eight year old Mrs Ivy Jamieson, Presbyterian stalwart and authoress of By Pony, Bicycle and On Foot; A Postmistress’s Story, stood up. “At offensive language, Miss O’Connor,” she said. “I draw the line.”
She stalked out with her parma untouched.
“Jigger me sideways,” said Eilish with an impish smile. “What’s twisted her knickers?”

Hours later, it seemed, Marian managed to get Eilish home. The game of pool, the drinking competition in the public bar, the karaoke machine, the incident with the banana fritter…
Usually, if Marian could not sleep, she got up and made herself a cup of cocoa. But tonight she did not want to disturb her visitor. Marian shivered, despite the winter-weight doona and wheat pack, as she thought about tomorrow’s Masterclass. Many of the participants were Bessborough locals, fellow members of the Writer’s Circle. She felt proud of them, all of them, for signing up, for exposing the vulnerable soft underbellies of their creativity. For two years now, they’d been coming together at the Community Centre to workshop their ideas, to read and critique, to encourage, console and dream.  She pictured each of them, with their precious W.I.P.’s.
Damien Jones, a dear sweet boy and at nineteen, the youngest Circle member. He was also Bessborough’s only Goth. To write The Four Ethereal Winds of Kronton in verse was a bold and unconventional choice.
Linny Cohen, the shy, sweet Prep teacher at Bessborough PS, working on a YA novel called Is He For Real?
Amanda Cox, owner of Bessborough Floristry and local history buff, digging deep into research for her historical saga, All the Creeks Cross.
Ed Markov, retired engineer and mainstay of the Amateur Radio Club. He was already looking for a publisher for his work of auto fiction, Specification.
Silkie Ocean, reiki practitioner and driving instructor. The Orb Within was a truly unique combination of self-help, memoir and motoring hints.
Melissa Delbard, a dear friend, a keen knitter and twitcher, who had written and illustrated a picture story book, Cheeky the Kookaburra.
And she herself, of course. Marian Pine, widow, author of the Susan Soames mystery series (The Body in the Pantry, the Body in the Vestry, the Body in the Cricket Pavilion) and grant writer extraordinaire.
Was that the beginning of acid reflux? Marian reached for the Gaviscon and lay there, in the dark, pondering. Was the whole thing going to be a disaster?

It seemed the visions of shambolic failure that haunted Marion’s dreams were about to come true. It was ten o’clock, the advertised starting time, and only four of the eight Bendigo writers had turned up.
And Eilish was taking a very long time in the loo.
Marian took a deep breath, determined to be upbeat. After all, she thought, she’d written the grant application; it was, in a way, her show and the old saying was, ‘The show must go on’.
“Good morning everyone!” She smiled as widely as she could. “Thank you for coming. Eilish will be here in just – ”
“What the feck?”
“Here she is! How about a warm Bessborough greeting?”
The timid smattering of applause couldn’t hide Eilish’s furious brogue.
“Who. Did. That?”
“I did.”  Damien raised his hand.
With a side reference to Our Lord that was sure to offend Amanda, who Marian knew for a fact to be a regular communicant at St Patrick’s, Eilish unloaded at length on poor Damien when all he’d done was take coloured chalks, write WELCOME EILISH O’CONNOR and then draw a border of shamrocks with a cheeky female leprechaun to one side.
Marian quickly moved the whiteboard in front of the blackboard.
“A very interesting discussion about national stereotypes and the concept of body shaming!” she said brightly. “But let’s not forget why we’re here. Another big clap please for our wonderful guest !!!!”

And she had to say this for her presenter – Eilish was a trouper. A thorough professional, with laser-like focus. After the little contretemps over the leprechaun, the morning went smoothly. Ed had all the tech ready and working, so there was an extensive Powerpoint presentation, with one of those little laser pointers for emphasis.

WRITE FROM WITHIN

FIND YOUR OWN VOICE

PRIME THE PUMP

Eilish talked fluently and at length about each of these topics and snowed them with a blizzard of handouts and short writing exercises. Marian was almost overwhelmed by the abundance of inspiration.
But not all the participants felt the same. The Bendigo writers did not return after lunch; neither did they tender their apologies, which was rather rude. And the remaining participants grew increasingly restless and, Marian thought, unappreciative. It was most distressing.
“Ah…Eilish…when will we get the chance to discuss our projects?” asked Ed. A gaunt and serious man, his 100,000-word work was inspired by Karl Ove Knausgard, and based on his years with the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works.
“Is this it? I mean, I was hoping for a more targeted approach,” said Silkie. “I mean, like how to find a publisher for The Orb Within. I mean, like, right now, memoir is supposed to be hot, self-help is supposed to be hot – ”
“Darlin’, this workshop – ”
“Masterclass,” said Ed.|
“Masterclass then. It’s about writing fiction. Things you’ve made up.”||
“But you said write from within,” said Silkie.|
“I keep a gratitude journal,” said Linny.
“Me too,” said Damian with a shy smile.
“Well, that’s grand,” said Eilish. “That will make you a saint, but never a writer.”
Melissa chimed in. “Did you have time to look at Cheeky the Kookaburra? Did you like the pictures?”|
Marian suspected Eilish of refreshing herself from her hip flask in the ladies over the break; she was flushed and swayed ever so slightly as she stood in front of the whiteboard.
“I repeat; this workshop – masterclass, whatever – it’s about fiction writing. As in, writing fiction. Not gratitude fecking journals, not twee little kiddies’ books, not self-help, or any of that shite.”
“But look.” Ed held out his copy of The Rain in My Village. ‘On the back cover, here, it says, ‘informed by the author’s childhood’. Doesn’t that mean it’s to some extent autobiographical?’
‘To some extent, Ed, that is pure bollocks. I mean, fair play, I grew up in Dublin, but for feck’s sake, I got the idea from a story in the Irish Times. If that was my personal experience, I’d be in custody.” She laughed; more little tinkling bells. “I write this.”
And she grabbed a red marker and scrawled in large capitals on the whiteboard.

FICTON

The class stared at the enigmatic word.
“Ah, Eilish, I think you’ve left out the ‘i’,” said Ed.
“I what?”
“The ‘i’. You’ve left out the ‘i’ out of ‘fiction’.”
“Are you trying to be funny with me?”|
“No, Eilish. You’ve made a spelling error.”
That was when Eilish lost her laser-like focus. In fact, she just lost it.
‘Well, you can take your spelling error and stick it up your arse! No-one’s going to give a toss about your feckin’ sewers, you gobshite! Or your orb, Sulky or whatever it is you call yourself – ‘
‘I don’t have to listen to this!’ said Silkie.
“Then feck off!”
Ed and Silkie walked. Amanda left after the tea break. Linny, Melissa, Damien and herself, the dispirited remainder of the Masterclass, laboured away on Eilish’s increasingly random two-minute writing exercises (“Imagine you’re a snail!” “Write from the perspective of your lunch.”) until she broke into another monologue, this time about the group being creativity-sucking vampires, the town being a shithole and the venue being a joke. To top it off, with a dramatic gesture, she swung the whiteboard aside to reveal the leprechaun.
“And I’ve had to endure yet another feckin’ Irish joke from a half-witted, illiterate, untalented undertaker. Ethereal Winds of Kronton! I’ll give you wind.”
The noise was deliberate, loud and unmistakable and if Marian could have fainted at will, she would have. Instead, she jumped to her feet.
“Time to call it a day! Thank you so much, Eilish, for… Well, for…everything!!!!”
It was hard to meet Damien’s eyes as he packed up his notebook and pens.

It was six o’clock. Gentle snoring came from the slumped figure in the armchair. Eilish slept, but Marian paced up and down in her library.
She could have forgiven her. Would have forgiven her, even for the damning assessment of her Susan Soames mystery (“Half-arsed, timid, derivative, badly written shite.”) and the unkind things she said to Amanda and Linny and the rest of the group. They were resilient. They would recover. One day, and probably soon, the Writer’s Circle would be able to laugh as they remembered the events of the Masterclass. They had spouses and families, friends and pets. They had achievements and pleasures apart from writing. And it was obvious by now that Eilish was seriously unhinged. A dipsomaniac and what the young might call a ‘hot mess’. Marian had a handle on current slang, thanks to young Damien.
Dear Damien.
Despite his funereal suit and piercings and platform boots and eyeliner, he was a kind, generous and sensitive soul, carer for his bipolar mum and fifteen-year-old sister. The fantasy world of Kronton was his escape, his refuge, a beautiful world where there were no meltdowns and no suicide attempts, there was food in the fridge and the phones at Centrelink were answered on the first ring.
So what if The Four Ethereal Winds of Kronton was lame? So what if Damien was borderline dyslexic?
The sight of the poor boy, sitting in front of Eilish and trying not to cry, with soft trembling lips and tear-filled eyes, pierced Marian to the core.
Who does she think she is?
Glimpsing Eilish’s handbag on the floor beside the armchair, she picked it up and walked slowly down the passage to the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, and Marian had prepared supper.
“Here you are, dear. A nice bowl of soup. You’ll feel better if you eat something.”
Eilish sat up. Her eyes met Marian’s.
“I think I might have got a bit out of hand back there with that Masterclass,” she said sheepishly.
“That you did,” said Marian. “But it doesn’t matter. We all understand.”
Eilish’s eyes widened. “You do? It’s the pressure, you see.”
“Yes, dear. This is tomato soup.”
Tomato soup, with a few tablespoons of hummus and peanut butter, some cat food (‘Tasty Tuna’) and a good slurp of fish sauce.
“I’m making some toast, as well. I’ll go and get it. Don’t wait for me.”
Marian watched as Eilish dipped her soup spoon into the hot red liquid and brought it to her lips, then turned and left the room, locking the door behind her.
Back in the warmth of her kitchen, and ignoring the noise from the front room, she sat at the table and opened her laptop. New folder, new document. First page.
She had thought about calling her new story Creativity Now! It was certainly a vivid, immediate and arresting title. But no. She was old-school (another phrase she’d learned from Damien) and she knew it. She typed:

A Susan Soames Mystery: THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY

This is a Hyacinth Orchid (dipodium roseum and yes, I looked it up), just growing through some decking at the retreat venue, Karma Kinglake. There were others growing alongside a walking track. So lovely. Added bonus is a pair of mating bugs!

This was a very random pick from the library shelves; I was intrigued by the idea of a series of letters between two different parts of the one self.

Peter Quarry is an Australian psychologist, entrepreneur, designer, TV personality, portrait artist and now writer. He had a peculiar childhood. His Australian father and German mother met in post-war Germany; she moved to Australia when they married, but sadly his father died young. There followed a period when his mother moved restlessly back and forth from Australia to Europe, not liking one and then being disappointed with the other, on repeat.

She sounds like a nightmare –  self-absorbed and yet smotheringly over-involved with Peter and, while not incestuous, inappropriately intimate. The way she shared details of her emotional life was not fair to a young boy…what was she thinking? And when she found an Italian lover, poor little Peter found himself piggy in the middle of a volatile relationship – literally – in a tiny flat in Rome. The Italian was shiftless; his mother was hopeless with money. So life was precarious.

One of the key images from this period is young Peter dolled up in a smart suit, bow tie and all. Mother lived a fantasy life, a Hollywood movie of glamour and romance. She liked to travel by ship, and on those constant cruises he was made to dress in a suit and squire ladies at the shipboard dances. Talk about the stereotype ‘my mother made me gay’!

After that insecure childhood, Quarry was always driven by the need for financial stability. So although he had a hedonistic, often risky gay lifestyle – Quarry doesn’t hold back on the clubbing, drug-taking and sexual adventuring – he was also a successful and wealthy psychologist and entrepreneur in the corporate training field.

With age, Buddhism, health issues and a loving relationship (which was able to become a marriage because Australians chose marriage equality – yay!) Quarry decided to take stock by putting himself on the couch. His psychologist self, *’PQ’, asked questions, prompted tasks, commented and clarified as ‘Pete’ reviewed his life. This is a hybrid autobiography/self help book, and so I briefly flirted with the idea of a life review myself, but in the end it was Pete’s life story that was most interesting. A great insight into the lives of gay men from the 1970’s on. There’s the sex, drugs & rock’n’roll of course, but also gay ageism, ‘coming out’, youth and beauty culture, prejudice, illegality and of course AIDS. It’s the era of my youth, too, and I thought about my gay friends, some lost now, with more understanding.

*My husband, reading this post, did a little research. Apparently PIQ (Positive Intelligence Quotient) is a concept used by some psychologists, a little like EIQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient). Emotional Intelligence is often shortened to EQ. And Positive Intelligence, to PQ.

Looking around the hall at choir this week, I saw over 40 people singing with joy and energy and purpose, preparing for a performance at the Castlemaine State Festival later in March. I’m a new member – it was only my second time – but I’ve known many of my fellow singers, at least by sight, for years. Some of them, for decades. And because I am such a superficial flibbertigibbert, instead of focusing on the music, I was wondering, how have they all got so old?
It wasn’t just the grey or white hair, the lined and fallen faces; it was the walkers and sticks and mobility scooters. Then, of course, reality hit. What did I mean, they? I am old too. Not properly ancient, but at 67, definitely on the way. It’s likely that many of the singers, just like me, don’t feel old. Inside, I range happily through former versions of myself. Early childhood was the best! Up to around 11, but then puberty changed everything, so I tend to skip adolescence because I don’t want to go back there. 35 to 45 seems to be the sweet spot at present. When my knees and back hurt, I am prehistoric – but when I am singing, I am ageless.

On to the book…

Life after the halfpoint has many challenges: loss of direction, physical decline, pain, redundancy, dissatisfaction, compromised authority, bereavement – and all endured in the long shadow of death. Regardless of what has been achieved in the first half of life, no matter how much money you have, or fame or knowledge or love, you will still be obliged, one day, to stand in Dante’s dark wood, uncertain, anxious, troubled, all to conscious of the shadowy depths that lie ahead.

In Wise, Frank Tallis looks at ageing from a philosophical and psychological viewpoint. No prescriptions for diet and exercise here. He’s concerned with questions of ageing wisely; as his subtitle says, with finding purpose, wisdom and meaning beyond the midpoint of life. And he starts with Dante’s Inferno; ‘At one point, midway on our path in life, I found myself in a dark wood, the right way blurred and lost.’ The book is about finding ‘the right way’.

Tallis sees fear of death as a pervasive feature of our current Western worldview:

…the denial of death prevents engagement with reality and interferes with beneficial psychological adjustment. Immortality projects are obstacles, and should be abandoned.

He suggests that instead of denial, we practice acceptance – and the rest of the book is about how to achieve this via a search for wisdom, which we can do in company with philosophers and psychologists, with recent research findings from neuroscience to back up some of the theories. The bits that have stuck are the images of be-togaed ancient Greek and Roman Stoics, and French Existentialists smoking Gauloises in cafes: Michel de Montaigne’s epiphany after a near-death experience; the early American psychologist William James’ pragmatic approach to spirituality; Carl Jung’s mystical exploration of dreams and archetypes.

Tallis covers a lot of ground in a relatively short book (226 pages); perhaps it’s more of an introduction to some of the ideas than an exploration. I think a more useful book about finding yourself in older age is Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by Jungian analyst James Hollis.

Another Allingham, Dancers in Mourning.

Singers and dancers are rehearsing a new show at the country house of the star, his wife and their little daughter. Larger-than-life personalities and egos, tangled relationships and jealousies, lead to pranks that turn to persecution then to murder.  The pleasures include Campion in love and finally becoming human, and Magersfontein Lugg teaching the lonely little girl how to cheat at cards, pick locks and properly clean crystal glasses.
Twisty and surprising and perfectly satisfying.

A book group title, The Life Impossible by Matt Haig.

Grace Winters, recently widowed and with the tragic childhood death of her son a constant shadow in her life, is bequeathed a house on the island of Ibiza by a long-ago teaching colleague. As soon as she arrives, she’s immersed in new possibilities and is (at times unwillingly) transformed. We decided that you could describe this as ‘magic realism’ and I enjoyed most of it, but…(spoiler ahead)…when I learned that the supernatural undersea phenomenon called la Presencia came from another galaxy, I balked. However, the gift of this book to me was the sheer delight of a completely un-cynical narrative about discovering magic, mystery and awe in the world around us. And my favourite bit was where Grace, angered by the distress of lobsters in a tank, breaks the glass with the power of her mind – and dozens of crustaceans go scrambling through the restaurant full of diners, out of the doors and to the sea.

Another book group title, From the Woods to the Water: On Foot to Constantinople:the Middle Danube to the Iron Gates, by Patrick Leigh Fermor.

I think I might have read it before – I know I read the first volume, A Time of Gifts, a few years ago.  It was written in 1986, more than 40 years after, at just 18, he set out on his odyssey. What a time he had! Relying on diaries and letters and his memory, it’s a journey through time and space. In Hungary, Rumania and Transylvania – at that time, remote and little known –  he visits castles, monasteries, cathedrals, sophisticated cities and towns; and villages, gypsy encampments, sheep herding and woodcutting communities isolated by mountain passes, forests, chasms and wild rivers, and the great plains of Hungary. He’s helped on his way by aristocrats with their estates and servants, their network of relatives and friends and by chance-met villagers, gypsies, wanderers and shepherds. And all through these recollected travels, insatiably curious, he reflects on geography, religion, politics, architecture and history of the region.
It was 1933-4 – as he writes, it was a lost world, soon to be swept away forever by the storm of events that was gathering in Europe. He mourned that many of the families and individuals who meant so much to him were never to be heard of again. And, I thought, all those house servants, drivers, gypsy musicians, mountain shepherds, village girls, farm labourers, shopkeepers – Muslim and Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox and other sects as well…

You could pick Fermor’s nostalgia to pieces if you were so minded – privilege! – but I found it a beautiful book and loved being immersed in – actually, getting drunk on – his lush flow of words. This, at random:

Beyond the mountains to the north and east, clouds had been arranging themselves in a disturbing array, flocculent and still at first, then fidgety with summer lightning. The electricity dancing about among these heaps of vapour turned them blue-green and silver and mauve and in a shudder and a split second they would become transparent or bulbous or as thin as stage wings: scenic effects like magnesium, as though an atmospheric clown or a harlequin were loose in the hills. 

I am wondering what my book group buddies are going to make of it.

I am on a roll with these British ladies of crime. My latest discovery is Gladys Mitchell (1901-1983). From 1921 to 1961 she worked full-time as a teacher…and also wrote over 66 Mrs Bradley mysteries. Even more than Agatha Christie! There were a few other books as well; such an amazing output over a very long career, which make it strange that she’s almost disappeared from view.

I can’t go too far into the plot of Speedy Death without introducing spoilers, however initially the set-up seems to offer nothing too unorthodox. Basically, it’s a classic country house mystery, with family and guests gathered at the house of Alastair Bing to celebrate his birthday. They are his adult daughter Eleanor (who still lives at home), his son Garde with his pretty fiancée Dorothy and best friend Bertie, explorer Mr. Mountjoy and friends Mr Carstairs and Mrs. Bradley. However things get weird very quickly. It’s enough to say that the victim Mountjoy, who was found dead in the bath, was not what he seemed.

The character of Mrs Bradley was familiar to me, because I’d watched a few episodes of a late 1990’s TV serial, The Mrs Bradley Mysteries,  starring Diana Rigg. Aristocratic and stylish, she was aided by a devoted chauffeur (Neil Dudgeon of Midsomer fame) and made crime-solving seem like a breeze. Her outfits were the bee’s knees in 1920’s chic; a bit like a mature Phryne Fisher, in fact. But that’s not the character Gladys Mitchell created. Psychoanalyst and amateur detective Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley is first described like this:

…dry without being shrivelled, and bird-like without being pretty. She reminded Alastair Bing, who was afraid of her, of the reconstruction of a pterodactyl he had once seen in a German museum. There was the same inhuman malignity in her expression  as in that of the defunct bird, and, like it, she had a cynical smirk about her mouth even when her face was in repose. She possessed nasty, dry, claw-like hands, and her arms, yellow and curiously repulsive, suggested the plucked wings of a fowl.

Bizarre! Especially those arms. Actually, she’s oddly endearing but as far away from Phryne Fisher or Jane Marple as you can imagine.

The Rising of the Moon (1945), written 16 years into the series, is a different kettle of fish. Not a classic crime or a ‘cosy’; in fact, it’s almost a ‘coming-of-age’ story embedded in a crime novel. I loved it. Though Mrs Bradley makes an appearance as an odd fairy godmother figure, it is two young boys, Simon and Keith Innes, who do the majority of the sleuthing. Instead of an arch and witty omniscient narrator, we have 13-year-old Simon telling the story.

We soon reached the river, which, in parts, became the canal, and all at once I began to feel horribly nervous. I set a quicker pace, and the way Keith followed close behind me convinced me that he, too, hardly relished the adventure.
The moonlight fell white on the grass of the open spaces, and in shafts of greenish yellow between the thin-leaved trees. The river gurgled and splashed, and every now and then it was as though furtive little creatures scurried between our feet among the grasses, or rustled in last year’s dead leaves. From a distant farm a dog began to howl.
‘Get a move on,’ said Keith. ‘We’ll never get home at this rate.’
‘Do you want to get home?’ I asked, my own teeth beginning to chatter.
‘Yes, I do,’ he answered. ‘It’s a beastly night to be out.’
I felt the same, and without another word, I broke into a run. Keith stayed just at my heels, like a long-distance runner who intends to let his rival make the pace. But we were not in rivalry. We were merely two children, suddenly stricken with panic, running away from ourselves…

Simon and his younger brother Keith have been orphaned, and live with their brother jack, his wife June, nephew Tom and lodger Christina in a crowded little house in a small riverside town on the Thames. The town is beautifully realised and you could probably draw a map is you were so inclined, because the boys are free to roam in and around the streets, lanes and alleys, and along the river, where there are towpaths, canals and bridges with river-folk dwelling in house-boats and on barges. They know the locations of all the pubs, shops and public buildings  and because it’s a small town, they know lots of the inhabitants, too. They’re especially friendly with the eccentric proprietress of a junk shop, who allows them to make a playground of her shop and ferret through her stock.

The boys’ life becomes darker when the circus comes to town, and a terrible murder is committed. Their pursuit of the Ripper-style killer carries with it the innocence of imaginative kids, avid readers who spend half their time as heroes in a a world of thrilling adventure, so The Rising of the Moon has hints of Gothic novels and Boy’s Own adventures, of Enid Blyton and Charles Dickens. But Simon and Keith also live in a believable household, with routines and meals and washing-up, with disagreements and family friction, so there’s a kind of social realism there, too. The love and loyalty between the boys is quite moving, as is their adoration (on Simon’s part, infatuation) with the kind and affectionate lodger Christina.

I’m keen to try more Mrs Bradley.

More Allingham, more hot-weather reading pleasure.

Mystery Mile (1930) is the second book featuring Albert Campion. In it we see an American judge arrive in England to escape repeated attempts on his life. Campion finds a safe haven for him and his two adult children with old friends Biddy and Giles Paget in their estate near Mystery Mile, a village on the Suffolk coast. It turns out not to be so safe, after all. Which is not really a surprise, is it?
The cast of characters include a crew of eccentric local country folk, a saintly vicar, a boring art expert, a sinister criminal mastermind and his gang, plus Campion, Lugg and group of lively young people. The action rockets between rural Suffolk and London; there are fights, escapes, murders and abductions. Campion, ably assisted by valet Magersfontein Lugg, reveals hidden depths beneath his silly patter and habitually vacuous expression. He’s a dark horse, that one.

I also read Look to the Lady (1931), The Case of the Late Pig (1937) and The China Governess (1962).

The first two are adventurous romps, with a blend of detection, suspense and giddy, often black, humour that I’m learning is classic Allingham. They were both high-spirited and fast-moving, veering off in unexpected and sometimes pretty weird directions, with Campion front and centre in the plot. The China Governess (1962) is a very different kind of book, set in a very different kind of Britain.

It was written near the end of Allingham’s career. I wonder if it is typical of her late work, because it’s very different to the earlier books. It’s slow-moving and dark rather than madcap, pacy and enjoyably weird and definitely not a romp.

It follows Tim, the adopted child of an unpleasantly condescending and emotionally repressed family as he searches for the truth about his parentage. A kind of Who Do You Think You Are in post-war Britain, set among housing developments and seedy suburbs as well as the more familiar ‘big house’. Allingham’s plot provides a constant interplay between past and present. New homes are built on top of old slums; Tim’s adoptive family deal in antiques; a Victorian murder and a WWII tragedy cast long shadows; Allingham explores issues of heredity v upbringing. The easily offended 2026 reader might need a warning, but it is of its time. (As an aside, my first job in 1977, with intellectually handicapped adults, was overseen by Mental Retardation Services).

It’s a dense, unsettling drama, with Campion a minor player, and though I enjoyed it very much, if you are looking for ‘classic crime’, this is not it.

After a brief visit with two of the lesser-known (lesser-known today, I mean; they were famous in their time) female authors of the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction, I am back to familiar territory with the so-called Queens of Crime: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh.

I started with the first book in Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn series, A Man Lay Dead. I really, really wanted to like it, mainly because Marsh was a New Zealander and therefore almost one of us. But it was another English house-party murder, and I am basically over the upper classes.  Sigh.

As usual, the setting is a country estate with a grand house – this one is called Frantock Hall – at its heart. Its owner, Sir Hubert Handesley, is famous for hosting extravagant weekend parties and his collection of unusual, rare and stabby antique weapons. His guests are a thoroughly nice young journalist, Nigel Bathgate; Nigel’s philandering cousin Charles Rankin; Sir Hubert’s niece Angela; unhappily married couple Arthur and Marjorie Wilde; Rosamund Grant, who is in a secret relationship with the caddish Charles; and a Russian doctor, Dr Tokareff. Servants abound, but in this house there is, unusually, a Russian butler, Vassily.

The weekend begins with cocktails and dinner, after which Sir Hubert invites his guests to play the ‘Murder Game’ (a popular parlour game in the 1930s) in which a secretly assigned murderer ‘kills’ a fellow guest, who then have to deduce his or her identity.  Naturally, someone – the womanising Charles –  is really murdered. There are seven suspects, but every single one has an alibi, and Detective Chief-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of the Metropolitan Police is called in to solve the puzzle.

Roderick Alleyn is one of the ‘gentleman detectives’ who were so popular between the wars, only in this case, he is a professional policeman and not an amateur like Lord Peter Wimsey and Albert Campion. With his aristocratic family and background (educated at Eton, just like Boris Johnson!), he’s not your usual copper but at times he behaves a bit like an upper-class twit. It seems as if Marsh didn’t know quite what she wanted him to be in this first book. Marsh herself spoke critically of A Man Lay Dead, recognising that it had some serious flaws. The sub-plot featuring Bolsheviks, a secret Russian brotherhood and a priceless ritual dagger is simply silly and as for the ‘ingenious’ murder method…really?

Marsh went on to write 32 Roderick Alleyn novels, so I plan to read one of the later ones to see how he turns out.

Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) was born in New Zealand, worked there as an actress and in 1928 moved to London to pursue her career. For the rest of her life she divided her time between the UK and her homeland. She wrote A Man Lay Dead after reading one of Dorothy Sayers’ novels, and thinking that she could do that, too. 

Christianna Brand (1907-1988) published steadily for most of her writing life, from her debut novel Death in High Heels in 1941 to her last short stories for detective magazines like Ellery Queen’s in the early 1980’s. Her output spanned  detective fiction – including 7 in the Inspector Cockrill series – mysteries, romances and children’s books. She was a prolific short story writer for magazines, anthologies and collections; she published under her own and five different pen names. Nothing if not versatile! But she seems to be mostly forgotten today, except for her Nurse Matilda books, which served as the source material for Emma Thompson’s Nanny McPhee.

Heads You Lose (1941) was her first Inspector Cockrill book. It’s classic British crime. English house party, country estate, a cast of family, friends and servants, heavy snow and two particularly gruesome murders. As you might expect from the punning title, they are decapitations.

Stephen Pendock is the handsome, middle-aged squire of Pigeonsford, and an attentive, much-liked host. His house guests are an old friend, Lady Hart, with her twin granddaughters Francesca and Venetia as well as Henry Gold (Venetia’s husband) and another young man, now in the army, called James Nicholl. He’s been a frequent visitor to the neighbourhood since his youth. A village neighbour, Grace Morland, moons around the house yearning after Pendock, and her niece, actress Pippi Le May, pops up from London and visits the big house as well. I counted at least nine servants. Trotty, Miss Morland’s maid, and Bunsen, Pendock’s butler, are the most prominent.

Brand clearly enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the murder story. On the face of it, both  murders seem impossible. Several perpetrators are suggested; a possible scenario is proposed, investigated and discarded before the murderer is found. On this first outing, Inspector Cockrill seems undeveloped as a character, and it is the upper-class and privileged of Pigeonford who are most fully drawn.

Which could be a bit of a hitch for current day readers. The twins, Francesca and Venetia, are a couple of very spoiled young ladies whose Nanny should have put in the naughty corner more often. I think they are meant to be charming. But, for example, their insistence that their pampered dog be allowed into the inquest seems simply rude and their tangled emotions are sheer self-indulgence. I kept thinking, for God’s sake, people have been killed here. And there’s a war on!

In comparison to the Patricia Wentworth novels, these two books were more individual and better written – but less satisfactory. That’s because tone is wildly uneven; I kept being jerked out of the narrative by my strong reactions to Brand’s treatment of several of the characters. They are the outsiders, of course. The spinster Miss Morland is unmercifully pilloried for her failure to attract the man she loves; Pippi le May’s actressy glamour is cheap and not quite clean; we’re never allowed to forget that Henry Gold, Venetia’s husband, is a Jew and ‘not one of us’; the servants are inferiors to be patronised or laughed at.  I suppose if you are an insider, it’s OK. If not – it’s cruel.

I found the same issue – cruelty –  with Cat and Mouse.
It is a claustrophobic psychological thriller set in rural Wales. Journalist Tinka Jones arrives to visit one of her magazine’s advice-column correspondents – known only as ‘Amista’ –  a young Welsh girl. Letter after letter, like a serial story, Amista has told of her life on an isolated hilltop with her guardian, Carlyon, and his two servants. She details her daily life, the beautiful Welsh hills and valleys, her growing love for Carlyon, their sudden romance, his proposal of marriage, her great happiness… When the letters stop, Tinka is curious.

She finds a lonely and gloomy house, a Heathcliff-like owner, two servants and the news that no-one has ever heard of Amista. But if she doesn’t exist, how did she know so much about the house, the staff and Mr Carlyon? Why is the policeman, Mr Chucky (yes, really) keeping watch? When she is forced to stay the night, Tinka realises that there is another inhabitant. It is Mrs Carlyon. Is she Amista?  But the young woman has been in a car accident and is now terribly scarred, disabled, unable to speak. A dramatic scenario for a tense, creepy thriller. but…

…it was just so disturbing to read Brand’s descriptions of disfigurement. She uses the language of disgust; ‘monstrous ruin’, ‘muffled animal bleatings’, ‘an unrecognisable mask of a woman’, ‘incoherent gobblings and gruntings’, ‘a poor, shuffling, bowed creature’ with ‘pig-like eyes’. Tinka tries to act towards Mrs Carlyon with compassion but because the revulsion is so visceral, it’s tough reading. With other characters, too, there’s the same disdain for the lonely spinster, the vulgar and cheerful nurse, the uneducated Welsh servant.

I read crime novels to relax (yes, I know; it’s not quite right, is it?) a more conventional writer might be a better bet. I’m on to Ngaio Marsh next.

What you see when you see a blank page is very much what you hear when you hear white noise; it’s the early shifting into gear of something not ready to happen – an echo of what you feel when you walk past sights the eyes are blind to: bus queues, whitewashed shopfronts, adverts pasted to lamp posts, or a four-storey block on Aldersgate Street in the London borough of Finsbury; where the premises gracing the pavement include a Chinese restaurant with ever-lowered shutters and a faded menu taped to its window; a down-at-heel newsagent’s where pallets of off-brand cola cans block the aisles; and, between the two, a weathered black door with a dusty milk bottle welded to its step, and an air of neglect suggesting that it never opens, never closes.

Mick Herron’s readers know immediately where they are; outside Slough House, home to Jackson Lamb and his crew of MI5’s duds and failures. They are known as the ‘slow horses’, and widely regarded in the secret service as a pack of bumbling, incompetent clowns. But they are Lamb’s clowns. Anyone who messes with them, messes with him, too. And for an overweight, out-of-condition, flatulent, nicotine-dependent, down-at-heel functioning alcoholic, he does a good job of dealing out retribution.

All the books are based on this premise, but so far, it hasn’t got stale.
In this instalment, the loathsome former politician Peter Judd – who must be modelled on Boris Johnson – and First Desk ice-queen Diana Taverner are duelling yet again. The action unspools from one small detail, a missing book in River Cartwright’s grandfather’s library. And that’s all I’m saying. No spoilers.

My older brother, who loaned me this one, tells me he rates Herron A+ – up there with John le Carre – because the writing, the characterisation, the dialogue, the setting, the back-stories, the plots all dovetail together seamlessly. No hitches or hiccups in the reading experience. Perfect examples of their kind. And with a kind of cliff-hanger at the end, there’s the extra pleasure in knowing that there are more Slow Horses to come.