Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

We love the idea that we choose the way we live our lives. But did we choose the country we were born in? The family we joined? The time and technology, the fashions of clothing and cooking? This is the time for maxing out on the illusion of choice, through the custom of New Year’s Resolutions. This is where we imagine ourselves, not as a completely different being, but as a person more or less like we are now but with some different habits. For resolutions to change ourselves are usually about habits, not about one-off events. We know we are not really changed by one trip to Japan, but we may be changed by the daily practice of Zen meditation. Ah, but it is so difficult to change ourselves! We live the way we live now because of a dollop of necessities (people who need caring for, money that has to be earned) married to the customs of the social groups we inhabit. Just knowing that something would be good for us is not enough to make it happen. We have to get the mind on our s...

Imagine this: a haze of red, blue and green fairy lights blurred by the rising steam from spicy, heady gluhwein.  The muted sound of a tasteful Christmas carol, sung in its native German.  Woollen clad shoppers huddled together like penguins.  The warm, sweet smell of hot doughnuts beckoning passers by, calling us over to sample them. Imagine these things.  And yes, I was trying to imagine them as I sat in the back of a stationery taxicab, en route from Hamburg Airport to Lubeck.  The mist I saw was not that arising from gluhwein but that of the cars windows steaming up as the snowstorm began.  The lights were not fairy-like at all.  They were the tail lights of other cars, winking at me through the falling snow flakes of a surprise blizzard.  Not quite what I had envisioned. The Lubeck of my imagination was a far cry from the reality of this white-hot traffic jam.  I was trapped on sheet ice, watching the silent dance of lorries jack-k...

My 3 year old son loves stories.  I don’t just mean the weekly library trip and bedtime storybooks - he has a real love of spoken stories.  He asks me or my husband to tell them several times a day, often the same ones repeated.  It’s also a measure of closeness.  You know you’re in his most trusted circle when he asks you to tell him a story (Nan and Auntie Ria have recently been invited to join these inner echelons).  When I start to think about the stories themselves, I realise they aren’t just something enjoyable and entertaining.  He really needs these stories.  One of his favourites at the moment goes something like this: “Mum, you know that story about when Nan was a little girl and she was on her red bike and then she fell off and got an ouch on her knee and then her mummy put some cream on her knee and gave her a plaster?  Can you do that story please?” He usually asks for it immediately after he’s hurt himself.  It functions ...

(See July 21 st for Ork Part 1, and 8 th September for Part 2.) The horses slip and slide down the wet hillside towards Ork’s house. The two men dismount unhurriedly. Ork watches them carefully, uncertain of what he can do to save himself if they have harmful intent. They keep their distance and the taller man speaks in a strange accent which Ork fails to recognise. He has to ask the man to repeat his question.   “I am Ork. I am the printer.” He sees no point in denying it. “How do you want me to help you?” He addresses the taller man, but it is the short squat man who answers.  “You misunderstand. It is we who can help you.” His face twitches as he hears a shout from the shed and Ork quickly explains about the sins of his former apprentice. “Perhaps it would be better if your sinner doesn’t overhear our conversation. We shall leave now.” + + + Riding two on a horse is never satisfactory – for men or horse. Digger runs between the two mounts, confused by V...

Newspaper plops through locked front door With news of great distress across the world. No bark greets the intrusion of war and disaster. First World problems rear their pretty heads; Come here, go there, buy this, buy that, consume and sue. Have something for nothing, it’s your due. But here, right here, the world is colder by degrees. No global heat in Grimescar Valley; the people stay indoors, Their blood unwarmed by walking marathons. Food once gusto gobbled, rots, bagged and binned. Black cat emboldened sits composed in a bed Of hardy perennials, studying the bird table. Rats encroach. Mud dries hard on boots, the body stiffens. The museum house lies cold, quiet and clean The roaring turbo vacuum stowed silent in the dark. It was my companion who made the introductions To the horses, the magpies, the jays, the acorns, Our daily forensic examination of Blake’s Promised Land. But now no ear is cocked to listen to my poem, No dark brown ...

“It’s time for me to move on – again - Dad!” I remove the dying flowers from the vase and replace them with a fresh, petrol-station bunch. The display looks a bit thin so I pinch one or two extra blooms from nearby graves. “That looks better. They’ll never miss them.” I reach for a ready-made roll-up. I know as a regular smoker, Dad won’t mind. And like me it wasn’t just tobacco he inhaled. “I went down to see Sarah, to sort of say goodbye. Had my old clothes on – well she wouldn’t be used to seeing me in a suit. She hasn’t changed, offered me a spliff and was surprised when I refused. To be honest we didn’t really have much to talk about. I can’t believe we spent a whole year together –till I moved back north. Still she was good for me. I’d just been released and she helped me get things back together. So different from the saintly Rebecca – mum’s favourite, although I’m not sure you ever really liked her.” I take a sip of water. “Talking of mum – which I’d rather not – I...

I didn’t think I would ever see you again. Not after all this time. I thought you’d left me, and all this, behind you. What made you come? Why now? Funny that you knew I would still be at the flat, our flat. Did you know I wouldn’t move on? Not like you, Steven. You, with your nice job, nice home, nice life – all very settled, all very safe. Is that why you came? Is it all getting a bit boring for you? Did you want a reminder of the old life, the old you? Was it strange to be sitting in our old flat, on our old sofa? It hasn’t changed much; there’s still a bit of damp in the corner of the bedroom, the tap still drips in the bathroom. I keep it tidier now, of course. But then, I’m not smoking as much as we were then. It was nice to see you. You looked different - fatter, comfortable in your cord trousers and your chain store jumper. You look like a father, a family man. Are you a father Steven? You didn’t say, and I didn’t want to ask. You seemed sad though, Steven. Are you...

So you’ve left. I can’t say I’m all that surprised. You never seemed able to fully commit to life. To all its responsibilities. To all its difficulties. To everything you owed to people. Eleanor called to let me know. Yes, I know. Ellie called to tell me you’d gone. She can’t even use her actual name, that one. What do . . . did . . . you see in her? With her dodgy ex-husband and her scruffy children. She can’t even give them proper names. What sort of name is ‘Cassie’ for goodness sake? Cassandra is such a beautiful name. A Greek goddess, I think. Was she the one who could predict the future but no one ever believed her? Did you tell her? Ellie? She didn’t say anything about it on the phone but I think I should go and see her. Look her in the eyes. Only then will I know if she knows. I visited your father yesterday. To tell him the news. There were signs you had been there recently. Was that before you left or after? I talked to him about you but he was no more help tha...

Every time my mind races ahead I pinch myself hard. Stay calm, Jimmy Boy, stay calm. The important thing is to act normal, do nothing unusual. They know that in the films, but then they do something stupid that gives them away. She rang me, Ellie did. She’s never rung me before. That’s how good she is at hiding her feelings. I was half way down the High Street on my morning trip to look at the runners and riders in Ladbrokes. Ellie said she needed to talk to me. “Sure, Babe. Talk away.” I bobbed into a coffee shop and mouthed espresso to the barista. My heart was thumping. It was the call I’d been waiting for. “It’s Steven. I’m worried sick, Jim. Have you seen him?” She really did sound worried. She didn’t even bother to tell me not to call her Babe. “Seen him? When d’you mean?” “I mean he left for work yesterday morning and hasn’t been home. I told the police and they asked if I’d checked with all his friends.” She sounded really stressed. The police ; was that a war...

It’s three o’clock in the morning.  I am awake.  Again.  I gaze through the open curtains at the bare-faced moon.  It is a delicate, dreamy blue and it stares back, unblinkingly, at me.  I wish it could tell me where you are. I turn to your empty pillow and hug it pathetically.  Where are you?  I know you are out there, somewhere, alive.  I would sense it if you weren’t. I’ve told the children that you have gone away for a few days with work.  I hate lying to them, but what can I do?  Cassie asked if you had gone to stay with her dad. For what must be the hundredth time, I trawl every quadrant of my brain for anything unusual in the days leading up to Tuesday morning when you left for work, as normal.  I’ve been over this so many times in my head and with the police.  You left, as you always do, in a rush.  You didn’t take your wallet and bank cards.  You never do.  Just enough money for the ...

What was more shocking - the fact that my 50 year old second cousin had died, or that I found out on Facebook?  Or, was it the fact that I cried?  I cried like I loved him, really loved him, yet I hadn’t seen him in at least three years, and following that occasion I had decided I really wouldn’t mind if I never saw him again.   He barely acknowledged me, and I was appalled at the person he had become.  It was at my brother’s house.  I had travelled a long way to see my brother, and Terry was there.  He had become a frequent visitor.  He was a mess, and was looking to my brother for support, but it was too much for him.  It wasn’t the fact that Terry needed help which bothered me though.  It was the fact that he seemed so utterly self centred, that his needs and his suffering was so much more important than the needs of anyone else; that he seemed so oblivious to others.  I had an hour to spend with my brother, and he’d told T...

The day my husband left for Mars, we had beans on toast for tea. We sat around the table, the children and I, stabbing beans with our forks, and looking out of the window at the dusky sky, wondering if one of the little silvery dots was him.  I cried, of course, when he told me.  ‘You might as well be dead,’ I said.  Tom said it wasn’t like that. He said we would stay in touch, with video messages and emails.       He said, ‘Just think how proud the kids will be, when their Dad is one of the first humans on Mars.’   I said, ‘They won’t have a Dad anymore.’  He said, ‘This is a once in a lifetime chance.’  I said, ‘What about your life with us? What about our life together?’  He said, ‘This has always been my dream – to be an explorer, to be a hero.’  I said, ‘I dreamed of growing old with you.’  He said, ‘Please don’t try to stop me.' ...