It started during the first lockdown. Only one at first - Rachel the Skier. She was a regular on the slopes of Europe each winter with her goggle-eyed tan and her toned and shapely quads and glutes. Her choice of snowscape was the Hahnenkamm downhill race under a brilliant cobalt sky. I breathed in and felt the bitingly crisp, pure alpine air and thought for a moment I could hear the start-house beeps and the cacophony of cow bells and claxons of spectators behind her and the smell of the gluhwein being sipped slowly as part of a buzzing après ski.
For the rest of us it was the usual backcloths of our
writing rooms, the dirty mugs in the sink, the ironing board, full bookcases
and the art adorning our walls: the garden at Giverny, the ubiquitous Mediterranean
street scene, Vetriano’s dancing couple.
Perhaps it was the inspiration of the speaker that evening for
a zoom masterclass on Setting and Place but by the following meeting, Matthew,
the librarian, had placed himself in the magnificent library at Chatsworth with
its collection of thirty thousand volumes and squashy settees and table lamps
and wall lights throwing dreamy shadows on to an exquisite ceiling of gilded
stucco. There was the distant ting-tang
of ormolu clocks as I reclined against the deep cushions and paused to ponder
if I should call the butler for more tea.
In contrast, Mary seemed almost embarrassed to appear in front
of her husband’s choice of surroundings and I heard her quiet apology about his
hobby and the difficulty she had to persuade him to pick a scene with some
literary connection. Did I imagine it or
could I feel some grit in my eye as I stared at her tiny shoulders hunched
under the clock at Carnforth station as the Princess Royal – class 4-6-2s,
screamed past, its firebox red and hot in the dark, smoky, northern light?
For some, it seemed that their sense of place had been
transformed or was it merely an excuse to not tidy up to join the zoom
meetings? Not surprisingly, three who
regularly wrote horror and other dystopian fiction did not fail to disappoint
with hauntingly real images of the post-apocalyptic worlds they inhabited.
By the second lockdown more had placed themselves against international,
inter-galactical and other-worldly virtual backgrounds while the rest of us, bereft
of the technical skills needed to create such scenes, continued to worry about
appearing on screens that would betray our humdrum surroundings, our poor
housekeeping, the takeaway cartons strewn against empty cans and other detritus
of a writer’s existence. Our dogs and
cats and kids continued to pick the wrong moment to lurch at us with their bad
behaviour, slobbering and complaining, all embarrassingly visible to our fellow
authors.
At our first meeting of 2021, we came together for a
masterclass on Describing Emotion. Before the evening’s speaker was introduced, our forty-eight eyes were simultaneously
drawn to the retreating image of a man, without clothes, slipping out of the
bedroom of one our members in the gallery view. Apparently unfazed by this mistimed exit, Brenda Bickerstaff coolly
tilted the screen away from the door behind her. My first thought was of Spike, Hugh Grant’s
outrageous housemate in Notting Hill. Did I hear his famous “Nice firm buttocks” and “Well-chosen
briefs” in that lilting Welsh accent as this skinny grey figure flitted across
our screens? There was a silence and
then an indecipherable rush of voices from the unmuted attendees as we all tried
to pretend we hadn’t seen.
It was not Spike. It was not Notting Hill but a semi on a street at Slaithwaite and I recognised that escaping form. I knew him! It was not Brenda’s husband but my neighbour from across the road at number 43 - Darren Smith, married with wife and two children, one in the same class as Thomas, my youngest. Later, as I clicked the Leave Meeting button, I was already starting to stand up and move towards my front window. I was peering furtively around the curtain when, across the road, I saw his car pull on to their drive and saw him go in through his front door.
