Why write ? To share experiences with others, sometimes by telling a story. What am I trying to say ? In this year when we’ve all lost so much , why am I writing about a woman losing everything ? The first loss is hardly tragic, happens to most of us, losing the person she loved because he didn’t feel the same ? They’ve known each other since they were eighteen,… Maybe they met in Fresher’s Week ? In their day, maybe as much as fifteen years ago, a real Fresher’s Week…( Hated it, saved by the Film Society. October 2019)
At the beginning of Cassandra’s Phoenix, out soon, Cassie’s position after uni looks normal enough, plenty more fish in the sea,
When Laurie Rendall didn’t want her, Cassie moved in with clever Mark, thought he loved her. One day, they’d marry.
Thought he loved her ? Doubt was there, right at the start. Why move in with anyone ? Why not housemates ? Maybe, if she could afford to, why not live alone ?
Then Mark fell in love, must marry the mother of his new child.
Cassie and Mark have been partners for years, have one child, lost another in mid pregnancy. Mark leaves when Cassie’s pregnant again. Recognising that her partner is ‘in love’ Cassie seems strangely passive. For Mark, marriage had been somewhere out there, one day, not just yet. Now he’s in love and must marry another woman. Still underrated by intellectuals, Agatha Christie’s analyses of human behaviour are uncannily accurate. In ‘They Do It With Mirrors, Ruth van Rydock explains to Miss Marple her own sister’s passive acceptance of her husband’s wish to marry someone else.
‘ He didn’t really want to go. If Carrie Louise had waited and been sensible he would have come back to her.
Like Christie’s character, Cassie simply accepts her partner’s new relationship, makes no attempt to keep him. Because she doesn’t value herself ? Irreconcilable problems, there all the time ? When Cassie and Mark’s weeks old daughter died in a car crash, Mark and Felicity claimed four year old Ella too. They have an interesting case. They can offer Ella two parents and a new sibling… Activist, allegedly, is Cassie fit to be a parent ? This is serious, especially when Social Services arrive to investigate her ‘ activist ’ behaviour, and the impact on four year old Ella. Campaigning since uni, about issues I care about, nuclear weapons, racism, safe water for all* , I’ve seen people challenged and criticised for bringing their children to any political events. Would these critics condemn parents for taking their children to church, or to the theatre, to any kind of concert, or even to climb a hill ? Here’s the lead social worker
‘ Difficult, for a little girl. Not really appropriate ? Not something a little child would understand ? We know mums and dads can have strong views on some subjects, but little children really shouldn’t be involved. Activism, especially. That kind of thing could be so upsetting. Your choice, of course, and we respect that, but think about the child. We might need to think about a formal inquiry. Another time, maybe she should stay with a babysitter. I’ll write my report, send you a copy, and you have a good think about this.’
Researching some family history, I know more now about relatives in the WWI generation. In our extended family, one brave man was jailed as a conscientious objector. Losing their men in that carnage, many women lost their children too. In the UK , the government wasn’t prepared for so many deaths. Widows could wait 30 weeks for any financial support. In the early 20th C, UK legislation authorised the removal of parents didn’t provide for their children adequately. Women’s wages were low. During WW I thousands upon thousands of fatherless children were placed in orphanages, because their war-widow mothers couldn’t afford to feed them, pay the rent. ** Many children didn’t see their mothers again till after the war. ***
Why not write a historical novel based at this time ? Simple. I don’t believe I have the ability to write historical fiction. Admire and enjoy other people’s books, bringing the past to life, vividly, accurately, passionately. I know the history reasonably well – enough to work as an Open University tutor, but could I write well enough about their day to day lives ? Would I ever know enough ? Almost certainly not. My favourite historical novel is still Anya Seton’s Katherine, read first at 15, historically and emotionally powerful.
In Cassandra’s Phoenix, the loss of Cassie’s weeks old baby in a road accident is shocking. Accident – and many factors contribute to the tragedy. How will Cassie face the rest of her life ? Losing children now is a headline tragedy. It used to be ordinary. Ten days ago, climbing hills in Wales, we’d come down into the valleys, relax in churchyards., read some of the headstones, imagine the grief of losing child after child. In the UK, a young lawyer convicted of murdering her children was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two of her babies died, social workers suspected abuse. Her third baby was taken from her while she was breastfeeding him. An expert witness claimed that two babies dying in the same family was a one in seventy three million chance. No evidence was presented to support this figure, but the jury trusted the expert, found her guilty. After years in jail, she was acquitted and released when her babies NHS records proved that they’d both died of natural causes. Broken by her experience, the innocent woman died. After an investigation, the expert whose spurious evidence condemned her was reinstated.
Cassie has to reclaim her life, but how ? The ‘ activist’ charge could be damning.
* Our house isn’t on the mains. In the hot sunny weeks of lockdown, we had no water and weren’t allowed to be at our office, on the the mains but classed as a ‘ second home’ . Living without water is horrible, but at least we could drive supplies to the house, didn’t have to carry it for miles.
** WW1 in Wales: The forgotten children who lost fathers – BBC …www.bbc.co.uk › news › uk-wales-26389055 1 Mar 2014
*** Janis Lomas (2000) ‘Delicate duties’: issues of class and respectability in government policy towards the wives and widows of British soldiers in the era of the great war,Women’s History Review, 9:1, 123-147, DOI: 10.1080/09612020000200233
East of the Sun, West of the Moon, sat nav won't like that 