Every Day I Write the Book, Part 4

Goodbye England and all those lovely ghosts

Today is my last full day in England. London, specifically. And I am not ready to leave. Last night, I mulled over how to spend my last few hours here with the specificity of death row inmate considering their last meal. Should I go for something familiar and comforting? Back to the Tudors at the National Portrait Gallery, perhaps? That would be the rare steak and potatoes option. A little fancy, but dependable. I considered going to the National Theatre and writing in the lobby alongside university students, artists, and middle-aged women on holiday. That would be slightly edgier; the fresh ravioli in pink sauce, with shaved parmesan option – modern, filling, and slightly unexpected. Or a complete surprise? The Asian fusion scallops? I haven’t been to Camden Town in forty years.

In the end, I’m going traditional. Steak and potatoes. Sitting in the Crypt Café of St. Martin’s in the Fields (across from the National Portrait Gallery) and writing. The ghosts of my past all around me. Comforting. My father couldn’t get over this crypt. Walking over flagstones that bear the names of those who died centuries ago, on your way to get a second glass of red wine at the buffet, while classical music pipes in at just the right volume. What’s not to love? My mother is here too, loving that he’s loving it. That’s all she ever needed. And I’m here too. I’m about thirteen or so -- dramatic, messy, creative. Already making up stories about the dead underfoot. And my sons, they’re here. They, too, were tickled that we were dining in a crypt. A CRYPT!!! My husband, Pat, too.

There are many reasons I am reluctant to leave. First of all, I’ll be returning to Los Angeles. There are people who love it there. I know them. They love the sun and the ocean and the infinite possibility of the next big thing, god love them. They are where they wanted to be all along. I, on the other hand, love moody weather and books that hurt my brain and make me sob in the corners of pubs.

I want to feel everything. The snap of cold against my neck as I left the flat this morning; making me wonder, as I walked briskly to the tube, if I should turn back and change into my puffer coat. I want to go back to that café in Newmarket and listen to the widows who come in every morning for tea; my heart breaking at the ordinariness of human connection. Who’s grandson is moving north and what does it cost to fix a hoover? Surely, there are packs of widows in Los Angeles, I simply don’t see them in the spaces I occupy.

I want to feel how I felt last night at a play called, “People, Places and Things”. It was almost as perfect as a thing can be. Tight. Beautifully acted and directed and paced. I want to feel what it’s like to sit in a packed theatre full of people who can barely breathe because a piece of art said something so true that we almost can’t believe what we’re seeing and hearing. But we did. We felt it together. I know, because I walked to the tube stop in a moving throng of people talking about it. In Los Angeles, we get into our cars. The theatres are seldom packed, and – there’s some good stuff. I get it, Los Angeles does try.

I am reluctant to return to LA because I am tired of taking care of things. I don’t mean this as a complaint or as a humble brag. Nothing to brag about, to be honest, since I can’t even touch the American ideal of mother and wife. The mothers that grown children honored on Facebook for Mother’s Day (while I was here, doing all that feeling) were consistently praised for being self-sacrificing, kind, loving. Maybe they were or are. And good on those paragons for getting the credit. But I don’t want to be self-sacrificing. Because that requires, I think, a facility for cutting your own desires out of yourself. And I was not, am not, interested in that. I get that other cultures love to venerate the selflessness of mothers too, it’s just that in the end, the mothers have a café to go to, where they can natter on about their grievances.  

I want to live in a place where I can wander. Get lost in. Feet hitting the pavement; running for a missed bus and complaining to the other woman who missed it too. Standing in the rain with her. Waiting for the next one. LA is not that place. New York is. Chicago. Not LA.

A couple of weeks ago, I was wandering by myself in Shrewsbury. Soaking in the history and the rare (they tell me) sunshine. That’s the way to do it – ration it out and then when it shines, it feels like a gift of a day. I had done my writing in the morning. I was still struggling to find the character of my mother in the novel I was/am writing. She had sunk to the background and I couldn’t pop her out of the woodwork of the narrative. Probably because she was being so bloody self-sacrificing. This is true, even though it’s funny. Self-sacrificing characters only show up when they rebel – either secretly or otherwise. This was my revelation folks. Walking the cobbled streets of Shrewsbury.

I stopped to read a plague on the side of the King’s Head Tavern. The king being Henry the VII, not the big guy. Apparently, #VII stayed overnight in Shrewsbury before the Battle of Bosworth Field. I won’t go into the significance of this, but it was a big 15^th century deal – changing the course of history, for sure.

The plaque invited people to stop by and see a 13^th century wall painting preserved inside. Well, jeez, they had me at 13^th century, so I ducked in. I found a spot at a very modern pressed-wood table in front of the wall painting, ordered a glass of wine, and stared at it. All while ignoring the rest of the pub which was shockingly uninteresting. Shocking because this is as rare as sunshine in Shrewsbury.

Apparently, others already knew of the ordinariness, because I was the only one there for a while. The man behind the bar poured my wine and said yes, several people had already been in to see the wall-painting (it was of the Last Supper), but the nerve of them – they hadn’t ordered anything, as I had (I admit, I sat up straighter with pride). As it turned out, he had just arrived to basically “save the pub”. He was even living upstairs. He’d been there for a week or so and could recommend the Greek shawarma place on the square.

We chatted as I sat in front of a frieze of the Last Supper painted by someone (I wonder who? Monks?) over eight hundred years ago. God, the history! That loose thread to ordinary people with bad teeth, terrible hygiene, and an incredibly fuzzy moral code – pulling taut. I could sit there all day. Especially if I ordered another glass of wine. The pub-saver said he was a motor-cyclist. That was his real passion. Not pubs really – that was just what he was good at.

I could relate. I spend a lot of time doing stuff I just happen to be OK at – the self-sacrificing stuff. And less time doing the stuff I want to do like wander the streets of historic and beautiful places and think and think and think. How lucky he was, I said, to live in the middle of such richness of story, of countryside; the mysterious stone circles on the hills.

“Oh, no,” he said. He didn’t give a toss about any of it. His dream, he said, was to drive along Route 66, all of it. “Have you driven on it?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I took it to the Grand Canyon.”

“The Grand Canyon,” he intoned, looking off into the mid-distance, his eyes almost teary. “Someday I’ll get there.”

He started washing some pint glasses and I went back to staring at the Last Supper. Each of us, I suppose, wondering how we ended up where we were, when we were obviously meant for something else.

The plaque, The Last Supper, and himself.