Adrian J. Walker's Blog

Soundgarden in Dublin, 2013, the last time I saw them.

It’s Friday evening. I’m 17. I jump on my bike and swing out of our drive, past the yellow field in which we drink, through my sleepy, sun-warmed village and onto the road to my friend’s house. It’s the place we all meet before heading into Chester, where we’ll put the world to rights in some ancient pub, our para boots happily sharing the same stained carpets as the brogues of the old men who have drunk there for decades.My friend has recorded a tape for me. I flip up a gear and press play on my Walkman.

A guitar siren flourishes in my left ear and sustains; a question answered immediately in my right. The pattern repeats. Same question, same answer. Like a call to prayer. Faster this time, and again faster, until a spluttering surge of drums and bass plunges me headlong into Rusty Cage, the first song from Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.

By the time I’m halfway through Slaves & Bulldozers, I’m crossing the bridge over the motorway and have to stop. It’s not because I’m tired, it’s because I can’t understand what the band’s singer has just done with his voice. 3 minutes and 28 seconds in — Now I know why you’ve been taken — he drops the pitch, raises it again, and suddenly in my head there appears an image of a screaming skull.

Over the years that same album has planted countless more images in my consciousness – a traveller wandering through centuries, live cables thrashing in a flooded basement, a waggon of smoke and beer rattling through a desert – and they all started life in the larynx of Chris Cornell.

I reach my friend’s house just as Jesus Christ Pose nosedives like a flaming juggernaut. My heart is racing as he opens the door.

Me, my friends and ‘Rover’, Europe 1994. (@ 2017, F. Cook)

A year later, April 1994, my dad stops me at the bottom of the stairs.

‘I’m sorry, son, but he’s dead.’

‘No,’ I reply, ‘That was just a rumour.’

He shakes his head.

‘It’s real this time, I’m sorry.’

The next few days — this was before the internet — are a muddle of half-heard conversations, news reports and magazine interviews. Eddie Vedder with his eyes painted black with corks. Grainy pictures of a man’s legs, like a child’s, splayed on the floor. Disgust as the press surrounds the house. One hot evening the four of us drive to Manchester Academy. Tad support, Doyle crowd-surfing at the end – and if you’ve ever seen Tad Doyle in the flesh then you’ll know why this was such a spectacle – Soundgarden walk on to play their first UK concert since Kurt Cobain died.

Kim Thayil stands stone-still for the entire set. Matt Cameron beats his toms like he wants them to burst, and Ben Shepherd thunders away, an oily shadow in the corner. Cornell screams. There’s a trembling, vulnerable electricity about him, and he only has a few words for us, his voice gripped by a dreadful monotone. A friend is gone.

We see them again a few more times over the years, and one incredible solo set from Chris in Glasgow. Each time the years have had their ways with us, carving us with lines both visible and invisible. We age in different places, with kids, marriage, jobs, dreams falling and rising like waves. But the music stays as it always was, and for 3 hours standing in a dark cavern, we’re 17 again.

I get stuck to things. Songs, books, films, even years that made a difference to me. Am I wrong to let this happen? Somehow stunted? Shouldn’t I have moved on by now, grown up and grown out of the siren that blasted into my left ear more than half my life ago?

I’m almost 42. Shouldn’t I be into jazz? Why is that noise still echoing in there?

Because art’s single desire is to worm its way into a stranger’s head – and once it’s in, it’s in. You can believe what you want, pretend you’ve moved on, but you never outgrow the songs of your youth or the connection you feel with the people who sang them. At least, you shouldn’t.

But he was just a man, right? Just a stranger, somebody I never knew and who never knew me. It’s ridiculous to mourn someone you never knew.

The 2016 celebrity cull the world WTF?-ed, emoti-ed and gif-ed at never touched me, so I only half-understood the tears when the Bowies and Princes died. Now I fully understand them, but I also understand that while they’re real, they’re not just for the man, or for his family, or for his friends, or for the sheer frustration at living in a world where those with heart always seem to die young, and those without it rule the world. They’re for ourselves, these tears, both individually and collectively. Because they’re dying. These heroes who get into our heads are dying, and we have nobody to replace them with.

Chris Cornell showed us what happens when you take huge talent and marry it with passion, integrity and hard work. These qualities have driven every single icon of our rapidly waning modern artistic age, but I honestly don’t know how much we foster them these days. Soundgarden had been a band for 10 years before their breakthrough album, Superunknown, was released. 20 years later, after breaking up and reforming, they were still touring. Is that even possible now? Or does everything have to be now, instant, you’re a star, done?

In twenty years time, who will we be thinking about when we sing no one sings like you anymore?

 

It’s 1 am the next morning. We’re back from the pub and after sandwiches and tea at my friend’s house (we’re still kids – binge-drinking hasn’t occurred to us yet and those doom-laden hangovers lurk a decade away) I ride home through dark, empty streets with side B of Badmotorfinger for company. There’s a graveyard in my village where, on late nights like these, I sometimes play a game. It’s pretty dumb — I have to creep between the graves for as long as possible until I’m scared shitless and have to run out.

But this time I cannot for the life of me get scared enough to leave. I have found a secret weapon, some ragged and beautiful thing more powerful than fear.

So I sit by the grave of a dead stranger, look up at the stars and listen to my new weapon echoing inside of me, growling, growing, building strength and becoming the armour I will find myself putting on time and time again throughout my adult life. Alone in a dark room or in a field with a thousand others, in the depths of a forest, from a snowy hill or a bright Texan highway, down or up, sitting, running, driving, writing*, it has echoed and will still echo — the sound of a man at odds with himself and everything around him, singing of steel shores, full moon blankets and luck’s last matches struck.

 

(*A Soundgarden song is hidden in plain sight at the end of The End of the World Running Club — my gift to Ed for his onward journey.)

Joseph Campbell said “follow your bliss”. Heed the call, listen to the voice. But it’s not always that easy; for every voice calling you on, there’s always another one calling you back.

It was the winter of 2008. A supermoon hung over Edinburgh. I idled to work with the words ‘going to be a father’ merry-going round my head, and resolved once and for all to listen to the wrong voice.

It turns out that doing this is a bad idea, but I didn’t know that at the time. This was 2008, after all, and the wrong voices were everywhere. Volcanic dust and financial fear-words like ‘subprime’ filled the air. I had no idea what ‘subprime’ meant but I sure as hell wasn’t going to take any chances. I didn’t want to get all subprimed; that was no way to start a family. A man in my position needed to be firmly primed. Superprimed, if anything.

Hyperprimed.

I wanted to be a writer. I had, in fact, written a book called The Sanctuary. But it needed work if I was going to submit it to agents, and the time for that was over. I was being a man now, all sensible and stoic and grounded. I had to get real if I wanted to achieve hyperprime and avoid the globules of subprime that were clearly headed my way.

So I made my decision there and then: I would abandon my life as an IT contractor – one that allowed me to work when I wanted but offered nothing in the way of security – and take a permanent job. I would hang up my dreams for my daughter. That was the right thing to do. I beamed, relieved, at the giant moon.

What a bad example to set. I know my daughter now. I know how much she values dreams.

Nine months later the moon had returned to a respectful distance and we finally met our first child. She was beautiful and happy and healthy and fun. Nappies and night-feeds aside, life with her was joyful.

But I was already, secretly, struggling. Apart from my new role as Daddy, I was operating in a reality I wanted no part of. I worked in an office writing software for money, in order to make other people money. There was no time to write. The Sanctuary faded in a drawer. Doom gnawed daily.

I kept this doom to myself because to do otherwise would have been selfish. After all, I had a family to support and a good job that paid well. My daily grind involved no sewers, no shouting, no guns, no blood. Nobody ever died coding, although that’s exactly what I felt was happening to me. I felt like I wasn’t the only one. Others scurried through the corridors, head down and wrestling with their own breed of doom.

This is how the world works, a strange voice informed me. It sounded like Tina, the spooky kitchen manager in that episode of Spaced where Daisy washes dishes.

DAISY

(Throws down broom)

I’m a writer, right? I’m creative. I’m not a mopper.

TINA

(Cocks head)

All the staff here are writers…They’re all creative, Daisy. Not just you.

You should be happy and grateful, Tina seemed to tell me. You’re one of the lucky ones. So stop complaining and grow up.

I tried. I took lunchtime runs with music turned up so loud that it drowned out thought. I heard lines in songs I hadn’t heard before. Pearl Jam’s Not For You – “If you hate something, don’t you do it too.”

Terrible, doom-laden words. Eddie Vedder was shaking his head at me. I was doing something I hated, I was one of those people.

My son bounded onto the scene two years later bringing his own unique joy. I had a full family now and I was supporting them – not a single speck of subprime had landed on me. But cracks were showing. I was moody at home. I drank too much. I made mistakes at work. Some of my colleagues, I am positive, thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and maybe they were right. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep this up.

You will, snapped Tina. You will because you MUST.

Doom, doom, doom with a side-order of GLOOM.

My wife, who has a brain the size of a planet, saved me. I’m forever grateful to her.

“That book,” she said. “Why don’t you publish it?”

“Pfft,” I said, kicking a wall or something. “Tried. Can’t get an agent. Nobody wants it.”

“You don’t need an agent,” she said, like a parent guiding a sullen child away from the knife block. “You can do it yourself.”

She told me she’d read about Amazon’s self-publishing platform, KDP. It was gaining traction and authors were seeing results.

Hmph. S’pose. *Kick*

I took some days off work. The Sanctuary became From the Storm. I uploaded it one morning and went to work. Then I watched in surprise as people actually bought it. This was interesting.

Then my wife said, you know, just maybe, since I hated my work and she had this planet-sized brain and all which she would, actually, quite like to use now that she had reared our children through infancy…maybe we would be better off doing things the other way around. Maybe she should be the one at work – following her own bliss – whilst I stayed at home looking after the kids. And writing. You gloomy prat.

Three years and one continent later, my wife and I were sitting in the gazebo of a Mexican restaurant, nursing beers and watching clouds roll on the Texan horizon. We had followed my wife’s advice and it had been working; we’d moved to America, I had self-published three successful books, my wife was loving her job, the kids were thriving. That supermoon seemed very far away.

But those voices are tricksy – for every one that calls you on, another always calls you back. A couple of months earlier we had found out that our happy time in the USA was coming to an early end. Moving back to the UK was going to be hard enough – we liked our life in Texas – but it was going to be expensive and my books were not yet bringing in enough money to cover the difference. If I didn’t want us to get utterly subprimed, I would have to go back to work in IT.

If only I had a bit more time, just a push, a bit more interest, anything…

We sat there scratching our beer labels and watching the clouds get closer, when the kind of thing that only happens once in your life, if you’re lucky (and I’m very lucky, I know that) happened. My phone beeped with an email – an editor at Penguin Random House had read my second book, The End of the World Running Club, and liked it. How would I feel about a traditional publishing deal?

How would I feel?

I made some kind of noise. Then I threw the phone in my glass and fell off my chair.

(And then I said yes, of course.)

Like I say, I know I’m lucky; I married a woman who saved my life and my book ended up in the right hands at the right time. But luck only happens if you’re listening to the right voice – you have to be able to tell it apart from the rest.

Working with Penguin Random House has been fantastic and I can’t adequately describe how it feels to know that they are publishing The End of the World Running Club. The best thing about them is how passionate they are about what they publish. They have a call and they’re listening to it. And I’m very happy, at least for now, to be doing the same.

‘THE SITUATION is now hopeless. We have no choice but to…’

Lily grabbed the remote and switched off the television.

‘Hey,’ said her daughter. She swung round, lit up by the Christmas tree lights, dressed as an angel. The outfit consisted of Lily’s once best red shoes – heels now worn down, buckles scuffed – a broken wand, held  aloft, a pair of threadbare wings and a halo dangling from a sharp wire wrapped around her head.

Too close, thought Lily. Don’t mess this up, not now when we’re so close. She rolled the batteries out of the battered, sellotape-wrapped box and stuffed them in her pocket.

‘Mummy said the TV was broken,’ said Lily, gripping the disabled remote to her jumper. ‘Didn’t she?’

‘But it’s not,’ said her daughter, frowning. She put her hands on her hips, wobbling on the treacherous heels. ‘There was a lady on it. She was talking.’

Lily turned and walked to the shelf in the corner. There was only so long she could stand her daughter’s attempts at reproach.

‘She said my name, Mummy. But she said it wrong. She said…Ass-ter-oid.’

Lily closed her eyes and placed the remote and batteries on top of some books – the only free space in the cluttered room.

‘What’s an asteroid?’

Lily held her shaking hands together. She had to compose herself. It didn’t take her long to do this now; she had practiced the routine many times in the past weeks. A few breaths, relax the shoulders, loosen her tummy…there.

Once she had found stillness, she turned. Smiled. Took a breath.

‘A star, Sweetheart. An asteroid is a star.’

Astrid looked down at the carpet, thinking. Her mouth bent down in a twitch of sadness.

‘Sophie Hughes is the star,’ she said. Her eyes glazed. ‘I wanted to be the star but she got it. She didn’t even want to be the star. She wanted to be Mary, but Eva got Mary and she wanted to be the donkey. So nobody’s what they want to be. I think we should be able to choose.’

She looked up at her mother. Her wand fell.

‘Mummy, why are we not doing the nativity anymore?’

Lily knelt and stroked her daughter’s brow.

‘Because school broke up early this year, remember? It was a treat.’

Astrid played with the thread on her wand.

‘Didn’t seem like a treat. I liked the nativity. Even though I was only an angel, I was looking forward to it.’

‘Maybe you’ll be the star next year.’

Astrid smiled, a big, wide, lippy smile.

‘So there’s a star tonight?’ she said.

Lily faltered. She caught her breath.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘On Christmas Eve?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Like in Bethlehem?’

Lily’s heart shuddered again. It had been threatening to ram itself into her throat at any moment for the last week.

Not long now, she thought. Surely only, what…an hour? Two?

‘A bit like that, yes, Sweetheart.’

Astrid’s eyes shone.

‘So we do have a nativity!’

Too much. Too much.

‘Mummy…why are your eyes wet?’

Lily wiped her face, sniffing.

‘Nothing. It’s OK. Mummy’s just proud of you, that’s all.’

She pulled her close, closed her eyes…a few breaths, relax the shoulders, loosen the tummy…there.

Astrid spoke from her shoulder.

‘Why did the lady say it was hopeless?’

Lily shut her eyes.

‘Because it’s cloudy,’ she said. ‘It’s too cloudy to see it.’

‘Oh,’ said Astrid. ‘Daddy said there’s no such thing as hopeless.’

Lily’s tears dried at the mention of her husband. She pulled back from the hug and forced a smile.

‘Never say never,’ Astrid went on.

‘Yes.’

‘Pull your socks up.’

‘Mhmm.’

‘Keep on keepin’ aawwnn…’

‘Yes, well Daddy’s not here,’ said Lily, standing. She felt a churn of guilt at her choice of words, but it didn’t last long; of all the things she was keeping from her daughter, the integrity of her father’s character was not high on the list of priorities.

‘Mummy, what about the special fireworks?’ said Astrid, jumping. ‘Will we be able to see them?’

‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘We will. We’ll see all of those. Speaking of which, young lady, we should get ready. We’ll have dinner first. What would you like? You can have anything you want.’

Astrid beamed. Her gums yawned with gaps.

‘You know what I want,’ she said.

Lily smiled and pinched her daughter’s nose.

‘Red soup it is,’ she said.

*

She watched her daughter eat. Bulging cheeks. Lips smacking through mouthful after mouthful of cheap tomato soup. It didn’t seem that long ago that she had been pushing dribbles of egg or cheese into that mouth, only to have her face splattered with the ejected spoonful soon after. Astrid had not been a good eater. It baffled Lily how she had even grown at all. Muscle and fat and bone – it had to come from somewhere, right? But in those days, it seemed that she could count the calories that made it down her daughter’s gullet on one hand.

Those days. Days spent in a different place, a different time.

She hadn’t wanted to move here, to this dark, two-bed high-rise with its thin, yellow walls and a carpet that never seemed clean no matter how much she vacuumed it. She didn’t suppose he had either – her husband – and times had been hard, she knew that. But that place had been their home. Leaving it had not just felt sad, but somehow visceral. Like something tearing apart.

She had made the most of it – getting to know the neighbours, attempting various tessellations of furniture in the smaller space, locating a half-decent patch of parkland for Astrid to play in. The trick, she had found, was to spend as much time as possible away from the flat. There was a shared drying room on the ground floor of the block that nobody else seemed to use. When they had first arrived, she took to sitting down there with Astrid in the mornings – her with a magazine, Astrid with her toys laid out. Sometimes they played hide and seek between the tables.

But one morning Lily had seen the reason why the rest of the block avoided the place – the smell of urine hit her before her fingers found the light switch. Then she saw the man, hooded and slumped in the corner in a puddle of his own making, a shot needle on the ground next to him.

After that, they took to sitting on the roof. She had found a padlock for the door to keep them alone and on warm days she would sunbathe while Astrid drew chalks on the concrete. It became their space – a flat roof beneath the sky. No people to scare them. No buildings to close in on them.

She had wished for more than this life. But it didn’t seem to matter to Astrid, with her angel wings and battered toys and love of cheap, own-brand tomato soup.

Perhaps, thought Lily, perhaps, in the end, that’s really all that…

She jumped in her chair. There were noises from the street – loud bangs and shouts. The police sirens had stopped a few days ago; she guessed after any hope of order had been abandoned. She walked to the window and closed the blinds. She didn’t know why – even if Astrid had been able to reach, there was no way she could see what was happening from five floors up. But she didn’t want to risk it. Not this close to the end.

How long, exactly? She thought. She checked her watch. An hour? No. Less.

‘Eat up, Sweetheart,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to miss the fireworks.’

‘Mummy why are there fireworks again?’

‘Because it’s Christmas Eve, Sweetheart. Now eat up.’

*

The doorbell rang. It was Mrs Keita from next door. She had bags full of tins, books and bottles. Her two sons stood on either side of her. They were a little older than Astrid.

Mrs Keita was shaking.

‘Lily,’ she said. She was whispering, the way people do when there is no need for whispering. Her eyes were wide and white. Her fierce hands gripped her sons’ shoulders.  ‘They’ve opened the underground station. You and Astrid come with us. Take some food. It will be crowded but safe. At least, safer than up here, I think. Come, come.’

Astrid appeared from behind Lily’s leg. She was eating a yoghurt with a yellow spoon.

‘Hi Troy, Hi David,’ she sang. ‘Are you coming to see the fireworks?’

Mrs Keita looked confused. Then horrified.

‘You have not told her,’ she said. ‘She does not know?’

Lily cleared her throat. She turned to Astrid.

‘Go and put your pyjamas on, Sweetheart,’ she said.

‘Doooohhhh?’ whined Astrid. ‘Can’t I play with Troy and David?’

‘No, Sweetheart. You’ll see them later. Go and get changed now.’

Astrid made another noise and stomped off to her bedroom. Lily stepped out and pulled the door to.

‘We’re staying,’ said Lily.

Mrs Keita’s jaw opened and closed.

‘But…but…surely you know? What they are saying? There is nothing to be done. They cannot stop it. There is no hope, Lily. No hope.’

‘I know. But we’re not coming with you.’

‘But it’s suicide, Lily. Suicide. For you and your daughter.’

‘It’s my choice. And I’ve decided.’

Mrs Keita frowned, searching for something to say. Eventually her shoulders slumped.

‘She will know. Before the end, I mean. She will know you have been lying to her.’

Lily bristled.

‘I’m not lying to her, I’m protecting her. And she won’t know the truth. I’ll make sure of it. It’s my choice, Mrs Keita.’

Mrs Keita placed a hand on Lily’s cheek.

‘Oh, Lily.’

A door slammed and Mrs Keita’s husband appeared, sweating, with more bags.

‘We have to go!’ he shouted. He looked between his wife and Lily. ‘Lily, you are coming?’

Lily smiled and squeezed Mrs Keita’s hand, lifting it from her face.

‘Good luck, Mrs Keita,’ she said, and went inside.

When she got to Astrid’s room she found her already dressed in her pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. Now she was sitting in the halo of  her bedside light, arranging plastic creatures around a snow globe. Lily stood at the door. She loved watching her do this. She loved this perfect shell around her daughter made of magical things. It kept her safe from the world. Those stories full of unicorns, fairies, elves and flying reindeer – they protected her from the truth.

She often lay awake, afraid of when this shell would finally break apart. Because everything broke apart eventually – childhoods, hopes, hearts, marriages…

‘Will Daddy be at the fireworks?’ asked Astrid from her game.

Lily jumped. She hadn’t realised Astrid had seen her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Daddy’s afraid of fireworks.’

‘Is that why he went away in the car?’

‘Yes.’

‘And who was the lady in the car?’

Lily paused.

‘She’s afraid of fireworks too.’

‘Oh.’

Lily stood up and took a scraggy-looking bear from the bed. She sighed.

‘I’m not afraid of fireworks, Mummy.’

‘I know, Sweetheart.’

‘Will I see Daddy after the fireworks?’

‘What do you think?’

Astrid looked down at her bear, as if consulting with him on this problem.

‘I think we will,’ she said.

‘Then I think so too.’

‘But not the lady.’

‘No. Not the lady.’

Everything always breaks apart, thought Lily. But not for her. Not this time. I’ve protected her. I’ve kept her shell intact. Astrid will die believing in all things I don’t.

She tried to draw comfort from the words. But the only ones that stuck were: Astrid will die.

*

‘It’s cold up here, Mummy,’ said Astrid. She burrowed into Lily’s arm. Lily took another blanket and wrapped it around them both. Odd how the weather still bothers, she thought, with everything that’s about to happen. December’s grey, wet murk had fallen as mist upon the estate. The roof was twenty floors up, and from this high it looked like deep ash covering everything. Lily saw lights and flashes beneath it. Cars, torches, fires.

‘I thought you said it was cloudy,’ said Astrid.

The mist had left the sky clear, still and freezing.

‘I did, but Mummy was wrong. It looks like we’re in luck,’ said Lily.

Astrid gasped at a sudden thought.

‘So will we get to see the star and the fireworks?’

‘Yes,’ said Lily. A shiver ran down her neck. ‘Yes, I think we might, Sweetheart.’

Astrid pulled the blanket around her face.

‘Yaaayyyy,’ she said Astrid. Her voice was muffled. ‘See, Daddy was right. It’s not hopeless.’

They sat for a while. Lily found her hand straying towards her daughter’s ear in an instinct to shield her from the noises of violence and panic below. She noticed her heart rate creeping up too. Though she had kept her thoughts relatively calm, her body seemed to be making its own decisions – ancient mechanisms clicking into place to deal with whatever was about to happen to it.

How long now? Less than half an hour. Twenty minutes? Fifteen? Ten?

‘When will the fireworks start, Mummy?’

‘Soon, Sweetheart.’

‘Can I have a story while I wait?’

‘Of course.’

Lily tried to think of one. Made-up stories had been his domain.

‘Once upon a time,’ she began.

Suddenly there was a bright flash and bang from the street. They both jumped and Lily pulled Astrid close, expecting pain. A flume of smoke rose up through the mist, and a car alarm whooped in the distance, above shouts and screams.

‘What was that?’ said Astrid.

‘It…I don’t…’

‘Are they having a party?’

‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘A fireworks party.’

‘It sounds like they’re angry.’

‘Sometimes people sound angry when they’re not. Once upon a time…once upon a time…’

‘Will it hurt, Mummy?’

Lily froze. She turned to Astrid. She was looking up at the night sky, rubbing the ears of her bear, her lips pulled into a brave pout. For a moment Lily felt a kind of crushing relief – she was free of the lie. She closed her eyes. She wondered how long she had known.

‘Oh, Astrid…’

‘The sound of the fireworks,’ said Astrid. ‘Will it hurt my ears?’

But no, the lie was intact. The shell was intact. Astrid would still die believing.

Astrid would still die.

‘No,’ said Lily. ‘I promise you, it won’t hurt.’

How long now?

‘Once upon a time…’

‘Mummy, why are you shaking?’

They only had minutes now, and Lily’s body knew this very well.

‘Mummy’s just cold, Sweetheart. Now, once upon a time…’

She tried to concentrate. Just one story, just one little made-up story, anything. But her mind had finally caught up with her body. Panic now flashed through every thought. What would it be like? Too big, she had read in the news. Just too big. Anything smaller and they might have had a chance at survival. But not this.

What would it feel like? Would it be quick? Would they see it first? What would it look like? She had barely had time to think about it in the week since that first broadcast. She had turned all of her attention to Astrid. But now all those questions had bubbled up, demanding answers. This is how it ends, she thought. With questions.

Astrid gasped and shook off the blanket.

‘There!’

She threw a finger at the sky.

‘There, Mummy! The star! There it is!’

Lily’s heart dive-bombed. She followed Astrid’s wiggling finger. There was a light blossoming on the horizon. Deep within the corona was what looked like a bright, white, fist streaming with coloured tendrils. The light crept up in an arc from the city skyline.

‘It’s beautiful, Mummy! Like a flower!’

‘You’re right, Sweetheart. It is, it is, it is, it is, it’s like…once upon…’

‘Mummy, your teeth are chattering.’

Will it be enough? Enough to kill without feeling?

Lily’s lungs seemed to be working on their own, sucking in huge gasps and pushing them out before she was ready.

‘Once upon a time…’

‘Look! It’s getting higher!’

They could see it clearly now. The halo had softened and left the fierce glow alone in the sky. Behind it was a thin trail. Lily realised that she could no longer hear any noise from the street.

‘Should we wish upon it, Mummy?’

‘Yes…yes I think we should…once upon a time…’

‘Don’t tell me yours and I won’t tell you mine.’

Astrid buried her head in her hands and began to mumble. Lily felt her insides twist and heave.

‘OK, I won’t. I promise. Once upon a…’

A few breaths, relax the shoulders, loosen the tummy…no, not working, not this time.

‘Once upon a…’

A few breaths, relax the shoulders, come on, you stupid bitch, just one story…

Lily stopped and sat up straight. She frowned at the trailing arc.

‘There,’ said Astrid, reappearing. ‘Done. Have you done yours, Mummy?’

Lily shook of her blanket and stood up. She walked to the edge of the roof and peered at the sky.

‘Mummy?’

Two lights. There were definitely two lights now, each on separate trajectories. How odd. One was going upwards. The other seemed to be falling, its trail tracing a lazy spiral above. Lily watched them inch apart. They were each much smaller than the one they had been.

It had broken apart.

It looks like a decision. The thought came from nowhere. Like hope. Hope is a decision.

She felt Astrid at her side, tugging her coat.

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Lily.

‘Mummy, are you crying?’

Lily looked down. She sniffed and wiped her face.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Mummy’s not crying.’

And she wasn’t, not any longer. Her eyes were dry, her thoughts were still, her body was calm. She held her daughter close and they looked out at the brightening sky.

‘Will the fireworks be long, Mummy?’ yawned Astrid.

‘We’re not going to see the fireworks.’

‘Oh.’

‘No. We’re going inside.’

She turned and quickly gathered the blankets, then made for the door.

‘Mummy’s going to pick up some things. Then we’re going to our drying room.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re going to sleep there tonight. And have a picnic. And Mummy’s going to tell you some stories.’

‘What kind of stories?’

‘Real ones, Sweetheart. Lots of them. Keep close.’

Lily unlocked the door and held it open for her daughter. She took one last look at the lights, then let the door close, taking the padlock with her.

THE END

My third novel, Colours, is nearing the end of its final draft before it goes to the editor. It’s the first in a sci-fi trilogy set in a dystopian future where nations have been replaced by corporations. Colours is set in a place called Leafen, where a deal with a major defence conglomerate has just turned sour and things are about to get rather, er…physical.

Expect it to be published before June this year.

I’m excited! It’s taken a lot of work but I can’t wait to get this book out there and start work on the second two in the series – Words and Numbers.

This time round, instead of designing the cover myself, I used 99 Designs – a website that lets a pool of designers compete for your brief. I was unsure how this would go at first, but wow…was I blown away by the quality in the final rounds.

There was one clear winner by the end – a very talented designer called Tanya von Ness who will also be creating the covers for books two and three. Here it is!

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, if you haven’t already done so then please sign up for my mailing list! That way I can let you know when Colours and all my future books are published, and I’ll also send you a free copy of my first novel to say thanks.

 

My second guest post has been kindly written by Mark Matthews, author of MILK-BLOOD, and On the Lips of Children, as well as Chasing the Dragon: Running to Get High, a non-fiction work on running. Mark tells us how running informs his writing. Thanks, Mark.

I’ve written 4 four novels. Two feature runners and two feature drug addiction. All of them are about getting high.

As a recovering alcoholic, Running for me is the intoxicant that gives me creativity the way vodka used to.

“Being in the zone while running is an altered state of consciousness…”

Whenever I run I do a little writing in my head. About forty-five minutes after busting out the door, my blood warms, my insides are lubricated, and loose associations flow through my veins. Writing mojo flows and my ideas become more grand. My characters have conversations with each other. My plots turn incredible and I am master of the universe.  ROAR!!!

Of course, some of this writing sucks. I return home and the reality of putting this on paper hits and it doesn’t always seem as great as it did during the drunkenness of the running moment.

Being in the zone while running is an altered state of consciousness, and I’ve come to rely on it. Running provides the creativity to think and is the arena in which I battle the world. Especially when I’m training for a certain event.

“…life becomes training and training becomes life…”

When I’m in the zone of training for a race, life becomes training and training becomes life. Battles fought in personal life are reflected in runs, and vice versa, so I can’t talk about running without talking about life.  Running is the background music to live by, and the volume slowly gets ramped up the closer to race day.  I bring my lifelong baggage with me every time I head out the door, and hopefully return a little lighter, or at least stronger to carry the load.

Despite the notion that Runners are the dorks of the world, running really brings out some edgy shit. It makes you sweat and bleed all over the world, and sometimes, the sweat and blood ends up on the page.

There is running in order to write, and then there is writing about actual running, where running is the content, not just conduit. When it comes to trying to describe what the running adventure means to me, words fail. If we could fully describe it, much like love, it would be something less than what it is.

“Inside of runners, the stakes are high…”

Rather than trying to capture what running means to my internal world, best instead to turn it into metaphor. This is what I did in my novel, On the Lips of Children, where a runner plans to challenge himself with his first marathon, but instead is faced with more pain and terror than 26.2 miles could ever provide. He has to endure harrowing a different kind of hell, trapped in a cave with crystal meth snorting cannibals, all of it meant to illustrate the internal world of a marathoner.

When I came upon Adrian’s novel, The End of the World Running Club, I thought Yes! Yes! This is what I was talking about. A man running to prove himself, his last big roar against the collapsing world around him, who when faced with losing his family, put his feet to the pavement and went about finding out what he is made of. This is what I’m talking about. Inside of runners, the stakes are high, and it is only in a piece of fiction where we can really tell this truth.

Mark Matthews runs and writes near Detroit, and has completed over a dozen marathons.

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I filled two pages with what I thought I should write about last week, but really it all boils down to this.

Hatred, fear, absolution, volition, belief, seriousness and, most of all, the capacity to be offended – it all disappears if you sit next to a fire with a dog.

Stop being angry. Stop being afraid. Start laughing. If you can’t, you’re lost. And if you’re lost, find a dog.

Some close family members were married by a minister from New Zealand who said: “The bible is just a book of stories – the way you live your life depends on the stories you believe.” I am aware that might cause a fair amount of nose-wrinkling in some Christians. To me it’s skewed way of saying “Truth can resonate in all stories, whether or not they happened.”

People like stories. Here’s one.

One Christmas when I was a boy I was in the car with my mum and we hit a small bird. It was a robin. I think I insisted that we stopped to check it’s health, annoying little sensitive brat that I was. We were next to a farm and one of the workers there – a man whom I now suspect suffered terribly with his mental health but whom I then imagined fondly as Benny from Crossroads – picked up the bird and held it tightly in his fist for me to see. All better, see, youngster? No harm done. I left happy that the universe was as it should be.

I know now that some roadside pact had been made between my mother and Benny, and that he had broken the dying bird’s neck behind his back before showing me its dead face. The somewhat dubious moral to this story is that sometimes children should be protected from the truth.

The weird thing about memories like these is that I don’t remember learning this grizzly truth. I don’t remember, for example, ten years later my mum casually saying, “Hey, son, remember that bird we hit but was OK? It wasn’t actually OK, it was dead. That poor boy Benny snapped its neck. I thought you should know.”

I’m not sure how this story became this story, in other words. It is, like almost all memories that stick around, a personal myth. I don’t know what actually happened. Like most childhood memories, the details are filled in and embellished over time; Benny may not have been wearing a simpleton’s hat, it may not have been a farm. It might not have been Christmas, or a Robin. It may not even have been a bird.

It might have been the vicar.

Like most good stories, the details are all colour – the truth is the core.

The truth is the core.

We fostered a puppy a few days ago. She’s called Holly. She and her sisters were found alone in a building site. Two of them died of pneumonia and she’s now sick too, so we’re very worried. We don’t know if we’ll apply the same truth of that befuddled Benny/robin story if it all goes south. She’s staying at the vet. The vet said: “Pray, because God answers all prayers.” She didn’t just say this; she said something about medicine too…otherwise we may have tried another vet. I did try praying, but I always find it hard. I feel like a fraud, like I’m pretending. The best I can do is exercise a kind of concerted hope with my eyes shut which, perhaps, is all that praying really is. Like crossing your fingers in the dark.

It’s Christmas Day, a day that celebrates a fundamental detail of the Christian faith – that our flawed species has been saved by an all-powerful supernatural force. Of all the stories to believe in, it’s definitely the best. It’s core is hope over adversity and uncertainty, which is the core to every good story and the core to every mythology that has ever bound humanity – it’s the core to the story of our own lives, our own relationships, our own families, perhaps our own species. It is also just the beginning of a story, which is where we humans always sit.

Does it matter whether or not you believe in the story of Christmas, so long as you place the core, the raw light of that story above everything else within it? Are we allowed to do that? To hold hope in an ideal without subscribing to the detail with which it has been encrusted?

Can I?

I would not have to have been born too many years ago to have been taking a very real personal risk in saying what I just said. This is pretty awesome. Somewhat less awesome is that fact is that neither would I have to have been born many miles away. There are people – maybe even some who are reading this, who will find that question as upsetting or enraging as my daughter would do if you told her Santa doesn’t exist – which he absolutely does, by the way, and if you think otherwise then you’re an idiot and you’re definitely on the naughty list.

I believe in the details of the Christmas story as much as I believe in the details of the Star Wars story. I’m sorry if that makes anyone sad or uncomfortable or angry. But I do believe in its core, just as I believe in core of the original George Lucas trilogy. (For the record, I don’t believe in Jar Jar Binks.) I believe that hope is born in dark and troubled places. I believe that things have to get worse before they can get better. I believe that it is difficult, but still possible for the love of a single person to change the world. I believe that we all have that ability inside of us.

I also believe that a great energy flows through everything and that the most evil and corrupted man in the universe can redeem himself by hurling his master into the chasm of a giant space station with electricity buzzing from his fingertips.

And this is why they should always show Star Wars on Christmas day.

Happy Christmas and good will to you all, and – if you feel like it, in any way you choose to do it – please keep your fingers crossed for our pup Holly.

Peace

“The trouble is, you think you have time,” said Buddha, a bit patronisingly, to somebody with no children.

When I was 26 I went travelling. The highlights of the trip were, in order:

witnessing a man from Sydney with three missing fingers falling off a train whilst it moved through a Thai jungle at night
witnessing the same man getting back on the train, whilst it was still moving, without spilling his beer
witnessing the same man sauntering back up the train carriage and then hearing him say “sorry about that…fell off the train.”
almost riding my motorcycle into a lost calf on a lonely jungle highway and then spending several minutes watching it watching me.
seeing a blue whale dive out of the ocean just as I was about to dive off a reef, then not diving off the reef.

The rest was just trains, milkshakes and hammocks – utter frivolity.

Six months into the trip, after I had almost frittered away my meagre travel pot, I decided to spend the remaining few weeks on a beach in New Zealand. Nobody was there. I lived in a house that was half-built and therefore very reasonable to rent. I decided to try to learn how to catch fish. I’m told that the Pacific ocean is full of them, but none of them took my bait. In the five weeks that I spent there, I caught nothing, and therefore ate very little. When I wasn’t sitting on a rock staring at suspicious waters, I sat in the attic trying to write a book. I had four A4 pads and a stack of biros. I think I came away with about 70 pages filled with coded scrawl.

Five weeks with nothing to do and no distractions. No internet, no phone, no people, no appointments…no fish. Just mountains, sea and all the time in the world.  By rights, I should have left with two complete novels, but I didn’t.

12 years later, married with two young kids, and my life is filled with things to do. There isn’t a hammock in sight and the memory of spending fruitless afternoons dangling a line in warm sea water seems very distant now. I only really have four or five three hour slots a week in which I can realistically write. And yet still, I manage to push out 10,000 words in a week – far less than my self-indulgent younger self did down under.

Why? Focus. Pressure. The ticking clock. The knowledge that I’m on a countdown makes me write with speed and freedom. I’m not 26 any more, I’m 39, and I’ve only written two books in my life. I still have a lot to write and I want to write it now. So, I am.

Many people want to write a book. Most complain, as I know I have, that they just don’t have the time. Family, kids, work, shopping, tidying, cleaning, paperwork, housework, the brave scrubbing of tin cans and bottles to save planet Earth, the endless shuffling of plastic and paper, the constant movement of objects over small distances…busy, busy, busy. We’re all too busy. No time to create.

But it only takes 250 words a day to write a novel in a year.

You can write 250 words in twenty minutes.

Time (compressed) plus volition, multiplied by fear, equals productivity.

If you want to write, then write. Said me. To you. Now.

Rachael Bateman tells us why she runs so far

When I was writing The End of the World Running Club, I got a lot of help from a group of runners and ultra-runners, who told me what it was like to run very long distances and why they ran them. One of them, Rachael Bateman, went a step further and agreed to write this brilliant description of a 50-mile race she recently ran.

Thanks Rachael, over to you…

More than a Marathon

What? You ran that far? How long did that take you? You really ran that in one go? These are the responses I get when I’m asked what I did at the weekend if I’ve run a long way. People’s tones range from disbelief to mockery, through awe, respect, doubt and ambivalence. Few really understand what I do, although I would love to be able to communicate it and give some kind of insight into what it means to run more than a marathon. This is part of why I started to write about my running experiences which escalated quickly from a couple of short runs a week to training hard for long distances. I went from two 5k runs a week to ultra-distance running in 18 months.

A marathon is far. I think, at least in modern Western society, we’ve benchmarked that magical 26.2 miles as very far and we place it on the outer limits of normal in terms of an achievable physical challenge for the majority of people with reasonable physical fitness and perhaps youth and determination on their side. But what about more than a marathon? Where does that even come from and why would anyone want to run that far? What is the gain? I don’t run for accolades and praise, although a recent survey I completed on my sport psychology suggests I thrive on recognition for my achievements. But isn’t that human? I’m not fast enough to win anything yet so why would I run 40, 50, 100 miles, and how?

“…when I started, I struggled to corral the concept of 5k in my mind.”

The first thing I will say is, I never consider running a long way in one thought. I mean, I never hear the gun go or the start declared and think, I’m going to run, say, 50 miles. That would be like being told, “you will live for the next 50 years!” expecting to picture clearly how that will pan out. No one can. So in terms of running, when I started, I struggled to corral the concept of 5k in my mind. Now of course I can and I run it in a fairly average way. I’ve got a reasonable idea of how that 5k will go. Up to 26.2 miles, I have a reasonable idea of how a run will go. However, when it comes to more than a marathon, life within the run evolves in a very different way that in my opinion is impossible to comprehend fully until you’re in it and running. I of course plan carefully beforehand how I will run each section of the journey, like I did for the 50 miles I ran recently. I recced this race between the checkpoints on my own and with friends in the weeks leading up to it, calling to mind how each of the sections would likely feel in terms of effort and psychology as I sat at home with a glass of wine marking out the map. I had a goal time, 12 hours and I planned my pace between each checkpoint rigorously in order to meet that target. I chose the right equipment, hydration and food but so much of ultra-distance running is about dealing with what comes while on the journey, which I was reminded of when my plans began to unravel around mile 32 on this latest race.

“…ultra-distance running is so much about the mind.”

I can quite comfortably run 30 miles and not feel intimidated or overwhelmed by it. I don’t see this as anything to brag about particularly, it is just a fact that is part of my make-up as an athlete. Frequent checkpoints and crisp, cloudless daylight in that first lot of miles are all great for your mind and ultra-distance running is so much about the mind. Positive mental attitude and emotional resilience are key factors in managing the physical strain when your legs and shoulders are aching and when the lazy, gluttonous monster of tiredness starts to eat away at your mind in the dark. And of course darkness does come on ultras because of their length.

Night. At the same time both vaulting and smothering, night blinkers you with a tight focus that can bring resolve as much as despair. So when I was grouped with 4 men just after dark at the mile 27 checkpoint, I was very pleased. They’d all kept a great pace earlier in the day and I knew at that point, my head was losing the strength I needed to dig in and keep the pace I had planned for the second half of the race. I knew I needed the challenge of their pace to bring me through at least the next 5 miles until I was settled into a rhythm again. So with a mixture of banter and assertiveness, I made sure they took me into their grouping. Prior to this, I had analysed those around me while I prepared myself quickly to go again. None of us could leave there alone due to the rule on that race, stipulating that you have to be grouped for night running. I was not sure of the other possibilities for a grouping as I cast my eyes around the marquee housing the check point. I wasn’t sure whether I felt confident in the other people I had observed as we milled around: a disjointed, tired community of runners, sizing one another up in the hazy yellow light, shoving the calories and swigging sugary tea.

“…as my team mate lay in the frosty grass, writhing with stomach cramp and vomiting profusely, a mixture of emotions took hold of me.”

Plunged into darkness in the woods outside the checkpoint, I swigged the last of my tea and fastened the mug to my pack. We ran on, me and the four men, getting to know one another on the way. It soon became clear that only a couple of us were confident of the route and could map read. It turned out I was one of the stronger runners too and I pushed us on towards the next big climb, keeping the compass bearing in mind for the run off the summit while casting my thoughts forward to the route but not the distance ahead. We yomped up the hill and found the rocky slope down to the next checkpoint. As we left the hill and ran through the fields, we could hear music and the singing along of the people manning the checkpoint. We could soon see the lights of the barn where they were waiting for us with tea, tiffin cake, biscuits, jelly babies, Bovril, soup, hot chocolate… Two old farmers were somewhat incongruously playing Scrabble on an iPad while we ate and drank and refilled bottles with water. It was slightly surreal. It was here, at mile 32 that I became aware one of my team was unwell. He was struggling with his stomach. A common problem when you run long distances. When he’d been sick, we continued and by the top of the next hill at mile 35, he was deteriorating rapidly. Our pace had slowed on the path to this point and other groups had caught us up. I could see their lights and hear their voices close behind us. I was aware I could lose my place as 6th lady if we didn’t move. Primitive selfishness wells up and subsides like a dangerous tide at times like these. So as my team mate lay in the frosty grass, writhing with stomach cramp and vomiting profusely, a mixture of emotions took hold of me. I wanted to run on alone and leave them all, run my own race. I wanted my team mate to be safe though and I realised that I had to dig deep and encourage him on to safety 3 miles away at the next checkpoint, where thankfully there was a medic waiting. It was very hard to leave him there, unsure whether he’d finish the race later, or even be ok.

“Around my feet, scarab beetles darted and in the heather, the faces of fairies peered out at me.”

It was so cold. The sky was black, cloudless, still. We ran on from where we’d left our teammate. We held a strong pace, chatting, joining with and overtaking runners who had overtaken us earlier. Then 40 miles into the race, we hit the moor. Running in the direction of the star I had been told to follow by a fellow runner over breakfast that morning, we fell into a rambling silence where my mind trickled out through my exhausted gaze over the heather and the peat hags. I was imagining things that were not there. Hallucinations were always something I thought only happened at much longer distances. To my left were phantom whitewashed Spanish houses I could almost touch. Around my feet, scarab beetles darted and in the heather, the faces of fairies peered out at me. It was bizarre; not frightening, just bizarre. I knew that what I was seeing was not real and when I reached the road and we began to chat again as a group, I found the experience amusing. I find it interesting how the mind can buckle and shift and move under pressure and how quickly it can return from the edge. Ultra-running shows you this.

The last 10 miles were painful. Everything hurt. My hip flexors had taken a battering on my right hand side and the final descent of the cruellest, steepest hill was limped. The slow drag into the finish at race headquarters a mile later was wearisome and starkly comforting. I’d run ultra-distance before and got into the car to go home feeling empty and overwhelmed by anti-climax. Not this time. There was a huge sense of achievement. I knew I’d done well but more than the position, it was the journey travelled that was both critical to my desire to race and my accomplishment at the finish. Self-indulgence is the preserve of the ultra-runner, I believe. We are all looking for meaning. We are all looking to understand our limits. Our blogs analyse our approaches to life and our training; they celebrate human endeavour and the world out there under the sky. This is why we run far; because we can and because something in our make-up compels us to do so.

Rachael was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in the mid-1970s. Personal and political difficulties drove her English parents back to the UK and so from the age of three and half, she grew up in Wales, the place she calls home.

She now lives in England with 2 brilliant children, teaching English to teenagers with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. And guess what? She also runs and writes.

www.rachaelrunsfar.wordpress.com