Calliope: Voice of the Writers

 

 

The Great Novel Race 2008:

Last Train to the Sun

by Luigi Marchini

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Chapter 4

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This is probably a good point to address some of your concerns regarding the previous chapters: it is your story as well after all! I have received several letters-actually that is an understatement; I have received a sack full, along with emails from you mostly regarding Chapter Two and the first scene of Chapter Three (that’s obviously as much as I had written when you felt compelled to write). Just wait a moment while I get the list out: I have put the points made in order of importance (in my opinion) and chosen one letter that illustrates each query clearly. Now where is it….hang on I must have dropped it……………… got it! Sorry about that! The first point is regarding the main character, the hero, and the protagonist, Jamie. Mr S. Jones from Wales (I will never divulge your address)  is typical of the reaction towards Jamie, and I quote some of it here:‘…whilst I appreciate that Jamie is fairly young and not yet a fully rounded person with no certainty as to where his life will take him, do you have to portray him as a drug addict? What lessons are you giving the world?  I certainly hope that he is reformed by the end of the novel….’          Well Mr Jones (and all of you, my friends), I do agree that, perhaps, portraying Jamie as a junkie goes a little against the grain but I am certainly not the first writer to have done this: just think of Trainspotting, Lunar Park, or Naked Lunch. Going further back The Man with the Golden Arm, the ‘soma’ of Brave New World and the opium in the Sherlock Holmes stories. And of course there are those texts that hide the theme of drugs under a metaphor. Jamie is what he is. The words say so and I cannot unwrite them. As to the second part of the question, I really do not know if he will be reformed at the end. As I said in Chapter One, you have to help me write the novel. This is not real life, it is fiction and I do not know what is going to happen. The letter indicates that Jamie should be ‘cured’, and perhaps he will be: it really depends on you, the readers.  ther points raised by you include the shift in voice between Chapter Two and  Chapter Three-some of you are not happy with it! I can assure you that of all the inconsistencies and flaws you will find in the novel, this one may be the only deliberate one. In the same way that people have different voices, different characters and personalities, then surely words must have these differing characteristics also. Especially when applied to such diverse individuals and eras.  Some of you are unhappy with the shortness of Chapter One, also questioning whether it is a chapter at all or a prologue. Don’t fret over such trivialities please, it will only distract from the words you read. It is a chapter because that is what the words spell out, and there may well be shorter ones before the novel is finished.

 Since starting this chapter I have received further communication primarily concentrating on my choice of names for the characters and the fact that three names start with the letter G. I have been called lazy and unimaginative. I apologise if this smacks of idleness but I did state in Chapter Three that I do not know Grazia or Gemmo’s real name. Knowing Gaia’s name must have had led me my mind to subconsciously look for names starting with similar letters. I didn’t realise that it would be frowned upon to this extent. In my defence there are four members of my immediate, Italian family whose names begin with the letter L! I will try to be more careful from now on but it isn’t easy writing a first novel you know - the pressure is immense, experts from all sides telling me what I should or should not do.  I am being criticised for everything from the mention of soaps (dumbing down apparently) in Chapter One to the uncommonly long sentences in Chapter Three. Encouragement is what I need my friends, encouragement!

 

I know, I know - I am whingeing again! I promise I won’t do it any more. Back to the story…

 

Merlin didn’t have a childhood. He was born old. On the outskirts of Londonderry during the Troubles, he spent his formative years running errands for his father who belonged to the Garda and who also acted as a kind of missionary or peacemaker between the Unionists and the Republicans. Of course he saw many things that a young child shouldn’t, and with clandestine meetings between the two sides being held at regular intervals in the family home, a sort of safe house if you like, tension was always palpable and unease the norm. One day, whilst working on a horror story during his daily English lesson at primary school, he was summoned  to the headmistress’ office where he found his mother clutching a white handkerchief, and with wet patches  under her eyes. ‘There’s been a terrible accident’’ she said, as she rushed to hug him.

Merlin looks at Jamie’s retreating figure.  There’s something between them, he knows that. But what?  He empties the last of the Glenfiddich into his glass and looks at his watch. Celia will be waiting, table reserved for 8pm. He feels reluctant to move though. The café is closing but he knows they wont tell him to move or hurry up. His mobile rings but he doesn’t answer it. It’s a signal. Smiling, he gets up and walks to the Embankment where Brendan opens the door to the Merc, ‘You’re soaked. Ever heard of an umbrella?’

‘Real men don’t use umbrellas, Brendan, didn’t you know?’

‘Crikey, you’re in a good mood. Got some news?’

‘Yeah, job’s done’

Merlin sits back, takes out his mobile, dials, then changes his mind. That newspaper article still rankled.

 ‘Brendan?’

 ‘Yeah?’

‘Did you read that piece in the paper?’

‘Nah, but I sure heard about it. Out of order, totally out of order.’

 Merlin nods. Sure he has nasty temper, but only when provoked, and he was keeping it more under control these days. And the reporter was wrong, really wrong when they blamed his father’s murder as the catalyst for his descent into crime. Fuckin’ moron! All that did was lead the family to start a new life in England. He was a businessman not a criminal. And what was all that rubbish about his being psychotic?

Brendan looks at Merlin in the rear-view mirror. That reporter was right, Merlin wasn’t right in the head, but he had always been like that ever since he first knew him, when Brendan’s family had moved across the street from Merlin’s. Brendan remembers watching Merlin wringing the neck of the family kitten because it had scratched him whilst playing. Merlin then took it outside and threw it over the fence that separated the back garden of Brendan’s house from the railway line. Brendan remembers the doorbell of the house ringing next day and his mother answering it. On the door-step stood Merlin with a bunch of flowers picked from neighbouring front gardens. Both Brendan and Merlin were six years old.   

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