Something de ja lu about this but I'm struggling with voice and I was just happy to actually finish something. It's a tongue-in-cheek, Katherine Mansfield-ish warning to those who spend too much time reading and dreaming. Be cruel, be kind but please to be bothered to review. (I've corrected a few of the mistakes mentioned in the reviews, please point out any more you find). Miss Lewis was 35, single and had the smooth, untroubled face of a woman yet to be touched by life. She had lived in the same rented room (‘Share kitchen/bathroom. Friendly landlady. No smoking. No pets’) for seven years and had never thought of moving. Every inch of borrowed space had its occupant: stacks of shiny-covered novels; old Christmas and birthday cards curling at the edges and used as bookmarks; postcards of sun-soaked beaches and sand-coloured buildings fading as they passed years tacked to the walls in a growing mosaic of dream-like images; empty perfume bottles so old that not even a ghost of scent lingered, but they did look pretty; shells and stones collected on various beaches, home and abroad and now gathering dust in glass bowls that might have been ashtrays in a past life; a drawer filled with carefully folded sheets and towels and two tablecloths (unused but ready should the need to entertain ever arise) and smelling of fabric conditioner; jumpers sorted according to colour; underwear in piles; skirts in the wardrobe arranged by length; and a thick, deep blue velvet-covered photo album with a gold-embossed oval on the cover with the word ‘Photographs’ in Gothic letterings, which was kept in a plastic bag under the bed and contained the history of Miss Lewis’ family for at least three generations. Monday to Friday, Miss Lewis had tea and toast for breakfast, did a bracing 15-minute walk to work, and spent eight dull but satisfying hours feeding numbers into a computer.
While her eyes scanned the printed figures and her fingers tap-tapped at the plastic keys like blind birds pecking seeds, Miss Lewis conducted imaginary romances in her head with desirous, unpredictable men whose passions could never be denied and whose love was all-consuming – yet as concerned with her soul and mind as much as with her body. While her colleagues engaged in bland conversations of the quotidian and pragmatic variety, Miss Lewis’ unfettered imagination roamed from continent to continent, from icy wastelands peopled by fur-wearing savages who required her particular expertise with computers to save their uncouth yet charismatic leader from financial ruin at the hands of unscrupulous Russian traders, to sun-bleached deserts where she nursed a proud yet sensitive nomad king back from the brink of death, and bustling, cosmopolitan cities where oriental music drifted over the heads of dark-skinned, kohl-eyed men who moved with the grace of gazelles and pined for her pale English skin as the epitome of the exotic and unattainable. Thus entertained and occupied, Miss Lewis slipped through her days and the months and years piled up like the books in her rented room, present but unnoticed.
Her landlady was friendly enough. “Hello” she said every evening as Miss Lewis entered the glass-paned front door “How are you?” and then would hurry off, too busy to listen to the reply. The quiet of the house settled around her shoulders like a flutter of feather wings, and as she closed the door behind her landlady’s retreating back, her imagination opened wide and she stepped through into a larger, more vivid world. Waiting for her dinner to cook or the kettle to boil, Miss Lewis would gaze out of the window and see the landscapes from her postcards – Paris at night, the Acropolis in scorching August sun, verdant hills of the Lake District in a polite English summer – come to life and steamroller the dun-coloured grass and broken-down fence of the small back garden into a kind of cinema screen for her personal projections.
Then one day, instead of “How are you?” and a hasty exit, Miss Lewis’ landlady halted in the doorway and, with a strained smile and one eye on the street above Miss Lewis’ head, informed her that there would be another lodger joining them, a Mr Hall, who would be taking the front living room as of that weekend. Her rent would stay the same but bills would be split between three instead of two, so Miss Lewis could expect a reduction in next quarter’s gas and electricity. He was a lovely man, had spent the last ten years abroad apparently, and she was sure the three of them would be excellent friends. This information imparted, she hurried off as usual, leaving Miss Lewis staring into the dim hallway and wondering when that lovely feeling of quiet was going to come, and trying to ignore the loud thumping of her heart which was threatening to ruin her evening.
Wednesday to Friday, her careful routine was disrupted and her mind was simply not her own. Saturday morning was worse. Drifting from bed to wardrobe to bookshelf, picking up her familiar possessions that now seemed tainted with something strange and unreliable, Miss Lewis felt waves of unwelcome interest in the new lodger and worried that he would be an intrusion into her physical and mental space. But another thought lingered, half-formed and less than a whisper, that such an intrusion might not be all bad. Might in fact be a tiny bit interesting, just a little bit deliciously disconcerting, and such mental disarray might be just what she needed. Entertaining such thoughts was bound to lead to disappointment, so Miss Lewis perambulated her small sanctuary and diverted herself with images of a cultured Russian mafioso who offered to give up his lucrative life of crime if he could only have her love and, when that failed to distract her, she resorted to an old favourite: a stocky, monosyllabic but sensitive landscape gardener who, enticed into the house by a vision of her in silk pyjamas and Chopin on the stereo, explained his ideal rockery and water feature and, fired by her obvious enthusiasm for his vision, was overcome by passion and –
There were two loud, sharp knocks at the front door and the stocky landscape gardener vanished like a flame extinguished. Miss Lewis froze. Even the air seemed on tenterhooks. With new eyes Miss Lewis surveyed her room – the paling postcards, the dusty books, the chest of drawers with its orderly contents - and hoped with a desperate, darting desire, that things would never be the same.
|
Written by rui (150 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | Just a quick question: how can something be dull yet satisfying? Apart from steamed rice, I mean.
I enjoyed this - it did seem somehow familiar, but I can't quite place what I've read that's similar. Or maybe I was remembering my own experiences of lodging. Either way, very well written, conjuring up some great images.
For me, the ending would've made more of an impact if you hadn't given it away in the penultimate paragraph. I think the twist would've been a little sharper if she'd hated any thought of the second lodger, been angry at the disruption and not entertained at all the thought that it could be exciting, right up until the knock on the door. |
Written by Snodlander (507 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | 'Pecking like blind birds' - a nice phrase, but I'm afraid I have no idea what it means.
2nd para - 'passionate ... passion' Too much passion too close. How about 'wild unpredictable men...'
Your sentences tend to be long. In particular in the 2nd para there is one sentence over 8 lines.
'two loud, shark knocks' should be 'sharp' (I hope).
Be careful of overusing flowery words (I admit it, I had to look up 'quotidian').
All that said, I really liked this. I thought the last paragraph in particular very good
|
Written by Lizzy (828 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | I liked this.
I wonder was the language chosen to suit Miss Lewis who seemed to be 35 going on 50.
'Miss Lewis slipped through her days and the months and years piled up like the books in her rented room, present but unnoticed.'
I thought this was a very good image.
Lizzy |
Written by anorwegianwood (278 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | Maybe a little on the wordy side, but overall, a very nice piece. Enjoyed.
~Claire |
Written by fellpony (1728 comments posted) 13th April 2007 | I enjoyed it. Though I am with Snodlander on the language - a bit of pruning would work wonders - after the second para I was more interested in the character and her internal landscape than the words themselves, which is as it should be.
Watch your use of "yet" - that stuck in my eye once or twice; and you sometimes say things twice (eg, "Miss Lewis was unmarried" - yes, Misses do tend to be.) Use the best image and reserve the other - you'll have a use for it elsewhere I'm sure!
I hope there's more to come, whether of Miss Lewis or other people in your head. |
Written by Phil (6963 comments posted) 15th April 2007 | I don't know how much you have edited since receiving the reviews above - but I didn't notice any of the problems already mentioned. That said, I didn't read this with an editor's eye.
I enjoyed the piece and thought you'd constructed it well. The style of language suited the main character's point of view. I too particularly liked: Miss Lewis slipped through her days and the months and years piled up like the books in her rented room, present but unnoticed.
Enjoyed very much.
Phil. |
Only registered users can rate and write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
Previous item
