Author Archives: Sarah Barr

Roses for You
by Sarah Barr

It had rained continuously, one of those days that never really get light. Harry searched through the bins and found a pack of crayfish sandwiches, only just out of its date, some mushy bananas and a flabby pizza. He wouldn’t starve.

He settled down, sleeping bag rolled by his side, carrier bag tucked into the small of his back. It was too early to go to St Peter’s hostel. Best not to arrive before nine-thirty, slip straight into the bunk, avoid meaningless chat.

He pulled up the hood on his skimpy anorak and leant back out of the rain. When queues formed outside the restaurants, he ambled over. Spare us a few bob for the night, enough for a cuppa, need to catch a bus to the night-shelter. He was rather ashamed of his whining voice – the result of decades on the streets.

A youngish couple whisked past. ‘Don’t stop, Tania, they’re all the same,’ the man said. ‘But darling, we can give something,’ Tania said, flicking back her glossy hair and tugging at her man’s arm. He rustled through his pockets. He only had notes, that was clear. Harry waited, trying to look humble. Eventually Tania found a fifty-pence piece in her evening bag.

He collected more money in this way and felt satisfied, even though he was sodden right through. He’d buy himself a proper coat at the charity shop tomorrow.

Looking through the restaurant window he could see Tania and her man, in the candle light, eating yet another course. The man ordered a second bottle of wine. Then he bought a rose from the seller who, Harry knew, could sometimes get £5 for a single bloom. Tania took it out of the cellophane and tucked it behind her ear.

Next time Harry looked, the couple were arguing. The man glowered at the waiter, paid the bill and they left. Harry stepped back into the office doorway.

‘I am so embarrassed,’ Tania shouted. ‘Complaining about every course, not leaving a tip, spoiling our evening.’

‘I bought you a rose, didn’t I? What more do you want?’ he demanded.

Tania chucked the rose into the gutter by Harry’s feet. ‘Two dozen roses, not just one, Mr Skinflint.’

The rose lay in the drab gutter, its red petals glowing, raindrops sparkling like diamonds, under the street lamp. It looked so beautiful, Harry was minded to pick it up, but what would he do with it? And he could just hear the taunts he’d get at St Peter’s if he arrived with a poncy rose.
The flower reminded him of his Nan. Hadn’t she loved roses? Didn’t she grow them in the front garden? Harry pictured himself, as a little lad, helping her feed their roots, water and prune them. Ouch! He remembered the thorns. In his mind’s eye, he buried his face into their enormous dewy heads, could feel their cool silkiness against his skin, smell their perfume.

His Mum had inherited Nan’s love of roses. She’d kept a crumbling spray in a box at the bottom of her wardrobe, a reminder of her wedding day. It had stayed there even though Harry’s Dad had proved to be a far from perfect husband. Mum was a kind, generous person.

He might have been able to return once Dad had died, if he’d kept in touch as a son should. But he’d never been back to Eskdale Villas, not since that day when he’d been unable to tell his parents that he’d got the sack, yet again. He’d neglected his mother for so long she’d not want to see him now. She wouldn’t recognise him, Harry realised, sadly.

It didn’t do to dwell on the past, though. He had to keep positive to get through each day.

Even so, being a little superstitious, he couldn’t leave the rose to get trampled on by uncaring feet. He rescued it and stowed it in his bag.

As Harry trudged up the hill to the shelter, the idea came to him that he would buy one of those padded envelopes and send the rose to Mum. He hoped it would touch her heart.

Next morning, as he munched cornflakes and drank a mug of weak tea, Harry unwrapped the flower.

Of course, it was dead, the petals ragged and bruised.

He’d been mad to think it would last over night without water. Like everything else in his life it had disintegrated. Harry broke its stalk, scooped the petals off the table and chucked the whole lot in the bin.

‘You all right?’ asked a young bloke with dreadlocks.

‘Yeah, mate, fantastic,’ Harry replied. It had been a big thing, planning to send the rose to Mum, and he’d been thwarted. That was just typical of his life. He never got anywhere.

But, somehow, Harry couldn’t abandon his idea.

‘I hope you are well,’ he wrote on the postcard. On the reverse was a stunning photograph of the town’s rose-garden. ‘These roses reminded me of you.’ His hands were so stiff and his handwriting enormous, so that was all he could fit on it, along with his mother’s name and address. The card and postage cost him a pound but he didn’t begrudge it. Sending it, trying to make contact with her, eased his mind.

Of course he didn’t hear anything back.

‘You can’t trust the post these days,’ he grumbled over breakfast, and then wished he hadn’t as he had to explain. He felt stupid – he hadn’t given an address, hadn’t really considered that his mother would now be well over eighty.

‘Your Mum’s maybe moved, maybe she’s …’ Harry knew what the dreadlocks bloke meant.

Then one night as he settled under the pier, dreadlocks approached him. ‘Your name Harry?’

‘Why?’

‘They’re looking for you at St Peter’s. They’ve been asking all round the town for you. Your Mum’s in a home. She wants to see yer.’

‘Thanks, mate, thanks,’ Harry said, gratefully, his heart lurching and pounding. He picked up his few belongings and set off up the hill to the night-shelter.

© Sarah Barr
2007
Prize-winning story at Winchester Writers’ Conference and published first in ‘Crumbs on the Table’ anthology.

Last weekend, I went to Winchester Writers’ Conference along with Beryl, Gail and Chris who all belong to Wimborne Writing Group. We met up on Saturday for lunch and dinner and had a great day. I received some useful advice from agents and an editor about my fiction and I hope to be doing more work on my novel over the summer!

On the Friday, I went to an inspiring workshop led by Lindsay Ashford on writing crime fiction. It was very interesting and also I started a new story! I got to know Lindsay last year as she is the editor of the ‘Wooing Mr Wickham’ anthology in which my story, ‘Blue Lias’, is published.

I was disappointed that Jackie Kay wasn’t able to come as I’d booked into her session and was looking forward to hearing her speak about poetry.

Gail won the ‘Slim Volume’ competition and can now look forward to having 60 copies of her work published. Congratulations, Gail!

I was delighted to receive 2nd prize for the poem I submitted to the competition. It was lovely to hear Phil Carradice, the judge, talk about my poem and read excerpts from it to the writers assembled in the Auditorium. That was a very nice way to finish my day at the conference.

I am a member of Cattistock Poets, a group led by Annie Freud, and last night we put on an evening of poetry at the Fox and Hounds pub in Cattistock. Annie organised things brilliantly. The guest readers were Rachael Boast and David Briggs, both from Bristol. They read some wonderful poems to us. I’m now reading Rachael’s lovely collection, ‘Sidereal’, published by Picador. (The title means – relating to the stars and their position in the sky). The poem, ‘Moonlight on the Dial of the Day’, especially stays in my memory. It’s set on a train (I love journey poems!) and widens to reflect on nature and love.

Members of Cattistock poets read some of their poems also. One poem that I read last night is ‘A Poem about Australia’ (plane journey poem). It was first published in ‘South’, issue 43.

A Poem about Australia

I can’t write a poem about Australia –
it needs a novel-sequence
or a symphony.
Flying over from the West,
seeing the dry, red earth beneath us,
in the blazing sunshine,
eating lunch, clearing up,
observing the well-built man trip over
as he exits the loo,
land on the woman blissfully asleep
in the front row, apologize, explain,
I read another chapter of my book,
about a child lost in a shopping mall,
and then watch a funny film, ‘Juno’,
about a teenage mother in America,
and I’m still flying over Australia.
I didn’t realise it was so enormous,
still rocky, uninhabited, dry.
Then, at last, one or two dwellings, a road,
a few smudges of green
as we soar towards Brisbane.

©
Sarah Barr
2008

At another meeting of our writing group, we discussed some famous journeys: Scott to the Antarctic; Livingstone to find the source of the River Nile; Burton’s journey to Mecca; Defoe around England; Hillary climbing Mt. Everest.

We then went on to discuss journeys we had taken.

Any of these – famous or personal – could provide inspiration for writing.

Here is a poem I wrote about a much shorter journey!

An Hour’s Journey

9.15. I double-lock the door,
hitch my bags on my shoulder,
turn the corner. Green Lanes.
Wait at the bus stop for the 341.
A lady with a dog gets in,
says she needs a seat, her dog is sick
and they’re going to the vet.
Someone gives up a seat for her.
Islington, I give up my seat
to the tiny old lady I take to be her friend

but who turns out not to be.
Rosebery Avenue. I find another seat.
The Courts of Justice.
‘She is my daughter,’ someone behind me says,
‘and that’s her daughter, she’s fifteen.
Three generations.’
I turn around and a daughter smiles hello.
‘She’s tall – she got the legs.’
The driver says the bus is no longer going
to Waterloo. He doesn’t know why.

‘Holborn Circus is now your destination.’
I wait in the rain for another 341,
get on, get off, wondering if I’ll ever reach
the address on the bit of paper
I’ve lost. I search through my bag.
It’s probably quite a walk.
The traffic’s thundering.
I stop a taxi and the driver says,
‘Never been there, but we’ll find it.’
Lambeth Walk. 10.15.

©
Sarah Barr
2009

First published in ‘South’ issue no. 43

We are all going from one place to another. At a recent Wimborne Writing Group meeting we talked about journeys – actual, physical journeys, and the journey as a metaphor for life.

I asked everyone to draw a map of a journey they took as a child. Just a basic diagram but including important features. Some people drew a diagram of their journey from home to school, or to the shop, or from home to a holiday destination.

It was amazing how memories about childhood were revived by using this pictorial form of recording, rather than words.
You don’t have to be a good artist to do it, either!
Try it.

When I look at the poems I’ve written, many of them involve a journey.

It’s commonplace now to talk about the ’emotional journey’ of a character. I heard it on the news recently about a sports person.

Thinking about the journey from one place to another, from one understanding to another, from the beginning of life to the end … As writers, this can help us with plot and character development.

Today is National Flash Fiction Day – maybe the first of such occasions as the title ‘flash fiction’ is relatively new. Every day must now be a something day, or several somethings, and I can imagine some incongruous pairings!

We sometimes like our stories to be ultra-mini – the theory being that in today’s fast-moving world we haven’t got time for anything that takes longer than 5 minutes to read.

I think the very short story does have a past – think of Raymond Carver’s stories. I recently read one, ‘The Father’, which is only a little over a page. It’s in his collection, ‘Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?’ first published in the USA in 1976. I recommend Carver’s stories for their disturbing insights, brevity and crisp scene setting.

Some of his stories were made into the film, ‘Short Cuts’.

In The Guardian yesterday, David Gaffney gives some advice for writing flash fiction. He suggests that the story should start in the middle. Also, he thinks that the ending should appear before the actual end.

I am much more at ease with writing longer stories. But I do write poetry and this has perhaps some similarities with flash fiction. There are differences, though. As some of my writing group and I discussed over coffee in Wimborne today: a poem doesn’t have to tell a story but flash fiction does. Doesn’t it?

Freedom to Fish

I’ve always rebelled against the norms of polite society. I come from an acting family, that’s why. We are outsiders, observers.

But to begin with, I considered I had little talent for acting, or perhaps I had no desire to act, and no patience for learning that particular craft.

I was well-educated and knew the importance of displaying my accomplishments in order to gain myself the right sort of husband.

What is the right sort of husband?

Mother said, hold yourself back, physically and emotionally, create some mystery.

It’s like fishing. Create a glitter on the surface, flash of feathers, promise of a succulent morsel, and he’ll be hooked.

I used to love those very early mornings in the country, slipping from my attic bed, tiptoeing down the stairs, shuffling out of the kitchen door wearing Pa’s boots and wrapped in an old blanket against the May mist. Down to the lake with my cousins, to fish and listen to the thrushes and blackbirds. My name, Frances, means ‘free’. I’m Fanny to most people. Fanny Kemble.

They told me I needed a husband, then my life proper could begin.

By that time, my family was precariously placed, on the edge of bankruptcy, hoping that their daughter could turn herself from ragtag wild creature into society lady. I was introduced to my future husband, as I thought, at a dance. He had the kindest brown eyes and such a stumbling way of dancing that I felt immediately sorry for the poor dear. I confided in him that I preferred fishing by the lake and riding bareback across the sands to twirling around at society balls. I didn’t admit that I only went to society occasions to find a husband.

My love of freedom didn’t shock him. He was a naturalist but said he would never trap beetles and butterflies and pin them in cabinets, however much that was in fashion.

These are the sorts of questions a young lady can use to discover more about her gentleman partner. She may ask, What country pursuits do you prefer? Have you travelled? What do you read? That last question I longed to ask first, being an avid reader myself. But men who are considered good husband material rarely read for pleasure, and they are unlikely to want a wife who is bookish.

She may not ask: What is your income? Where does it come from? She should know that before she dances with him, and if not, that’s for others to discover, and as quickly as possible.

The man with brown eyes whom I met when I was seventeen did not have the right substance, that’s what they said. He was a younger son, destined for the Church and a modest living with nothing much to spare.

So I had shown myself to be a poor judge of husbands, and he was not the right one for me.

‘Dry your tears, you are worth more than that, Fanny,’ my mother said. As if a person was a shipload of coffee or a warehouse of cotton bales, to be bought and sold.

As a young girl I wanted to become accepted, to put down roots, discover who I really was. You can’t do that when you are always acting a part.

Besides which, I wanted to be properly accepted in good society, the place that as actors we were always hovering on the edge of, no matter how well liked or how praised for our talents.

I met several more young men, nice enough, but there wasn’t the spark. Maybe they disapproved of my background. This seems such an old-fashioned attitude now, I realise, but in those days, some people even considered it risque to put on a private play at home, never mind act on the public stage.

Time passed. I decided that I was destined to remain unwed, that the life that I had imagined for myself wasn’t going to happen. I doubted that I would fulfil my dreams. But I was determined that I wasn’t going to become one of those pitiable creatures that are called ‘spinster’ or ‘bluestocking’.

So I did go on the stage, as much to help my family as to provide myself with an occupation. For me it was always going to be second best. But sometimes what we fall into, can turn out to be our real talent.

But still money was a problem. Eventually, in 1832, we decided as a family to try our fortunes in America. The New World. A World, we hoped, without all the stifling customs and traditions of the Old.

It was a long and trying sea-voyage, but worth it for all the opportunities that came our way.

It was there that I again performed in the role of Juliet, a character as far from my own as you could imagine, but one I knew very well by then. Sometimes it’s easier to play a part than be yourself. I threw myself into the emotions, the words, and played the doomed heroine to the very best of my abilities.

‘Goodnight, goodnight! parting is such sweet sorrow.’ It was as if these words uttered passionately every night were for him alone. No, not for Romeo, but for a certain gentleman in the audience who developed an adoration for me. I started to understand his feelings when he threw roses onto the stage. Every night we performed in New York, white, perfumed roses. Expensive, hot-house roses.

He waited for me, at the back of the theatre. Mother warned me to be careful, to hold myself back, because at first we knew nothing about him or his family.

But I was flattered, and I found his American way of talking rather seductive. It was the way he said, ‘Don’t worry about being an actress, Frances. I love a woman with imagination and spirit.’

He poured me a glass of champagne at the dressing-room door. I wrapped myself in my green velvet cape, deciding to leave getting changed until I got back to my rooms. There was a line I knew I mustn’t cross, or there’d be no going back.

‘I’m bringing my horse and carriage to your lodgings on Saturday morning. Would you care to drive out?’

He was charming, attentive, and made it clear that he loved me.

‘I believe we are destined for each other,’ he said, stroking my hands as we trotted in his smart carriage round Central Park. ‘God has given us a chance of happiness. Who are we to go against the Almighty?’

‘How do you know so much about what God wants?’ I asked, snatching my hands away and shaking my head so that my hair tumbled out of its pins and onto my shoulders. I didn’t mind too much since my hair, thick, shining and chestnut brown, has always been one of my better attributes.

I wondered why this man had chosen me rather than a woman from his own country. But I didn’t dwell on this question for long.

I was captivated by his certainties, his confidence. Where did it spring from? I’d grown up with the notion that God lets us muddle through our lives, making our own decisions and mistakes.

‘The first time I saw you on stage, a voice spoke straight to my heart, saying, this is your bride, Pierce.’ He smiled – beautiful white teeth, a reddish-gold moustache and blue eyes. He was a tall, well-built man.

I won’t say I was swept off my feet because it really wasn’t like that. I used my sense as well as my sensibilities – the best possible combination.

‘You won’t be confined in one little place,’ he assured me. ‘My family has land all over America. Plantations, remote islands, forests and lakes full of trout. I’ll find you a horse and you can ride round all of this with me.’ He said this so enthusiastically, stretching his arms out wide across the coach, then lightly curving them around my waist.

I was extremely excited. America is a vast country, much of it still unexplored. By comparison, England seemed narrow, stuffy. I imagined myself out there with him, in the open air, not another dwelling in sight. Away from all the usual constraints and customs.

‘Your family can stay with us whenever they wish.’

How could I resist him? He promised me the world and more.

Pa and Ma were wearing themselves out. Now they needn’t worry about money ever again. I accepted his offer of marriage.

Pierce was due to inherit these great estates from his grandfather, a frail old man who already needed help with his affairs.

Shortly before our wedding Pierce told me he had to travel away. ‘There’s trouble brewing on one of the plantations, in Georgia, and that’s bad for everybody.’

‘Will you be back in time for our marriage?’ I asked, fearful that my dream would somehow be snatched from me.

‘Of course I’ll return in time, I wouldn’t let you down, darling, not for anything. I’ve got my thoughts fixed on our honeymoon. ’ He kissed my fingertips. We were sitting in the window overlooking the neat gardens and the wooden fence that ran along the front of the property my family and I were staying in. ‘But we have a duty towards the slaves.’

‘Slaves?’ That was the first time he’d used that word.

‘Cotton-pickers, workers, then, if slaves offends you, darling,’ he said. ‘What’s in a name?’

‘I hope your grandfather is good to them.’

‘He treats them like his own family,’ Pierce replied. ‘And so shall I, when the time comes. By family, I mean like servants, who are trusted and provided for.’ He must have noticed my worried expression because he continued more sharply, ‘You’ve obviously no idea of the size of our land, Frances. We’ve hundreds of miles. We need every sort of cheap labour to work it.’

‘But slaves, Pierce, you know, back home …’

‘This is a very different world, a tough, out-door, man’s world. That slave ran away and now we’ve a potential riot on our hands.’

‘Because he ran away? Doesn’t that happen all the time?’ I was sure I would be desperate to escape.

‘No, it doesn’t. And it mustn’t. A run-away shows ingratitude for everything my family provides. Let one get away with it, then there’ll be another, then hundreds will break their bonds. We would be left with no labour. And a violent lawless state. We must all keep to our appointed, God-given place in society.’

‘I think it may soon be against the law here as it is in England.’ I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs, more than if I was newly on stage. ‘Then what will you do?’

At the back of my mind grew the thought that I wasn’t keeping to my place in society – I was moving from the precarious world of theatre to the secure life of a married woman with a wealthy husband. Was that also wrong?

‘Different countries, different customs. How do you think I would give you the life you want, the spacious house, with staff, vacations, a life of leisure, without these niggers?’

‘Have they found him yet, this run-away … slave?’ I asked, the words sticking in my throat. But I still wanted to try to understand.

‘Not yet, but we know where he’s gone,’ he replied and that was the end of the subject until he returned to me two weeks before our wedding. We took a stroll together through the public gardens.

I was determined to be sunny-natured. I thought that when we were married I’d do what I could to help the black people. I would set up a little school and teach their children reading, writing and numbers. Surely that would give them comfort?

‘We found the run-away hiding in a boat on the other side of the island,’ Pierce said.

‘He was perhaps pleased to be brought back home?’

‘Not a bit of it. He ran off again but our men circled him, and tracked him down in the forest. He was full of excuses about needing to fish the creek to provide food for his mother and her baby. It was doubtless all lies. He’s a bad fellow, but he’s learned his lesson.’

‘I imagine he was very frightened to be chased like that.’ Like a fox or deer, I thought, shuddering.

‘He’s had his punishment – he’s lost his leg but he should be grateful we didn’t hang him.’

‘Lost his leg?’

‘They held him down and hacked it off. They had to do that, as a warning to the others. Fact is he may have done us a favour as the whole plantation has gone quiet since then. Every nigger minding his own business.’

‘Pierce, I can’t have you saying that word…’ my voice was hoarse and I had to take deep breaths to continue, ‘talking about these people and doing things like that. I can’t and won’t stand it. As your wife, I …’

‘Shush, Fanny, you don’t know. Please, sit here.’ He put his hand on my shoulder and steered me to a painted iron bench positioned by a bed of crimson roses. ‘This is no subject for the fairer sex. These things may seem terrible to you but this is the world men have to struggle to survive in. And it’s not as bad as you imagine. They, the slaves, don’t feel things like we do.’

‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die?’

‘Fine words, Fanny, but poetry won’t provide for a family. I thought you would be pleased with me. I’m rescuing you from a profession which, if you’d stayed in much longer, would prevent any chance of a respectable marriage.’

I realised I was at a crossroads – I could walk away from my husband-to-be and in doing so also lose the prosperity my family needed, or I could follow in his ways of understanding and behaving in the world. I could become the wife of a slave-owner. But he wasn’t yet a slave-owner, and perhaps something would intervene to stop it.

There was a third route. I could marry Pierce and use all my powers of reason, persuasion and feminine wiles to win him round to the better way. Once we had children together, once he knew me for the honest, faithful woman I was, he could not be so hard-hearted as to resist my entreaties to free the slaves. That is what I thought then, and so I said, ‘ I believe you’re a good man, Pierce, who will do what is right.’

But as soon as I said this, I felt doubts creep into my mind. I realised also that whatever happened, I would always be something of a rebel, an outsider.

And as it turned out, these qualities would become even more important to me in the future, in my struggle to free all slaves.

©
Sarah Barr
2009

It’s lovely to see some sunshine today although it’s still cold. Recently, I said that visiting museums and art galleries can be inspirational for our writing. This reminded me of a visit I made to Chawton House, for a writing workshop.

It was February 2009 and snow was on the ground creating a beautiful scene, although I remember it was an icy walk from car to house. Inside the house, all was cosy, and we were encouraged to start some writing. My attention was taken by a painting of Fanny Kemble, a 19th century actress, which hangs in Chawton House. That day, I started to write a fictional story about Fanny which I completed a couple of weeks later.

I sent my story, ‘Freedom to Fish’, to the Jane Austen short story competition run by Chawton House Library. In 2009, the competition was for stories inspired by the novels and characters of Jane Austen or Chawton House. My story didn’t get placed in that competition. But, later that year, it was short-listed in the Yellow Room short story competition.

My visit to Chawton House that snowy day also inspired me to write a story for their 2nd anthology, ‘Wooing Mr Wickham’, which came out at the end of 2011, and in which I do have a story.

I will post my Fanny Kemble story, ‘Freedom to Fish’, here soon.

Reasons to Love Rain

Because it washes my car for free
excuses lateness

smudged mascara
and bad hair days

Because it stops play
and greens lawns

provides a swimming-bath
for sparrows

and shimmering lakes
for swans, egrets and moorhens

Because it makes flowers bloom
in the desert

Because it sparkles
and adorns gutters with icicles

Because walking in the rain
is still romantic

Because there are many
degrees of wetness

from damp to drowned rat
but only one sort of dry

Because it turns a field
of dust and stones

into maize
and makes the difference

between death and life
in Africa.

© Sarah Barr
2012