‘Hello, Colette,’ she said.
‘Sit wherever you want, you have your choice of places this evening.’
Izzy sat down on one of the red plastic chairs and took her notebook and pen from her little white canvas bag.
‘I was just telling the group, Izzy, that we’ve been instructed by the caretaker to tidy up after ourselves and leave the place as we found it – they’ll be hosting bingo in the hall tomorrow night. Anyway, you may have noticed that we’re not very well set up this week. I do hope that next time you come we’ll have a table, and that we’ll get the heating sorted before the winter really sets in.’
Izzy looked around her at the group – Eithne Lynch, Fionnuala Dunleavy, Thomas Patterson, and the only person who was not from the town, Sarah Connolly. She didn’t know the Connolly woman but she’d been pointed out to her on a number of occasions as the wife of Tony Connolly, a hotelier who owned businesses all over the northwest. Izzy had never failed to be surprised by the dour countenance of the woman. Izzy knew there were those whose disapproval of Colette was so great it would forbid them from coming. But she had wondered if pure nosiness would make it impossible for some not to attend, to get a good look at her, to see what was going on so they could report back to others on the sordidness of the whole thing.
‘Tonight,’ Colette said, ‘is just an opportunity for us to get to know each other and to have a little chat about what we write, the ways we want to improve our writing, and the kinds of things that we might do together over the next few months – and maybe we’ll try a few exercises to get us started.’
Izzy watched Colette cross her legs and clasp her hands at her knee. She wore a long skirt and the sleeves of her jumper were pushed up past her elbows so that they ballooned at her shoulders. Her slender arms flashed white in the darkness. She held herself so proudly; her face so expressive – Izzy thought she was the most confident person she had ever seen.
Thomas Patterson cleared his throat. ‘That’s a very interesting word you’ve just used, Colette – “exercises”. Would you mind telling us a bit more about what you mean?’
A retired doctor who had lived in the town his entire life, Thomas was known to be of an artistic bent. He was an amateur photographer who’d documented the town’s development over the decades and displayed his work at various self-mounted exhibitions that locals then felt obliged to attend. He had been her family doctor and Izzy had always thought him to be pleasant enough, although as an educated man who was used to being listened to, he was also prone to delivering every statement with a certain weight and bombast.
‘Well, Thomas—’
‘Because when I hear the word “exercise”, I think of aerobics or calisthenics or some kind of activity that gets the heart rate going.’
‘Well, Thomas, the kind of exercise I’m talking about is not entirely—’
‘Surely you’re not comparing writing to a brisk walk?’
‘Will you let the woman speak. She can’t answer your question if you keep talking over her all the time.’ Fionnuala Dunleavy had buckteeth and every word sounded like it was spat out of her mouth. She sat with her hands crossed on her stomach; her breasts perched on top of her round belly like a coconut shy.
‘Thank you, Fionnuala,’ Colette said, and Izzy saw how the corners of Colette’s mouth flickered like she was trying not to laugh, and she had to suppress a laugh herself. She imagined retelling all of this to James, then remembered she was not speaking to him.
‘I’m sorry, Colette,’ Thomas said. ‘Please continue.’
‘Well, to answer your question, Thomas—’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Colette,’ Eithne said. ‘But you mentioned that there was a problem with the heating and I was wondering when that might be fixed?’
Fionnuala tutted.
‘I’m going to mention that to the caretaker, along with the tables and a bit of extra lighting. Hopefully it’ll all be sorted out by next week.’
‘But could you ask that he doesn’t turn the heating up too much – it’s even worse when it’s too hot. The heat from those radiators would suck the air dry. You’d be parched by the time you’re leaving.’
‘I can mention that, Eithne.’
Eithne Lynch was an ageing hippie who lived in a thatched cottage on the outskirts of the town that made Izzy shiver every time she drove past it. Izzy thought she would have been happy with whatever residual heat she could get.
‘But to get back to your question, Thomas, about this idea of “exercises” – I like to think of writing as a skill or a craft. Maybe the exercises are not ways of raising our heartbeat but they are ways of limbering up for a difficult task. Stretches, if you will.’ She smiled at Thomas when she said this. ‘People often feel that they have an idea or something to say but they don’t quite know how to put pen to paper, and I hope that some of the exercises we’ll do together will get us over that particular hurdle – the fear of the blank page.’
‘Well now, that’s the bit I struggle with, Colette,’ Eithne said. She was holding both hands in the air, rubbing her fingertips together like she was summoning spirits. ‘Because I feel all the time like I’m inhabited by ideas and voices that I need to find a way to channel but when I actually come to articulate those ideas, they evade me.’ She was clenching her fist then, shaking it at the air.
‘Well, hopefully these workshops will help with that,’ Colette said. ‘And this is another term you might not be familiar with. I was first introduced to the idea of a creative writing “workshop” when I did a residency in Sacramento. Americans are more into the idea of writing as a craft, a skill you can develop. I want us to get rid of the idea that writing is a God-given talent and start to think of it as something we can all learn to do. I hope that by working together on something that is dear to us, and sharing our work, and offering each other constructive criticism – that is, criticism that’s helpful and respectful – we’ll all become better writers. And I hope I’ll learn something from you as well.’
It was extraordinary, Izzy thought – she seemed to mean every word she said, and yet there was no conviction to it. They were never what she would have called close friends, but Izzy always made a point of speaking to Colette whenever she saw her. Just chatting to Colette for a few minutes was like sliding into a current of warmth and charm and good humour. Colette’s eyes held a keenness and intelligence that had a way of taking you in and absorbing you entirely, and Izzy would leave her company feeling heartened. But today Colette’s words sounded rehearsed, like she was reading from a script. And every smile that passed across her face did nothing to lift the dull gleam from her eyes.
‘And don’t think that just because I’m a poet you have to write poetry.’ She threw her hands apart and brought them together. ‘If you feel compelled to write prose, then write a short story or start a novel. It’s about finding the correct vehicle to convey whatever story you want to tell. And the only stipulation is that you have to do a little bit of work at home every week and present it in class. Going off and writing by yourself and making time for it in your day is also part of what it means to become a good writer.’
‘But Colette—’
‘Ah-ah-ah,’ Colette said, raising her hand to Thomas. ‘Before we have any further questions, I’m going to get you to do your first exercise. Now I want you to try some stream-of-consciousness writing.’
‘Stream of what?’ Sarah Connolly asked in a pained voice.
Whenever Izzy had seen Sarah before, she was never with her husband, and when she’d seen her husband, he was usually with another woman.
‘Stream of consciousness – I would like you to write for five minutes without thinking, without stopping, without having to make sense or—’
Sarah let out a little moan.
‘There’s nothing to worry about, Sarah. You can’t fail at this exercise. Well actually, you can, you can fail if you stop writing. But you don’t have to bother about grammar or spelling or punctuation, just concentrate on keeping the pen going.’
‘But what are we supposed to write about?’ Sarah asked.
‘That’s what I’m telling you. It doesn’t have to be “about” anything. I am freeing you from the obligation of aboutness,’ Colette said, spreading her arms wide and smiling openly at them.
Izzy glanced at Fionnuala Dunleavy, who was eyeing Colette suspiciously, chawing on a piece of gum that seemed to be welded to her back teeth.
‘And what would we hope to achieve by doing an exercise like this?’ Thomas asked.
‘We’ll discuss that in detail afterwards, Thomas, but let’s just say for now that we’re trying to unlock something within us, to make ourselves think about something that we might not otherwise think of. Now take out a piece of paper and a pen.’
