Too Many Magpies: Elizabeth Baines

Can we believe in magic and spells? Can we put our faith in science?

Too Many Magpies is about a young woman. She is married to Richard, a scientist specialising in nutrition and they have two sons, the younger she is still breast-feeding. As the novel develops, cracks appear in the fabric of her secure and ordered world. She begins to feel unsafe and suffers anxiety, disquiet, fear, as if the world around her is turning bad. When she goes back to work she meets an un-named man. He is the antithesis of her husband, disordered, relaxed, a chain-smoker with rotting teeth and yet she finds herself falling under his spell. They meet in hidden places just off a busy motorway. Her journeys to and from this place are full of fear and danger and yet she cannot resist his enchantment.



Too Many Magpies is a short novel, elegantly told; it’s intense and unsettling. The prose is spartan, but powerful. This, incidentally, is how I define ‘literary fiction’. Not flowery, self-indulgent indigestible stuff that many people will insist it is. But it does more than tell a story.



“We bought a big plastic bowl, Danny and I, with little feet like opaque bubbles, and filled it up with the silky, slippy grey-brown mountain of flour. In the cupboard under the stairs, where the central-heating boiler constantly purred and now and then gave a cough like an extra-strong heartbeat, we set the creamy-beige yeast to turn into a quietly hissing balloon. Just like magic; though of course it was metabolism that was all that was going on.”



Later on, the language is mesmeric, dreamlike and in places nightmarish. The absence of names of people and places is unnerving. Despite its physical brevity, Too Many Magpies poses huge questions about life today and a woman’s fear for her children; about whether relying on science is any more safe than heeding irrational fears.



That’s my view for what it’s worth. But there's more. I am delighted that Elizabeth has agreed to reveal more.


S. I headed my feature with the quote from the back cover of the novel: about the divide between science and magic. I wonder if magic is too strong a word—isn’t it more sense versus sensibility? I also felt it was more about the way in women’s whole psyche changes after becoming a mother—becoming more intuitive, more aware of danger.



E. Well, I suppose it depends what you mean by magic. The novel is indeed about that opposition: sense versus sensibility, intuition versus rationality etc, and also about charm, which the woman's lover stands for, versus the more plodding sincerity and carefulness which her husband represents. But the novel is also I think about the longing we can have for magic in the more literal, Harry-Potter sense, and the way it can shift responsibility from our shoulders: some kind of outer force or luck that just makes things turn out all right for us. And my protagonist does of course have that longing (a longing which she hasn't ever really acknowledged to herself) for some more miraculous kind of relief and way out of her cares (which do indeed include the greater sense of danger that comes with motherhood). For this reason she is primed to fall in love with the stranger, though of course it seems to her that it happens out of the blue. And of course falling in love out of the blue can seem like magic - something that just happens, is bestowed on us, and is maybe going to solve everything. The lover himself seems to espouse the idea of real magic, and right at the start of the novel this is deliberately linked with her own child's concept of literal magic. And of course it is this aspect of the lover, with its hints of the transcendent and association with the supernatural, which has the potential to slip over into the sinister.



S. In the short video on Salt Publishing’s website you say Too Many Magpies is about naming; that giving something a name doesn’t make us understand it and that your protagonist ‘loses her faith’ in names. Again, could you expand?



E. There's a tremendous power in naming things, and of course traditional magic is very much tied up with this. Look at the Rumpelstiltskin story: by withholding his name the dwarf Rumpelstiltskin has sinister power over the miller's daughter, but once she guesses his name she is freed from it. This power of naming is very strong in our society, to the extent, I think, that we can have too much faith in names, especially in the fields of pseudo- and applied science, and this is what TMM is concerned with. There's a doctor in my family and he often comments on the fact that, while to all intents and purposes his profession operates as though it understand most medical conditions they treat, the truth is that there's much that they have not yet understood at all, but have simply named. So the protagonist in TMM sees through this problem with names and is no longer comforted by them. She sees and experiences how names can in fact be a closing down, and a denial of the mystery or complications in things - and indeed of her own experience as a mother.



S. When the protagonist first meets her lover, she says, ‘He has the power.’ I took this to mean he has the power to change her world, her perception of safety.



E. Well, yes, it does mean this, but there is another subtler power: he understands both the power and the limitations of names and words: He knows 'too much about words to squander them'. This is her connection with him and the way in which he seems to have the power to comfort and release her by acknowledging her reality, and so the thing that makes her fall in love with him.



S, Is he the personification of her fears?



E. Yes, once he comes to seem sinister, he does paradoxically become a personification of her fears.



S. And do her later rejection of him and the effect this has on him mean that a battle has been won?



E. Not at all!



S. You also say in your short video on Salt’s website that Too Many Magpies is a mystery. Can you expand on this—or do you wish the mystery to remain?



E. Hm. Well, I don't want at all to give away the mystery. But I am happy to say that the obvious one concerns the stranger - the mystery of who and what he really is - but there are other levels of mystery concerning the protagonist's fate.



S. And finally. What does writing fiction mean to you?



E. My whole life - that's what it means! Or maybe not, actually, at the moment, since marketing a book means you don't have time to write! But on the more literary level: it means sinking into language and dreams to look for the emotional and psychological truth.



S. Thank you.


Elizabeth Baines was born in South Wales and lives in Manchester. She has been a teacher and is an occasional actor as well as the prize-winning author of plays for radio and stage, and of two novels, The Birth Machine and Body Cuts. Her award-winning short stories have been published widely in magazines and anthologies. Her first story collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World, was published by Salt in 2007, Too Many Magpies in November 2009 and is available at a discounted price (at present) from Salt’s website. Click here to buy.

And you can catch up with Elizabeth here and here and here.

Snippets

Just because I've been immersing myself in the whys and wherefores of short-story writing over the past weeks, doesn't mean I've not come up for air every so often and cast a beady eye over the writing and publishing world.

First and foremost, I congratulate R J Frith who has just (well about a month ago) won first prize in The War of the Worlds novel competition organised by SciFi Now magazine and Tor UK with her novel, The Nemesis List. This is a huge achievement in every way--not least in its prestige and the large number of entries--but unless you are lucky enough to know her, you'd never know just how huge. She is not a self-promoter; she lives quietly (but has a wicked sense of humour) and I love her to bits but she won't thank me for saying any more than that except to add that, whatever people tell you otherwise, it IS hard work and the ability to listen and learn that pays off in the long run.

Secondly, from time to time I find myself embroiled in the rumbling 'mainstream v self-publishing' (both genuine and vanity) wrangle. As this blog is more about writing than publishing (although the two are joined at the hip) I leave the debate to those more knowledgeable than I am, such as Jane Smith and Victoria Strauss. The latter has blogged recently on how confusion still fogs many writers' minds. She writes clearly, coolly and fairly about the latest state of play. And it's changing all the time. Every aspiring writer should read it.

Finally, I am aware that because I blog mainly, although not exclusively, about 'literary' fiction, especially when I discuss short story writing, I may give the impression that I have no time for the fiction published in women's magazines, also known affectionately as 'womags.' Not true. I write and have been published in women's magazines but I am not an expert but I can tell you it's not an easy option; in fact, in many ways it's more difficult. I don't blog about it because there is a fabulous blog that does it far, far better than I ever could. It's the excellent Womag Writer and I have a permanent link to it on the right-hand side of my blog. It is THE place to go for up-to-date information, tips, news and chat about this important market.

And finally, finally, just in case you were wondering, I have a new publication date for my novel, Hope Against Hope. It's April 5th* 2010. Yes, Easter Day: not sure how that works, but there you go. There's already an audio deal on the table and a Turkish edition pending. Welcome to the wonderful world of book publishing.

PS* I've just checked. The date has changed to April 4th. (not that it makes any difference but I like to be accurate.)

BBC showcases the best short stories

Here's a treat.

If you're anywhere near a radio every day at 3.30pm this coming week, then stop what you're doing and listen to the five shortlisted stories in the prestigious BBC National Short Story Awards. And if you're not then catch them on BBC i-player.

The short-listed writers (and I'm not crowing--much--that they all happen to be women) are Naomi Alderman, Kate Clanchy, Sara Maitland, Jane Rogers and Lionel Shriver. (Click on their names if you want to find out more about them and their writing.)

The first prize winner will be announced on Radio 4's arts programme Front Row on Monday 7th December at 7.15pm.

I am so excited about this although I have no idea what I'm in for, but with writers of such huge talent and the stories read by five equally celebrated actors, what's not to like?

Taking a miscroscope to Words from a Glass Bubble

(All right. So I couldn’t find a photograph of a plastic Virgin Mary and Child growing out of a mass of green foliage and very pink flowers in a glass bubble but I bet if I searched this shop for long enough I’d find it.)

First a bit of history:

I first came across Vanessa Gebbie’s fiction several years ago when I used to read all submissions to the now sadly defunct QWF Magazine. I’d reject plenty and only pass on to Jo Derrick, my editor, those I considered suitable for publication. (Jo now edits The Yellow Room. Have a look, buy one or even take out a subscription. The small presses need you!)

As anyone who has ever had to evaluate large amounts of unpublished fiction will know, it’s akin to panning for gold. Most of the job is tedious and disillusionment hovers in the air. And then—wham! That magical moment when your weary eye catches a tiny glint of gold.

As soon as I picked up Vanessa’s first submission and began to read it I immediately knew I had struck gold. How? Well, it’s an odd thing. An editor’s radar is tuned to catch typos, punctuation errors, weak characterisation, single paragraphs that would be better as three, but when she strikes gold, the radar shuts down and the editor becomes a mere reader. Some editors call it ‘that sofa moment,’ because they want to leave their desk, put down the red pen and enjoy the reading experience.

If this is the case, I hear you ask, how the hell can I delve under the bonnet of this story that has won prizes and has been published to critical acclaim and begin rummaging among the spark plugs and wot-nots?

Because.

Because I want to try and explain what makes a good short story work; why it ticks the boxes. Then again, as anyone who reads heaps of fiction—and I know you all do—will tell you, we can’t all like the same things. So I’m very conscious of not wanting to force anyone to appreciate this story, but I hope, with loose reference to those 10 basic requirements of a short story I linked to in a previous post—plus one or two more, I can inspire anyone who has never written a short story before or who wants to brush up his or her skills to have a bash.

Not all short stories need to comply rigidly to this list and clever writers can break every ‘rule’ in the book and get away with it BUT none will succeed if the writing doesn’t sparkle. As my blog is supposed to remind us all: whatever else matters in getting work published, it’s the words on the page and how they’re used that makes the difference.

So, here goes:

Title

Never forget that the title of your story is what initially hits an editor’s, and then a reader’s, eye. Don’t give your story a harder time than it’s going to have anyway finding publication by calling it The Journey or The Meeting. Then again, don’t go all clever-clever or wacky: Titles such as The Jockstrap Declivity of Albert J Hardnut’s Mother irritate more than they intrigue. Well, they do me.

Vanessa’s title uses simple, mainly monosyllabic, nouns and one adjective. It’s different; it intrigues without any irritation. Other titles of stories in this anthology such as Irrigation and Cactus Man are even simpler without being dull. They invite possibilities.

First line(s)

The 10 point checklist says: avoid preamble. So hit the ground running. Vanessa does just that. She doesn’t tell us anything about Eva Duffy’s past or where she lives or what her house is like or whether it was raining when she woke up that morning. All the first few lines tell us is that she’s a post woman but we already know by them that she has a strong Roman Catholic faith, is perhaps rather eccentric who refers, in a familiar way, to the Virgin Mary as VM. She’s already a fully formed person in our minds. We all know what she looks like without any heavy authorial photofit job. My Eva won’t look anything like your Eva but she’s still Eva. And we want to find out more about her.

Point of View

Vanessa uses the third person limited pov and the past tense, all of which is straightforward and without trickery. It works. We mainly see events through Eva’s eyes only, although for one very important moment towards the end, we are in Connor’s head. But only briefly—and for a reason.

Write Tight

A short story should stick to as few characters as possible, the list states. Here we have Eva, our main character, her husband Connor and Finn Piper. Lesser, but necessary, characters are the little boy who sends the party invitation (and, how clever is this? Even the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus—or rather, Eva’s version of them—are characters (or rather alternative personifications of Eva and Declan, about whom the story revolves. (I’ll come to this later.)

Don't waffle. Don't use ten words where one will do. Don't wander off on tangents. How’s this for a simple, but poignant line—especially when we understand about Declan? [The Virgin] held a naked Jesus who stretched his arms out to Eva and mouthed, every so often, ‘Carry?’

Voice

What makes this a stand-out story for me is first and foremost Voice. Voice is, above all, what hits editors and agents smack between the eyes. Although the story is full of religious sentiment—and deals with the death of a child— it never becomes mawkish or sentimental. Eva’s voice is unique. I have read countless short stories but I have never heard this particular voice before; that heady blend of practicality and cynicism and humour. Eva has faith but she is not blind to reality. Voice in fiction has nothing to do with accent or the ‘sound’ of a character’s vowels and consonants (although having said that I can clearly hear Eva’s. It’s no-nonsense Irish—and again Vanessa never states anywhere that these people are Irish—but I bet I’m not wrong.)

No. Voice is much, much more than that. It’s what makes a story like no other. It’s the tone, stance, mood, everything that makes a piece of fiction fresh and not run-of-the-mill. Individuality, panache, style. You get the idea.

And another of Vanessa’s clever ‘tricks’ (only, the ‘trickery’ is nothing of the sort; it arises from an innate writer’s intelligence and/or editing or both) is that the Virgin’s voice is Eva’s but with an added layer— the voice of disapproving authority. Perhaps Eva recalls her mother or grandmother or perhaps Sister Bridget who taught her maths rapped her on her knuckles with a ruler hidden in her habit. But when the Virgin eventually ‘speaks’ to Connor, he is, in fact, hearing his wife’s voice.

Moment of Change (Epiphany)

I have mentioned before that all stories need a beginning, a middle and an end, whether they’re literary or not. More importantly in a way, they must contain that moment of change, of realisation and discovery for a character or reader or both; that moment upon which the whole story pivots. It can be very clear in the case of commercial stories. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Different stories require different techniques. But all stories must have progression or change or they’re static and meaningless. In the best literary stories they’re barely one heartbeat’s length. A moment when the earth stands still, that moment when, as my mum always says that the angels fly overhead. In Vanessa’s story it’s when Eva enters the house where the party is taking place:

She felt an intake of breath from the VM. Then Eva, whose head did not want to go in at all, stepped over the threshold.

It manifests itself in one small physical action—stepped—but afterwards, Eva’s life changes. It isn’t melodramatic. In fact, it’s barely noticeable. But it’s there.

Ending

Our ten point check list asks us to finish with a punch – to make our last line really memorable so that it resonates with the reader after they have stopped reading. It also informs us not to write on beyond the story’s natural end with explanation or, even worse, pointing out the moral.

Of course punch doesn’t mean a sensational ending or the kind of happening that makes headlines in tabloid newspapers. What its means is that when the reader reaches that final full stop, she thinks. Yes. Perfect ending to a perfect story.

In this story we have more of a coda. Finn’s bird sounds have bound this story together throughout but this bird sound is not his, it’s Eva’s stone grief finally released—or perhaps also the sound of little Declan. It’s the kind of ending that firstly leaves you satisfied with its rightness and then thinking about what you’ve read, making you want to turn back to the beginning and read it again.

Finally: my two personal short-story ‘must-haves.’

Language

Time and time again I hear people say they don’t like literary fiction because it’s flowery, full of long, incomprehensible words and pretentiousness; that it’s about boring people contemplating their boring lives and not doing anything about it. All I can say is that they’ve either read some very bad so-called literary fiction or, more likely in my opinion, haven’t read any at all and are relying on stereotypical preconceptions.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The best literary fiction uses simple, but effective, language. Yes, it concerns itself with ordinary experiences, the kind of emotions we all share—but in an original, striking way. I readily concur there aren’t many car chases or shoot- so if you read only for escapist thrills, then clearly literary fiction is not for you. And whilst no fiction should be self-conscious, pompous or pretentious, the pleasure in reading the literary stuff more than anything comes from the way the writer uses language. The best does not call attention to its own cleverness or indulge in pages of flowery language but is lean and muscular. It should not be difficult to read although, having said that, it does expect readers to involve themselves.

You what?

Okay. Take this simple phrase from our story. We have been told that Connor has a birth mark on his face shaped like Cyprus. When, for the first time in 24 years he really looks at the photograph of his dead little boy he sees, Declan’s own little island; more like Malta than Cyprus. I don’t know about you but I had to bite my lip at that moment to stop myself from howling. There’s no word in that sentence that anyone would have difficulty with but, as the cliché says, it speaks volumes. And it’s the reader who fills in the gaps.

And if we trot out that trite advice to show and not tell what better example could there be in the following sentence? Rather than tell us that Eva’s son died twenty four years before, Vanessa describes the frame of his photograph as, more gilt than silver after twenty-four years of kissing. What an effectively simple way to convey the years of pain and grief Eva has suffered for so long.

This story is full of these delicious phrases and images—again, not overwrought, but effective in their ‘rightness.’ Imagery is essential in literary fiction. Too obvious and it’s a cliché; too convoluted and the result is ludicrous. It’s a delicate balancing act.

Here are two of my favourites, one a simple simile, the other an equally unadorned metaphor: the VM peeking out of Eva’s pocket like a small boy’s pet mouse with a blue hood and, mothers sliding away with their toddlers.

The Tardis Effect

I apologise if you don’t know what the Tardis is but this isn't the time to explain or I'll only start telling you how much I fancy David Tennant. Suffice to say, it’s a unique space and time machine that is hugely much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

This is the simplest way I can find to explain why some fiction is better than others. Much fiction is read and then forgotten. But the best, lasting, compelling fiction is greater than the sum of its parts. I’ve picked out a few of the components of Vanessa’s story but none of what I’ve discussed explains its quality as a whole.

After all, the narrative sequence (plot) is simple enough. But if you read in an engaged way, you find it isn’t about how Eva took Finn to a children’s party, at all. Or helped Finn with clothes and food. It’s not even about how she finally came to terms with her crippling grief for her long-dead child. It’s more than that. It’s about loneliness and silence and lack of communication. It’s about a married couple whose silent individual grief has pulled them apart, about how silence excludes and how communication does not have to be in words (as personified by the aptly-named Finn Piper.) And more and more…

As from a packed treasure-chest, I could go on and on plucking new delights from this story. And what I continue to find will be totally different from your own discoveries—and different again from what it meant to Vanessa as she crafted it. We all respond in different ways because we have our unique memories and experiences to bring to it because a story is an intimate relationship between writer and reader.

Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie is published by Salt Publishing. (If buying a copy, please follow the link to Salt please and support the small, independent press.)

That Little Chip of Ice

Graham Greene's remark that every writer must have a chip of ice in his/her heart is frequently misinterpreted. Greene was a consummate novelist but his writing has largely fallen out of fashion and his comments are now more often than not used as a stick to beat him with, as in 'Greene was a dry old so and so with no true understanding etc etc.'

I was reminded of his remark recently when, during an online discussion between fiction writers, someone said that she'd just finished writing an emotional scene which she had found so overwhelming to write that she had ended up in floods of tears and now every time she read it the same thing happened. She asked whether this was a good thing and if others had ever reacted that way to their own writing. Most people praised her for her intensity of emotion and told her it showed that because she was feeling the deep emotions she was writing about she was writing from the heart and if she was so affected, it naturally followed that readers would be, too.

Well, yours truly, this grumpy old blogger, heard loud alarm bells clanging in her ears. I said that anyone who writes has to maintain a careful balance between creating emotion in readers' minds and hearts and being fully in control of the process of creating that emotion and the only way to do that is to remain in control. This is what I believe Greene meant by that chip of ice. It is true that he probably took the image from Anderson's The Snow Queen--which incidentally, I believe to be his greatest story--in which a sliver of glass from a shattered mirror lodges in Kay's heart. And in this story this represents darkness, coldness and evil; a thing that must be removed and only then can the world be healed.

However, Greene's chip of ice does not represent coldness or hard-heartedness. It is that part of the writer's brain that must remain alert and aware whilst manipulating readers' emotions. (And yes, that's what writers do. We deliberately create those emotions so it follows we must know exactly what we're doing. I don't believe writers when they say 'it just happens.' That sounds too chancy and haphazard to me.)  By all means pour your heart and soul into that first draft and feel that pain and anguish, joy or elation. But for heaven's sake, tone it down when you edit. Drama and emotion can so easily tip over into melodrama. And melodrama is poor writing unless that's what you want for comedic effect because melodrama so easily becomes hysterically, albeit unintentionally, hilarious. Remember that other writers' dictum: less is more? It's the same thing really. Emotion goes a very long way on the page. Trust me.

Describe at length and in detail the minute contortions of a face twisted in rage or crumbling in grief like a sandstone face of a cliff in a storm, make your distraught heroine fling herself to the ground and moan and wail like a banshee in paroxysms of despair and before long your reader will switch off. Describe gallons of tears pouring Niagara-like from china blue eyes down porcelain cheeks and you're in danger of creating a response such as Oscar Wilde's famous remark: One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing. The Victorians loved their melodrama. It's said that women fainted when Dickens read (and probably over-acted) the murder of Nancy--indeed he considered the evening a failure without it. But what was acceptable then is not now.

Today all it takes is a slight turn of the head and one tear in the corner of an eye and you'll have your reader wiping hers--you hope. Bang a reader over the head with a slapstick routine and they may smile but after a while they'll sigh, Pur-lease and hurl your book at the wall. Be careful. Be subtle. Keep your own emotions under control. If you've got the balance right then your readers will forget that someone wrote the book and that the emotions are theirs and theirs alone. The highest praise any writer can receive is when a reader tells her they were carried away and forgot they were only reading words on the page. 'I was living it,' they say.

Never let your own emotions break that precious spell. Hold that chip of ice in your heart with pride.

Comic Relief

Whilst I'm still composing my piece on 'Words from a Glass Bubble', and you're regularly checking to read my words of wisdom, I thought we might take a break from all this serious stuff.

I discovered Kit Whitfield today--or rather someone else discovered her for me. (Thank you, Dawn.)Forgive me if you've already read this but as it made me snort coffee all over my keyboard about an hour ago, I thought I'd see if I can do the same for you. Have a cloth ready. Here it is.

The thing is, regardless of the humour, it's probably the best advice you'll ever read about how to approach an editor or agent.

Words from a Glass Bubble: 1

If you're new to my blog or have the attention span of a gerbil and haven't a clue what all this is about (where have you been?),  I am posting one of Vanessa Gebbie's many prize-winning short stories as part of my series of posts on short-story writing. I am extremely grateful for Vanessa's co-operation and I expect everyone to be on their best behaviour, which means that if any toe-rag thinks he or she can pinch it for his or her miserable little purposes, then he should think again. The copyright is and will remain Vanessa's.

If you want to take part, please read the story--which I've had to divide into three because Blogger doesn't like a lot of words--and then read my critique which I'll post in about a week's time. I shall then open the discussion and Vanessa has promised to be on hand to answer any questions. If you hate it, please refrain from saying so but leave quietly with your dignity intact. Don't make a total prat of yourself.

The story is published in the collection of the same name (Words from a Glass Bubble) and can be bought from Salt Publishing's website.


Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie


The Virgin Mary spoke to Eva Duffy from a glass bubble in a niche half way up the stairs. Eva, the post woman, heard the Virgin’s words in her stomach more than in her ears, and she called her the VM. The VM didn’t seem to mind. She was plastic, six inches high, hand painted, and appeared to be growing out of a mass of very green foliage and very pink flowers, more suited to a fish tank. She held a naked Infant Jesus who stretched his arms out to Eva and mouthed, every so often… “Carry?”


The VM’s words were unfailingly meaningful, but often ungrammatical.

“It will be the porcelain and silver effigies that speak properly,” Eva said. And anyway, this VM had to speak out of the corner of her mouth where her pink lipstick had smudged.

She also appeared to have a wall eye. That would be the sloppy painting in the VM factory according to Connor, Eva’s bricklayer husband, who never stopped on the stairs to find out if she spoke to him, too. “No-one’s perfect,” Eva said.

Connor had a port wine stain on his left cheek in the shape of Cyprus with a few undiscovered islands under his ear. He had the habit of turning sideways when he spoke. He turned sideways on the stairs too, didn’t look at the niche. Eva mumbled enough Hail Marys for the two of them every time she went up or down; she always picked up a small oval photo frame from the shelf, said, “How’s Little Declan keeping?” and kissed it. More gilt than silver after twenty four years of kissing.



That particular day, standing at the turn of the stairs, holding her only baby’s photo, Eva heard a dog bark twice somewhere on the estate. That was a good sign. She replaced the photo with the VM’s bubble to one side and, on the other, the phial of Holy Water from Lourdes brought by Mrs Flynn after Declan was taken with the asthma.

Also, instead of saying one thing for Eva to think about on her post round, the VM said two.

“… but we live in cavernous times,” she said. That was the usual meaningful bit. At least, Eva supposed it was so. She patted Declan, made to go on down the stairs. But the VM spoke again in Eva’s stomach.

“Don’t you go delivering no letters to that Finn Piper,” she said.

“Why ever not?” Eva’s mouth said. There was no reply from the VM. Eva’s heart said, “I can’t be promising that. It’s not up to me who gets their letters.” What was a post woman after all said and done but a carrier of people’s questions and answers? It would not do to short-circuit the process.

Ah, but it may have been a safe thing to be promising what the VM wanted. In all those years of being post woman, there’d not been so much as a weekly cut-price promotion leaflet from the Stores to take up the four mile track to Finn Piper’s farm. “Mad as a box of frogs,” said those with opinions, and the kids from the estate cycled up there on fine evenings, threw stones at what was left of the windows to make Finn angry, and no one said not.

Finn Piper would rumble deep in his throat and screech like a night owl, throwing his voice round about the pine trees. He would ack ack like the blackest of the crows and honk like the oldest ravens in the crags. His black-bearded face would appear in first this window then that, as he flapped his hands and screeched, and the estate boys would set up a howling and a barking back. But none of them could make the sound of the birds like Finn Piper, and they never stayed up there when dusk fell to hear the thin cry of the buzzard rising from the old chimneys into the night sky.



But that was the day that Eva Duffy did have a letter to take to Finn Piper.

It was a Wednesday. The writing on the envelope was a child’s, the stamp was askew, and it had been posted locally a week before. Must have got caught up. Eva kept that letter until last, and drove the van as far as she could up a muddy track, parking by a tubular metal gate, padlocked and tied to its post with blue string. There were gorse bushes on either side. Eva hoiked her skirt up and stood on the second bar of the gate, swung a leg over the top and dropped onto the mud. One foot slid into a brown puddle.

That was the VM reminding her not to give Finn Piper any letters.

“What do you know about being a post woman?” Eva muttered, rubbing her shoe with spit and a finger. She had two miles further to go, stepping round cowpats and sheep droppings, scattering knots of dirty-bummed ewes, before she reached Finn Piper’s farm.



The front door was open. Chickens were scratching in the mud, both inside and outside the house. There was no letter box. Eva put her head round the door. It was very dark. No convenient hall table on which to place the post.

“Mr Piper?” Eva called, but the dampness ate her words.

She fetched a flat stone from the wall and put it on the ground just inside the door, placing the letter addressed to Mister Finn Birdman on the stone where he would not miss it. Then she shouted his real name once more before retracing her steps. But only a short way. It was the twittering of a flock of sparrows approaching that stopped her, and she ducked behind the stone wall, to hide rather than to spy.

But she did spy. The bearded figure of Finn Piper came loping and twittering across the meadow swinging an old green enamel saucepan, naked as the day he was delivered. Two collies followed, low to the ground. He crossed the yard to his house, and the twittering stopped as he put the saucepan down, slopping water onto the mud. He looked round, and Eva ducked again. She counted twenty. When she peered over the wall, he was sitting on a tree stump with his back to her, holding the letter, and as she watched he raised it to his face, sniffed at it, and carefully bit one corner as though he was testing for gold.



Later, Eva talked to the VM. “It was the back of his neck,” she said.

“What was?”

“Ah. Like a little boy’s. Vulnerable.”

“Needing a wash, more like.” The VM’s mouth seemed a little pinched tonight. She hefted the Infant Jesus, who was out of proportion with his Mother - big enough for a three year old - higher on her arm. “I were watching.”

“I thought so,” said Eva. “I could feel something like your breath on my own neck.”