Adelaide Road

Workshop 5: Chalk Farm Library

I ran a creative writing workshop at Chalk Farm Library on February 28th. Participants were asked what is your perfect bed made of? What does your perfect kitchen taste like? What does your perfect garden smell like? Who is your perfect neighbour? What can you hear on your perfect doorstep? What does home mean to you? They also wrote love letters between Joe and Mary, two of the characters in Adelaide Road. See below for some examples of work from the workshop.

Writing from Anna Cookson

There would be a llama in my perfect bed. I often think that when I'm freezing cold. He'd have thick, soft, whispy deep fur and I'd snuggle in to him and he'd sigh happily.

Of course that's not really what I want, I want to float on colours – cotton wool rainbows of hues, as I levitate and hover and dream.

And really, that's not what I want either, because what I really want is you.

At first, my perfect kitchen tastes like soup. Like a big cauldron of bubbling, sludgy swamp soup. Then some parsnips I think. As you go deeper in it tastes of sunshine vegetables, butternut squash and carrot. There are spices then, that hit you deep between the nose. Pow. Powerful. By the table you'll get a splurge of smoked salmon and dill. Lots of dill. Some potatoes too. And if you wander over to the window the chocolate comes deep and thick and fast.

It smells like that point, poised and hung perfectly between the dew and the sunshine – that space between, where neither one is winner – where there's depth and hope and green meets ochre. It smells of potential and fecund soil and the heat of the day not yet expressed in sunbeams.

My perfect neighbour is my friend Nay. Nay-bour I suppose. She's there as I cross over to the garden fence and she yells my name and flings her arms around me. I do the same. It's about understanding – because some days we say nothing and some days we say everything. You know, everything, when two girls drink tea and sit under blankets and empty out the contents of their hearts for the other one to rearrange before they put them back in. She's perfect because she knows I'm not.

It starts in the trees – upwards; the molten morning meaningful meanderings of the birds. They trill and twitter and tweet. I try to interpret, but the understanding is at my core and not in my brain. I smile as I hear my neighbour echoing their sounds in a slightly comparatively clunky whistle. I can hear my heart-beat adjusting to the new day. I feel like I can hear the clouds telling me their secrets, strewn in bobbles of white and sneaking slowly and, actually, soundlessly across the vast expanse of heavens that speak to me none the less.

Home is sanctuary. It's breathing out and letting my guard down. Not down actually, taking it off completely. It's the smell of wholesome grounding restorative food. It's the feeling you get inside a laugh. Right inside where you're safe and protected and happy and surrounded and the laugh is you and you are the laugh. And that laugh is family. So it's the love that contains you and feeds you and nurtures you and makes everything alright again no matter what.

Dear Mary,

How long has it been since we last held each other? My body aches for you. I crave every last piece of you and I imagine that you're here every day.

Come and live with me! Come and swap the boring same, same of your green countryside for the fast, flash pace of this city.

You'd love it Mary – it's edgy in a way that excites me. The drilling round here pulsates through my veins – only you can make my heart thud louder.

Yes, it's grotty on the streets when there's rubbish strewn around and your Mum would not approve – but she never does – and who'd want to when there's adventures to be had.

We could rule this city – you and me – we'll drink cider in the proper London pub down the road, toast to the future and then take a romantic stroll, side by side, by the rippling canal that paints our love in its reflection.

Then we'll climb the stairs of this tower block – our tower block – well, not all of it but who'd want all of it when we'd have our room, our space. Not much space Mary, but our space. I'd lead you to the window with my hands over your eyes and then reveal the view as the sun goes down and licks the urban sky line with its blush of rosy content. We'd pick out the people and the potential and the buildings angular against the orange haze. You'd cry tears of joy Mary for all the scope there is out here. All the things we could do and we could them our way. It gives you that, this city. Freedom. A freedom like you have never known. No neighbours leering over the garden fence at you – everyone comes and goes as they please and together we could do whatever we wanted. We could nest up here in the sky Mary – I always told you I'd show you a little piece of heaven. This could be our little piece of heaven and as the lights twinkle goodnight we'd fold into each other in the darkness.

Come and fold in to me.

Dear Joe,

Every day since you've been gone seems like a prison sentence. Long, hard and holed up here behind the bars of the village. They don't know Joe and I wonder if you can work it out. We're soon to be family, all three of us. Say you're pleased Joe, say you'll make it work. We can make it work. You're strong enough to carry a baby up stairs aren't you? If you're not you'd better get training in your tower block.

Of course I want to come and live with you, I want nothing better. In any case, my Mum would go ballistic if she knew. She doesn't know and the village grapevine would explode with squelchy, juicy mess if she did. I'm not running away Joe, I'm running in to your arms, which is exactly where I want to be. I need to be. It might take away some of the sickness I feel in the mornings. I tell Mum I've been out drinking and I'm hungover – but there's only so many nights I can hang out at Bessy's.

If it's a girl – let's call it Rosie – like the way you talk about life in London. I think it's a girl – I feel it in my waters. Joe, you're going to be a Dad – can you believe it?

Get ready, I'm packing my bags. I'll leave in the night on Tuesday – so meet me off the midnight train at Euston and that's where all this really starts my love.

Sealing this with a kiss to keep you going until then. And I'm only crying cos I'm happy, really.

I love you. I hope it's not cold in your flat.

Writing from Tom Purcell

My Perfect bed would have four posts of English oak
(Not timber but whole trees, leaves and all)
A mattress sprung with frogs hind legs
(It's made for bouncing, my perfect bed)
Sheets made from cherubs sighs
And pillows dozing spring lambs

My Kitchen would be a safari of spice
Ginger like a tomcat's hiss
Star anise
A fruitbat's kiss

The breeze up from the Shipley moors
Clipping the top of fresh cut hedgerows
Earthy like laying face down on playing fields
And granny's scones
Cooling on the windowsill

“Kaaaa!”
The kite declares
And bushes gently raise a “hush”
As breezes rush
Through then up
To tree-tops
“Shhhhhhhh”
“Kaaaa!” (she says again)
She doesn't heed the trees and wind
I often see him, Uncle Leonard
He doesn't speak so much now
But smiles his wise, calm smile
And gazes at the lawn birds through zen lenses
“Hello Len!” I say
And that voice like the grumble under broken hills
And the steady grinding of that eternal “four in the morning”
Through seas of whisky and winds of cigarettes
“Hello friend.”

The world, they say, is in turmoil
The world hosts nights, black and hungry as hell-dogs
Dog days, off days and Bloody Sundays
The world can be as bitter as sin
But our home is not that world
And we will not let it in

By Tom Purcell

Dear Mary,

I hope this letter finds you well and that your mother is feeling better. I'm sitting in the kitchen and looking out over rooftops stretching out as far as the eye can see. Though, as it turns out, the streets are paved with concrete and not gold, the roofs are mostly lead, and they say that is precious in its own way. The sun is just winking on the horizon. Clouds have been gathering all day but just seem to want to peer down on the hustle and bustle of the markets, the shoppers and the endless swarming streets.

Work has been hard but there's plenty of it and I know we'll be alright now. I already got a new (second hand) TV, but I don't watch it really much. It just chatters in the background to keep me company while I wait for you. The view is enough to look at until then. The flat is warm and I know you'll love it when you come. I said the sky would be the limit but I've already got there and now I need to share this exciting new life with you Mary, my love. Please say you'll come so that we can be together.

Yours Always and Forever,
Joe

Dear Joe,

It's so good to hear from you my Dearest. Donal and Martin ask about you often and seem to think you will become a Royal Guard or Butler there in London. Crookhaven has not been the same without you. Or perhaps it has, but it's not the same for me. The days just seem to tick by, everything is so quiet, the air is so still, even the gulls seem hushed and listless. I'm so pleased you are getting on well and not drinking too much, it's sweet you would make me those promises.

I want to come over and be with you Joe. I want to feel the rush of that noisy London air with you and look up at our home in the sky, but I'm going to need some time. Father's gotten ill lately, he's had to stop working as the doctor says his heart is weak. He gets so tired and mother, though she tries not to show it, is worrying herself into sickness as well.

If you can come back and visit soon Joe please do. I need to see you. Don't be angry Joe, but I think I'm pregnant. I'm sure I am. We're going to have a baby Joe. I'm scared and I don't know what to do. I can't leave now but as soon as father improves I'll be with you one way or another. Please come back in the meantime Joe, my sweetheart, my love. I need my strong Joe with me, and baby is going to need his daddy.

All My Love,
Your Mary x

Writing from Lynn Marie Harper

Likes in living here
I've lived in the same street in this part of North London for a long time so I know a lot of people who live nearby, some days there are many hello's and a knowledge that if there were trouble I could find someone to help.
You and I can get where we want to be on public transport very quickly and easily.

Dislikes of living here
The house I live in has structural problems that have gone on for some years and soured me on levels I would be free from and it is all too familiar now.
The house is so full of me and the past life or seeming lives that I have inhabited.

A house of dreams

The house I would have as my perfect habitation would be filled with light from the many walls of windows and the sky light roof. All detail after that is superfluous really. I see this house often. I have described it many times. How would I heat it with all that glass? Easily and who would pay the bill? I would, somehow. I would watch the ever changing skies overhead and to East and West, sunrise to sunset. Let the real geographical details take care of themselves, I wouldn't know a south facing garden if it stared me in the face without an intelligent human being pointing it out to me. This house, or something alike this house will come to pass, but before it passes I will live and be inside it for a little while at least. There is the sea and a town and the fields, there is the 360 degree view from the top of a mountain or tower.

The Bed

A perfect bed would breathe as I breathe
Made of living tissue with all sense intact
Would sound and smell and see the changing vision
Of each passing moment
Made of air that breathed and breath that sighed
And laughed and sighed and sang and cried at the outer edges of times reaches.
This bed of mine would be devoid of all me ness and attachment
At times invisible
But the very moment sleep issued into thought
It would enfold me.

The Perfect Kitchen

My perfect kitchen tastes like very clean cream yoghurt- probioticly Packed with nutrient bursting sherbet explosions. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

My Perfect Garden

Smells like this, then this, then this in succession without melding into conformity or uniformity. The 'scent' of each passing odour is 100% pure and rising to a crescendo and fading fully before the next one ensues.

It starts with roses, wondrous roses, the breadth of Regents Park's rose gardens, then freesias fit to break my mother's heart in it's great beauty and her great love of them, followed by daffodils, bluebells, carnations and chrysanthemums. There is no flower alive that does not represent itself – it's cycling of smells would take many a year before dying down and then beginning again.

My Perfect Neighbour

May be Eve in her honesty and kindness. And another Eve in her cheery chirpy “hello girl!” “Or yet the other Eve, (I am blessed with them) in her love of being and 'life is beautiful” and my daughter E too in her smiling morning let me sleep 'morning-time-come' greeting.

So, female my neighbours I see, and hints of my sister and J my real life neighbour and A and D my neighbours who were and have passed from this life and my mum in her almost silent solidness of memory, the most welcoming of neighbours to all her neighbours.

So Eve woman neighbour, what would she say? She, they, would be themselves and say all the things they have to say, all the smiles and wiles and tears and files of memory they hold and burst to fulfilment in everything they are, so fully alive so very very, very, themselves.

The sound on the doorstep

Which is more prosaic than the doorstep of the real house. The glass house from where I won't throw stones.

The sound of silence, crashingly loud and lingeringly long
And more and more and more
Then the cars from a distance
Coming towards then moving away.

The birds of sweetness,
Not gulls, nor magpies
But take their convoluted cries
And implode them into further silence

I'd hear a lifetime of hellos
All over again from all those I've loved
And another of all those to come
Then more, perfect, wonderful gorgeous open silence.

Home

Home means to me the place before the place I come from
The space before I was when I was born
The place I'll be when I have gone
The place that is always accessible here and now,
The end of every out breathe
And the place before it begins again.
Home is love.

********

AND THEN THE LETTER.
February 28th 1986

Dear Mary,
I got the job with Mc.'s! Three days a week to start but as soon as the light changes it'll be longer. Elaine's had a word with the council and is talking about me needing to be in real housing need, homeless, to be re housed and she's saying to them the flat is over crowded. It certainly is with me as well as the three kids. They're noisy but good and normal considering the headcase my sister is. She and Carl have got back together since I arrived. I hope it lasts this time. I have an interview with the council this Friday. If I get a place that'll be me set up. So why don't you come over and get a job here so we can be together. It'll be grand. I've landed on my feet Mary so all I need is you to complete the picture.

I'll send you the money as soon as you tell me when you're coming. I can't wait to see you again, God knows I've missed you. I hope you got the postcard. You haven't replied so I hope everything's OK.

Write here Mary, as soon as you can. Elaine's no phone but she's got a view and a half up here in the clouds, big windows and a view of the sky as beautiful as the fields outside the town at home. Maybe we'll have the same.

Come over Mary and we'll make a new start, have a family of our own when we've the money saved.
It's late now, just gone 10.00, I'm off to the pub with Carl before last orders.
Please write soon,
All my love
Joe

And a letter from Mary to Joe in response after listening to Mercille's letter from Joe

Dear Joe
Since you left many things have happened here in my life and I'm not the same girl you left behind. My dad had a stroke a month ago and my mum and Tania are trying hard to cope but it's all too much for them.

I'm trying to help, doing what I can but I discovered a couple of weeks ago that I'm pregnant. I've been sick as a dog every day and sick with worry over my father. He's lost his speech and is paralysed on one side and my mother's nerves are worse than ever. Tania will never get her leaving cert. with all this going on and she's worked so hard. Everything's happening at the wrong time. It's so overwhelming I can hardly start to describe.

You paint a lovely picture Joe and I can feel your enthusiasm and the space in the place jumping off the page. I'd love to join you and I will be over to see you as soon as the dust settles here. I don't know what to do about the baby Joe, when it's born. Giving it up for adoption would be very hard but being here in the country unmarried would be a hard life too.

Come back Joe and help me face these troubles. I'm getting more depressed every day. Thank God you wrote at last. I didn't know where you were. There's been no postcard arrived so I had no address before now. Perhaps though you should stay there and start again on your own, you sound so happy I would only drag you down. But we will have our family sooner than you thought, money or not.

Thanks for writing at last Joe. Your life sounds like it's just beginning. Write as soon as you can.

Love

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