It took her a while to begin, to really get started. The ideas had been floating around in her head since she was a very youthful and inexperienced teenager. Floods of romantic poetry, righteous and pious, angry and venomous poured without end: first one exercise book, then another, and another. Her shelves were re-arranged and she began to get serious. To her delight her parents, recognising her budding wordsmith skills, bought her a newfangled word processor for Christmas.
And she read. First the school-recommended list, then the Victorians, then Blake, then…
Her first boyfriend was a bit of a disappointment: she liked his attention and his wandering hands, but he was a failure when it came to communication. When discussing anything at depth, even TV, Frazer would suddenly clam up. His moody silences would always end with her going home. Then after school the next day it would be as if nothing happened, he would find her and off they would walk home holding hands, kiss and say goodbye. Then he didn’t call one Saturday and by the Monday he was holding Kirsty Derry’s hand.
At first the pain of separation and betrayal was only slight and, after a shrug, she continued her reading, schoolwork and writing. In fact, it picked up a little having fallen off under Frazer’s gormless attentions. But just as she focused harder upon her task two crushing things occurred: her word processor crashed to a nonfunctionable death, and with it she suddenly felt complete and utter heartbreak, as if all her emotions had erupted at the surface like a wealth of painful, hideous zits.
She missed school for the first time. She cut her hair short. She watched a lot of TV. She ate. She ate some more and then found that the pain fuzzed a little when she was completely full and sleepy. Her 15 years had ill prepared her for these overwhelming feelings and now her poetry appeared ludicrous. A wet Wednesday one week later she took down her books from the shelves above her bed and boxed them, un-plugged the useless word processor to place it in the bottom of the wardrobe and sat motionless staring out of the window for hours until it became dark, truly lost in her dark, adolescent thoughts.
The rest of school, so promising at first, became a non-event. Although she went on to pass most of her ‘O’ levels and somehow found the energy to take three ‘A’s, her heart really wasn’t in it. For the first time in her life she became surly and even got into trouble with teachers. She found other sorts of boyfriends that liked or didn’t mind podgy girls and went off to party like the rest. Her busy parents tried not to be too worried. But something had died. Indeed, she saw its’ corpse every time she vacuumed her room and every time she wore a finely-ironed blouse or a jacket. In the end, she opted not to go to University and found a job in a local travel agency.
Five years of sending other people to exotic destinations finally took her to the end of this comfortable path. On a rather dreary October Friday when all her colleagues were busy, she finally looked around. A hen night had been planned for that Saturday for Kerry and all they could discuss was what to wear and where to go. But she suddenly felt like sitting at home reading a book. When she got home, Mum and Dad were both eating and watching the 6 o’clock News – they didn’t even turn around. “Ello luv, dinner’s in the oven.”
Without responding, she took off her coat and shoes, methodically pulled and pushed herself up the creaky stairs and after a quick wee sat on her squishy bed. She looked down and from beneath her legs pulled out a dusty squat box; on the top of the stack was her last exercise book. She took it to her desk which doubled as a dressing table, gently pushed aside some hair products and read the last entry.
“…Tousled through the frost-nipped grip
The singing, howling gale from ice
Clawed unrem without let…”
She remembered: the telephone had rung and Frazer asked her out. Even though it was a Thursday and she had double French on Friday (and had not done her revision) she agreed. It had been a good long wet snog at the bus stop before he got on the 92. By the time she got back it was nearly 9.45 and she was tired… but actually happy.
The phone rang.
“Phone! For you!” shouted up her Mum’s voice.
Steve, who was in a pub, asked her to join him. She thought about him and his prior confessed eagerness to take her out, but told her Mum make her apologies for her, claiming a headache. She focused again on her book, this time with a biro in hand.
“The Death of Suzanna Greenwood” she wrote in slow cursive hand. She paused, turned around and pulled the box towards her. The dustcover names ‘Shelley’ and ‘Keats’ came to view, and with them a longed-for memory. Beneath them were more; ‘Byron’, ‘Yeats’...
She turned back and crossed out her name. It now read, “The Death of Poets” and, at last, the idea formed shape.
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