IT was well over a year ago when I typed the words "coming soon" in relation to the anticipated (well, by me anyway) completion of my novel.
The idea was to push myself over the finishing line, but it didn't quite work like that.
I read it again, made some changes, had new ideas, put them in, took them out again, and I'm still not entirely sure.
There's new dialogue to add in the first few chapters, some to remove from the middle section - and then there's the problem of chapter three. Does it stay, does it go, or is it moved bit by bit into other parts of the story?
Originally it was three separate chapters, then I brought it all together in an attempt to explain the reasons - an incident with a moth, a visit to an island church, unexpected love (and death) - that pushed my main character to make the move from Yorkshire to Italy.
I like it; it gives background to Michael Morrison, his story, his personality and demons. But is it incongruous?
Here's the start - let me know what you think:
NOW, should you believe Michael Morrison to be a man of whimsy and impulse, this is where you become enlightened to the fact his move to Padria was not born of haste or chance.
Rather, it occurred due to a strange combination of circumstances involving an unlikely religious dalliance, romance, tragedy and the overcoming of a bizarre fear of a small insect that prompted a life-changing decision to leave behind everyone and everything he knew.
He had felt nothing in some of the most incredible churches and cathedrals in the world. Then on a weekend writing retreat on an island off the south west coast where he walked up and down cliffs and saw little in the way of life except birds he didn’t recognise, he felt more freedom than at any other point in his life. Just him and the untamed sea, the leaping waves colliding with granite, water gradually winning the battle for territory. A man could go missing here and who would know? Who would care? The thought of disappearing crossed his still fevered mind, but he walked on for hours until darkness fell and he could almost walk no more.
Next morning, a a lighthouse, a graveyard and a church. The lighthouse, decommissioned, imposing, was locked, which was disappointing.
The small, well-kept graveyard housed several generations of no more than 20-30 families, all no doubt having left the island as survival grew harder. The names on the stones had gravitas and drama — Trevithick, Penhaligan, Tremayne — they belonged to their time, whenever that was.
The church’s austere exterior lent it a cold dignity. Go on, have a look, he told himself. There’s no reason to be scared, yet surely it was fear that drew people here in the first place? Could he see the light here? Was there even any light to be seen?
The weather-beaten splintered wooden door opened with ease. He surveyed the scene, careful not to go too far in, and apart from himself — and possibly the great Almighty! — it appeared the building was empty.
Rather than the intense beacon of enlightenment, the vision he almost craved, was a starkness, an emptiness. This was a basic, barren church designed to make worshippers humble, to curb their hubris and crush their desire for promiscuity and intoxication, which in the days when it could boast a sizeable congregation was everything anyone might possibly enjoy.
It was cold, astonishingly so. He almost felt the church was angry at being deserted, left alone, abandoned to rot.
Fourteen rows of wooden benches suggested a capacity of around 170 parishioners, possibly reached at the peak of its popularity, and Morrison wondered if any of the islanders now long resident in the graveyard had dared risk the wrath of God and his preacher by going missing on a Sunday. Bibles were still placed, presumably for tourists should they feel the need to step inside this stark building for some guidance. A dustiness, a musty smell infused with the distinctive aroma of polish, caused his nose to twitch, bringing back a muscle memory of the air he breathed on his few visits to church as a child.
A bright winter sun, almost searing but kinder, bounced off the windows, disturbing his vision and thought. His chest tightening, he shielded his eyes and turned to walk away. But something made him look back and stare directly into the light which, instead of blinding him, seemed to pierce right through to his brain, clearing the film that had covered his eyes and long dimmed any view of a desirable future.
The feeling, the effect, a quickening heartbeat and slight nausea, stayed with him, growing deeper each time he revisited it.
Back in England he could not shift the images from his mind; congregations of times past, weddings, funerals, Christenings. What he had seen and felt that cold January day in the remote island church was not immediately apparent to him — it took many months to reveal itself as a message that he must again welcome passages of light — but he knew he was right not to have dismissed it.
In time it served to change his approach to religious buildings though not his beliefs and he would regularly make a point of going inside a cathedral or church when exploring an unfamiliar city or town. He was uncertain what it was that drew him in, but something about the insides of God’s houses began to unnerve him, stir him and eventually inspire him.
Beams of light directed him from a fear of the future and, after the writers’ retreat, he experienced renewed energy and a burning desire to create. He wrote with a fervour, naming his story’s hero Jude after The Patron Saint of Desperate and Lost Causes, Jude Thaddeus, better known to most, though not by Morrison at the time, as Jude the Apostle — his character one of the forgotten seeing the light and taking up the fight on behalf of those deemed to be beyond hope or redemption in a city that mirrored their plight.
The city was beset by sickness, so were its people and so was he. Down on his luck and living on the streets he may have been, but Jude wasn’t the wastrel those who passed him by without so much as a cursory glance believed him to be. He persevered, won followers, disciples, and together they endeavoured to improve the fortunes of a city forsaken and, like those of Michael Morrison, those fortunes would be reversed thanks to The Patron Saint of Lost Causes, who would come to represent his city as a shining light.