Yellowhammers and people

In the 30 years or so that we were together, one of my great triumphs was to beat half of Karin's score at scrabble. I can't remember when it was, or any details at all of this momentous achievement other than my jubilation, but I suspect she had taken her eye off the ball so to speak. My monosyllables were pushed in at the edges of the board to gain the odd five or six points and must have caught her unawares while she was taking a sip from her wine or thinking about what to have for tea.  It reminded me of a karate contest we once saw between two competitors that were ill-matched.  The more capable one became increasingly complacent and performed fancy manoeuvres while the tenacious but less skilled competitor just kept blatting away.  Suddenly a roar went up; the underdog had thrown an unexpected punch, got the point and won the contest. We do like an underdog.

It had been established fairly early on in our relationship that pitting my lexicon against hers was like racing a Mini against a Jaguar; hence my self-defined criteria for success that forced her to double my score to win. She seemed to see things on the scrabble board that were opaque to me, and it even got to the point where she would look at my letters (with my permission) and make a few suggestions. My inability to keep up with her moved from pity to frustration and led to the scrabble board sitting upstairs unused, unless the kids wanted to play without us. I am sure I am not brilliant at games, but the point is that she was really good.  In fact, she was really good at most games despite never being interested in playing them – which leads me to wonder why we were playing scrabble at this particular momentous time. Memories floating through the air like clauses; loose and unconnected.

For much of her life, Karin's ease with words was evident more as potential than formal achievement: a panic-stricken last minute degree in History, an A level in English, and a reputation for swearing that was prominent enough to be classified as a hobby, were the most obvious signs of her ability.  However as time went on, the words and ideas slowly built up inside her until the pressure caused a surge of words, flowing out and into notebooks, odd documents on our collection of house laptops, and finally a finished novel.  Inertia had been overcome by a great upwelling, flows of letters and ideas that had collected from the numerous small springs of books, films, chats.

To be fair, she had showed aptitude when working in the insurance industry by writing leaflets and copy for adverts, and after that the writing of posters and bids in public health that culminated in a formal academic research paper. So work sometimes acted as a bleed valve to take the edge off the urge to do something more, but it was clear to everyone that all that stuff in her head needed to come out.  (Stuff in her head - the irony of someone with cancer in her brain having a lifetime of stuff in her head).  Karin lived in her head, not in a weighty, cerebral manner, no, quite the opposite; more in the sense that the inside of her head was a favourite sofa, somewhere comfortable and reliable to go when the other world felt alien. 

I am absolutely no expert in writing and not interested in researching enough to provide any wisdom on this, but the assertion that people write according to what they have read resonates here.  Karin hated books that were highly constructed and erudite; she saw them as pretentious and not comfortable enough to bother with.  She preferred things that gave up their message with less of a struggle and so our bookshelves were lined with romances, thrillers and science fiction.  

Books were consumed at a terrifying rate.  Holidays were a particular problem because the packing needed to include sufficient books to last a fortnight. Our luggage for the Dordogne one year consisted of two rucksacks; one for books and the other for everything else.  No surprises who had to carry the portable library. - Kindles were invented too late for me as I struggled along pavements and onto trains and buses with my paper-based millstone. 

One year in Mallorca we ended up trawling round souvenir shops, hunting for more books as she had consumed all of hers too quickly.  My pair of turgid texts for the fortnight were rejected in disgust. It was as if she wanted comfort food; baked beans on toast or tomato soup, none of that haute cuisine nonsense.

No surprises then, that when she did actually did start writing, what came out was an easy flow of ideas, words and stories that reflected this Saturday supper taste for reading.

And when it came out, it came out.  Words gushing, pouring, spilling onto the pages, on the back of our shopping list, in a rapidly expanding collection of Moleskine books large and small, and often in any pen that came to mind.  I have all these notebooks and random pieces of paper, many written in red or orange pen, mainly because she couldn't be bothered to find a pen that was more suitable.  She of course argued that the colour you write in doesn't matter, not to mention the quality of the handwriting (barely decipherable) - it was all about getting those ideas into paper form rather than sitting clogging up her mind.  The notebooks outline characters, scenes, little snapshots; particles of story that now sit purposeless in a drawer in the study desk.  Opening them and reading small sections seems to ignite the writing and the descriptions suddenly jump into action like a pastiche of five-second films.  All the action pushes past the orange or red pen, wrestling through and onto the screen.

And this outpouring found a purpose.  A book was written, rejected by her, then another one started.  This one was different however because it was written with Gary, who could offer the structure that she couldn't be bothered to engage with.  Sinple; Gary provided the template and the ideas, then all she had to do then was the ‘easy’ bit, write. Straight after supper was cleared away, she drifted off to the front room and sat on the sofa with her tiny laptop, jumper pulled up to her nose, and wrote in silence; right the way through television time, ignoring Facebook, and insulated from us. Such staying power hadn't ever been in evidence previously.

And it got published! A significant number of people read and enjoyed it; it flowed well, the characters were solid – the whole deal.

At the same time, Karin carried out a piece of research at work that was good enough for her to write up and publish in a proper academic journal.  A very different idiom, seamlessly passed into - terse and empirical.  She was delighted when an academic from a university contacted her for her opinion on something.

As a fan of Thomas Hardy I was subjected to a good deal of ridicule, mostly because of the extended descriptive passages.  And Lawrence Durrell? Well, that wasn't going to be popular.  All that description! All that ‘technique’. Hardy’s two-page description of the sky in one of his books was openly ridiculed – with that amount of interest in the stars there was no room for people. No, Karin's interest in a book was confined to the people.  Because that was her other fascination. Books like Pride and Prejudice that explored the interplay between a group of people, she loved that.  Not enough to become self-indulgent though, just the playing out of relationships.

Going to the pub as a couple was challenging at times because the other customers were absolutely fascinating to her, at the expense of her own companion. She would often tail off mid-sentence because someone else had come in the room or was talking to a friend or acquaintance, and her attention was taken by their exchanges.  I would sit patiently, waiting for my time again. And if a small child was involved, or indeed a dog, then that was even better.  I was side-lined for minutes, nursing my pint in silence. Little wonder that when she wrote her open letter to be read out at her funeral in which she reviewed her life, the things of value were being married to me, and the children.  All people.  No actions, no possessions, no experiences.  Just people.

So the words, the words that poured out of her, and formed ultimately into four books, one of which has been enjoyed by a number of people with the others waiting to be sorted out, those words were such a huge part of her.  A very clear style as well, no fiddly, curly, indecipherable parts, but plain and clear communication. 

Imagine what a loss of words must have felt like for Karin. 

The extraordinary thing is that the words started leaving her really early, long before she was diagnosed.  Words with a particular rhythm started to get confused.  The zebra crossing became the yellowhammer; although yellowhammer was also the word for the dishwasher at other times.  Watering the basil was origami’d into lighting the candle.  She used to joke that it must be her brain tumours causing this aphasia, and we laughed along. We dismissed it, remembering that my dad went through a phase of word-tangling that slowly eased itself back into order by some neuroplastic reconstruction.  What we didn’t know of course, that it really was a brain tumour, a number of tumours, or to quote the consultant much later, a significant number of brain tumours.  Careful choice of words.

Click here to see what others think about her book (or indeed buy it);    Farewell Trip 

Karin's favourite shirt design;

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider contributing to the hospice that gave Karin peace at the end of her life; click here -      St Peter's Hospice