Read Online Arms and the Women by Reginald Hill - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Reginald Hill
Ads: Link
rather than a branch of art. Now she knew what he meant. Therapy you kept to yourself. Art took you, trembling, in front of the footlights.
She brought this perspective to bear on her rejected third novel. Suddenly she found herself asking paragraph by paragraph the two essential questions. Is this really so important to me I've got to say it? Is this potentially so interesting to readers, they'll have to read it?
And for a whole week without saying anything to Peter or anyone else, she had launched a savage attack upon her holy script, like Moses going at the tablets with a sledgehammer. The result had been . . . she had no idea what the result had been, except that before, the book had read clever and now it felt like it read true. A deep distress has humanized my soul.. . ? Well, maybe. Three days ago she'd sent it off to the publisher who'd rejected its previous manifestation. Her accompanying note said, Last time you said it showed promise but... So tell me what it shows now. Only this time I'd appreciate it if you told me quick!
And then she'd returned to the therapy of her tale of old, parodic, far-off things and battles long ago. Self-indulgence is the novelist's greatest sin, but here she could indulge herself to her heart's, and her head's, content. Here she could mock, mimic, talk dirty, wax sentimental, be anarchic, anachronistic, anything she wanted. Here she had power without responsibility, for she was writing solely for herself. No one else was going to read this. She ruled alone in this world, its normalities were whatever she made them. Or, to put it rather less grandiloquently, this was her comfort blanket she could pick up and chew whenever her fragile sensibilities felt the need. So that's what she called it in her computer. Comfort Blanket. It was still unfinished but so what? The real pleasure was being able to go back over it again and again, changing things, trying new things out.
Nice if life were like that, she thought as she switched on her laptop. Call it up, click on Edit, and cut, copy, find, replace, delete . . .
Her words suddenly came from nowhere to fill the screen. She smiled. To her essentially non-technological mind, it was still magic.
Now where had she got up to in her revision? Oh yes. There it was.
Chapter 2
As they came down from the headland, the storm died, not a belly-wound death, but quick as an arrow through the heart. One moment the wind off the sea threatened to whirl them along with the racing tatters of low grey cloud, the next the air was still and balmy and the full moon, riding in a star-studded sky, lit the camp site below like a thousand lanterns.
Hadn't she used that simile before? So what? Homer used his stock images over and over. Get obsessed with novelty and you ended up with a wardrobe full of lovely clothes you could never wear again.
Here, those so tired that they'd slept despite the howling wind were now aroused by the sudden silence. Men began to busy themselves drying off the weapons and armour which had got soaked in the storm, while the women started building up the tiny fires which were all they'd dared kindle in face of the gale. But all activity stopped as they became aware of the approaching procession.
The Greek came first, his hands bound behind his back and the guard commander's sword resting lightly against his neck. For all that, he managed to look like a returning traveller greeting old friends, head held high, teeth showing bright through the tangle of beard as he smiled this way and that, nose wrinkling appreciatively at the smell of cooking already arising from one or two fires.
But his eyes were never still, drinking in every detail of the camp.
Bringing up the rear was the wounded guard. He gripped his bleeding left wrist tightly with his right hand and his face showed white as moonlight beneath the weather-beaten skin.
'What's up, mate?' called someone.
'Bloody Greek spy. Nearly took my fucking hand off. Bastard!'
'That right?
She brought this perspective to bear on her rejected third novel. Suddenly she found herself asking paragraph by paragraph the two essential questions. Is this really so important to me I've got to say it? Is this potentially so interesting to readers, they'll have to read it?
And for a whole week without saying anything to Peter or anyone else, she had launched a savage attack upon her holy script, like Moses going at the tablets with a sledgehammer. The result had been . . . she had no idea what the result had been, except that before, the book had read clever and now it felt like it read true. A deep distress has humanized my soul.. . ? Well, maybe. Three days ago she'd sent it off to the publisher who'd rejected its previous manifestation. Her accompanying note said, Last time you said it showed promise but... So tell me what it shows now. Only this time I'd appreciate it if you told me quick!
And then she'd returned to the therapy of her tale of old, parodic, far-off things and battles long ago. Self-indulgence is the novelist's greatest sin, but here she could indulge herself to her heart's, and her head's, content. Here she could mock, mimic, talk dirty, wax sentimental, be anarchic, anachronistic, anything she wanted. Here she had power without responsibility, for she was writing solely for herself. No one else was going to read this. She ruled alone in this world, its normalities were whatever she made them. Or, to put it rather less grandiloquently, this was her comfort blanket she could pick up and chew whenever her fragile sensibilities felt the need. So that's what she called it in her computer. Comfort Blanket. It was still unfinished but so what? The real pleasure was being able to go back over it again and again, changing things, trying new things out.
Nice if life were like that, she thought as she switched on her laptop. Call it up, click on Edit, and cut, copy, find, replace, delete . . .
Her words suddenly came from nowhere to fill the screen. She smiled. To her essentially non-technological mind, it was still magic.
Now where had she got up to in her revision? Oh yes. There it was.
Chapter 2
As they came down from the headland, the storm died, not a belly-wound death, but quick as an arrow through the heart. One moment the wind off the sea threatened to whirl them along with the racing tatters of low grey cloud, the next the air was still and balmy and the full moon, riding in a star-studded sky, lit the camp site below like a thousand lanterns.
Hadn't she used that simile before? So what? Homer used his stock images over and over. Get obsessed with novelty and you ended up with a wardrobe full of lovely clothes you could never wear again.
Here, those so tired that they'd slept despite the howling wind were now aroused by the sudden silence. Men began to busy themselves drying off the weapons and armour which had got soaked in the storm, while the women started building up the tiny fires which were all they'd dared kindle in face of the gale. But all activity stopped as they became aware of the approaching procession.
The Greek came first, his hands bound behind his back and the guard commander's sword resting lightly against his neck. For all that, he managed to look like a returning traveller greeting old friends, head held high, teeth showing bright through the tangle of beard as he smiled this way and that, nose wrinkling appreciatively at the smell of cooking already arising from one or two fires.
But his eyes were never still, drinking in every detail of the camp.
Bringing up the rear was the wounded guard. He gripped his bleeding left wrist tightly with his right hand and his face showed white as moonlight beneath the weather-beaten skin.
'What's up, mate?' called someone.
'Bloody Greek spy. Nearly took my fucking hand off. Bastard!'
'That right?
Similar Books
