Fires and Wanting All of It

in which I take four days off

Lately, it feels as if the only way I can tolerate living in the city is to leave it often. I’m not sure this is the sign of a healthy relationship. I love London, but I’m not a big fan of London in the summer, of the tourists or the way the heat gets trapped or of the main body of water being a silted stinking river; I do not like constantly stepping on the road to avoid crowded pavements, or the crush of a tube, normally near empty at 2 in the afternoon but suddenly, wildly busy; I learn to tolerate it by the prospect of the next trip away and between times, don’t ask about the healthiness of this as a long-term strategy, instead walking on the heath, in woods on the periphery of the city, the south circular in my ears and lungs but still, surrounded by greenery. As a teenager, it was the opposite. I grew up in the countryside and couldn’t wait to leave, to see over the hills on the horizon, to leave the sea that felt too open, too wide, too full of possibility; at 19 I moved to the city, found solace in the glow of sodium lights and 24 hour chippies and still do, most of the time, maybe I have found too much solace in lights and action recently, too much on a dancefloor, too much crushed at gigs, too much in restaurants, in bars, in pubs; in the late night glow of my laptop screen as I attempt to remember what it’s like to write another first draft, forgetting how to conquer the vertigo that comes with it; maybe that’s why I packed a suitcase so heavy I could hardly pull it to Euston, jumping on an ill-timed early morning train, the children crushed by commuters on our way there, buying bitter hot coffee from the onboard kiosk I would later tip into the bin, dishing out magazines, snacks, card games, until we got to Wales, back, where last year, something ended, something began.

Last summer and life was fast. I was on tour promoting The Last Days, I was editing Ava Anna Ada, I was having meetings about other things, I was thinking about the third book I wanted to write and what it might look like and I had the sensation everything was faster than it should be. Time did what time does in those strange times, when it either speeds or slows. That summer, it slowed right down, July, a lifetime of its own; August too, in those strange fast slow hot months, I kept thinking of September and the festival I was appearing at in Wales. I arrived, worse for wear after a night in Soho ending somewhere around three in the morning, packed all the wrong clothes for a long weekend in a Welsh field; three jumpsuits, a silk vest, cheetah print jeans and a thin black jumper; no waterproof jacket, no wellington boots, no thick knitwear.

The first night, at dinner with friends, one asked what I was working on. I don’t know what happened, but the book I was trying to write didn’t make its way to my mouth. Instead I replied I was working on a book about the body, about death, about textiles, about Louise Bourgeois. It was not the book I was working on. It was a book conjured up in that moment, it since has been the manuscript I am working on, there, three minutes walk from a graveyard I’d earlier sat and wept in, not meaning to, just suddenly ambushed by tears I should’ve cried months ago, absent tears in the way tears often are when they’re needed the most, I spoke this idea and it clawed into me and is slowly, reluctantly, making its way out of me.

I knew when I was there the first time, I needed to go back, nearly a year after, we step off the train, find the right bus, and 30 minutes later are deposited outside a stone wall running the perimeter of the Hawarden Estate, immediately we all notice the air, it has the peculiar quality of country air close to water, underlaid with the scent of damp earth, the wall lichened and mossy, an hour in and we’ve dropped our bags at the tent I’ve hired and are eating lunch by a wood fire, my youngest cries at the smoke in her eyes, in her water, insists on wearing sunglasses for the duration of the meal. Later, we explore, finding woods, ferns, outdoor showers, a community garden, pick your own fruit, the children popping brambles in their mouths. For four days we camped, adjusting to the temperature, the lack of easy entertainment, the wind in the night, the birds waking us earlier than we would have otherwise; we roasted marshmallows, built fires, did yoga, learnt to sign write, made our own screen prints, played endless rounds of Uno, only ate food cooked over open flames, hunted bats in the dark, walked miles in woodland; we also fought, bickered, cried, made up; normal life, against the backdrop of wildflowers, a natural bee colony, a lake, a tumble down castle.

But I am wary of these places. I am wary of anything claiming to offer a good life. I do not throw myself into group activities. I distrust organised fun. This comes as no surprise, not after living in a cult for 30 years, one whose members claim gives them the best life ever. I told myself before we went I would leave feeling the same as I did when I arrived, it would be fun for the children and it would be good for me to not work for a few a days, but other than that, there would be no epiphanies. And then, at dusk on the first day, I leave the children playing table tennis in a makeshift shed, begging them not to argue just for ten minutes as I shower. In the shower, again makeshift, with the faint smell of gas in the air, I am reminded of a Nick Laird poem as I often have been the last month, I shut the water of, towel myself quickly dry, thinking of the last stanza of Property, while trying not to wonder if other people go about their days thinking so often of poetry, this:

I find sometimes I want it all. The moment of sunset. The beavers’ architected dam. The colours. The babysitter. The soundtrack of an endless quarrel. An evening to go on and on burning. Cocteau was asked if his home was on fire, what one thing would he save? The fire, he said, only the fire.

I wanted it all, then. In the city, I often think I have it all. I have a job I like and work hard at, I have friends I love, I have rewarding conversations, I have funny, beautiful, witty, wilful, difficult children; there are hard things and these are rewarding. I have a life I’ve made and that is richly fulfilling. But sometimes, this makes me blinkered. I forget about the sunset, about the moment of dusk, how the air feels on my skin, I forget the rough tang of brambles recalling childhood afternoons by railway lines, collecting punnets of them, which my mother later will mix with apples, cinnamon and sugar, crumble on top. I forget the satisfaction of setting a fire and watching it take light. I forget the discomfort of a camp bed, the bone deep cold of 2 in the morning and curling my body in defence against it. I forget the morning mist rising from the rain swollen ground, how it feels to pull on wellingtons and trudge in it, the hems of my pyjamas soaking it up. I am a person who overcomplicates nearly everything. Here, there is little to complicate. And simply, I like it. I like how it makes me feel. I like feeling again. I switched myself off last year as defence when talking about The Last Days, in this Welsh field, I remember I am alive. I am suspicious still of groups and organised fun and I am aware of how exclusive these kinds of holidays are, how few people have access to really wild spaces, and how those who often do see them as the trap they can be. I will never be breathlessly rhapsodic about the countryside, I have seen too many people shaped badly by it in the same way the city acts on its poor, I am puzzled by how to create access to these spaces for all, I am troubled by the idea of landownership and what it means to be a custodian, I can be all those things, and still enjoy how it feels to spend four days feeling slightly more alive than I have in a long time, with air, fire, water, earth for company, there’s power in the elements, that’s why they feature in all our origin and end stories, these first things, last things; we travel home on an overbooked train, in our wellies still, that night, I struggle to sleep, indoors and over warm, I kick my covers off, open the window, wake to the sound of birds, further off, the city, downstairs, I open the window, run the shower cold. I think it is not always what you end up thinking about a thing or a place or a person, but the search for the final thing that matters; like Cocteau, I would save the fire, only the fire. I want all of it again, soon; the air, the fire, the water, the endless games of draughts, the Uno, even the children fighting, I would save it because these granular things feel like the ground threads of a life that occasionally feels too fast, too fragmented, the past and present never really lining up, and the idea of a good life, is one I find difficult to fathom, I am not sure what good means; but surely the good is in the search, the trying, the failing, in wanting all of it, in the moment of sunset, in (to steal from Capote) hoot owls and mama’s eyes, sometimes, in something as simple as an outdoor shower and the way the air slaps cold after.