This isn’t the blog I planned to write. But it’s a story I need to share, a kind of spreading of the pain.
I was just four years old when I started school in 1956. I remember that first day well. My mum walked me to the school. It was about two miles. But I figured I was a big boy, and could find my own way home. So I insisted that she didn’t come to get me at the end of the day.
Of course, I got lost. And there was a great hullabaloo. Memorable first days!
But there is something else that sticks in my mind about that particular first day. I fell in love. How ridiculous is that! Four years old. But I did. With a little girl I had cast eyes on for the very first time. Her name was Jennifer, and she lived on a farm a couple of miles away in the opposite direction from where my house was.
She had a beautiful dimpled smile, and pigtails in ribbons, and she used to dip her head coyly and look up at me with lovely dark eyes.
Jennifer aged around 6
Come Saturday morning I told my parents I wanted to go to the farm to play with her. And to my dismay I was expressly forbidden. It was too far, and entailed the crossing of two busy main roads!
So, naturally, the following weekend I made a secret trip to the farm without telling a soul. I carefully crossed the first main road, and then walked the rest of the way on farm roads till I could see her farm in the distance. To avoid the second main road I took a short-cut across the fields, running with arms windmilling past a startled bull before it had a chance to take stock and charge at me.
Jennifer and I played games among the bales in the barn. And I had my first ever kiss there. I went back over several weekends, until one fateful day her mum took it into her head to phone my mum to ask if I could stay for lunch. And the cat was out of the bag!
No more illicit visits to the farm.
Jennifer aged about 10 or 11
But our relationship continued off and on through the seven years of primary school. The final dance, before heading off to secondary school, was called the Qualie (qualification) Dance. And it just happened to coincide with one of our off periods. So I asked a girl called Irene to go to the dance with me instead.
The week before the dance I received in the post a letter from Jennifer. She couldn’t understand why I hadn’t asked her, and suggested that my friend Derek could take Irene and I could ask Jennifer instead. It was signed “The Girl from the Farm”. I still have that letter today. But it was all too late, and I have regretted all my life the hurt I caused her.
The letter
I went to the dance with Irene, and Jennifer and I went on to different secondary schools.
Years later, working as a journalist in Glasgow, I saw an article in the paper about the first ever policewoman to take charge of a traffic patrol car. It was Jennifer. And then a year or so later, I met her in the High Court when I was covering a murder trial, and she was accompanying a child witness. We exchanged a few awkward words, and I never set eyes on her again.
Fast forward to a few short years ago. I had finished writing my series of China Thrillers, and started work on a new, totally different novel set in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland where I had spent five years filming a TV drama series. In the story, much of the narrative involves the main character’s recollections of his childhood, growing up on the island, and for inspiration I drew heavily on my own childhood years.
Jennifer featured prominently and became the character called Marsaili. The illicit visits to the farm, the kiss among the bales, became immortalised in the text. Even the letter from “The Girl on the Farm”. The book is called “The Blackhouse”, and it will be published by Quercus on February 3rd. So a few months ago I thought it would be fun to track Jennifer down to let her know that our childhood adventures had made their way into fiction.
But when I went searching for her on the net, there was no trace of her to be found. From my home in France I managed to track down the farm, and look at it courtesy of Google Street View. No longer a working farm, it has been converted into an elegant upmarket residence.
I searched “Friends Reunited”, where former pupils and workmates reconnect. No sign of her.
Eventually I accessed the National Archives of Scotland online. At the ScotlandsPeople Centre, it is possible to track down the registration of births, deaths and marriages.
To my astonishment there was no record of Jennifer’s birth between 1950 and 1952. I widened the search, figuring that maybe Jennifer was her middle name. Still no luck. I wrote to our old school. No reply. It was as if she had never existed.
Then a few days ago, I tried searching through the marriage records and cross-referring them with birth records. Which is when I discovered that a Janet with the same surname, born at Carluke in Lanarkshire in 1952 (not that far from the farm Jennifer’s father tenanted), had married in 1977. Then four years later, she remarried. The marriages were registered in the Mearns and Eastwood district where we had grown up.
I was almost certain that this was Jennifer. There were no other possibilities. Maybe her mother was called Janet, and they had used the name Jennifer to avoid confusion. But not another record could I find of her anywhere. And so in an attempt at absolute verification I tried one last place. Registration of deaths.
And there, in 2002, recorded in the district of Mearns and Eastwood, was the death of that same Janet.
There was still an outside chance that I was wrong. But then, by a strange quirk of fate, that very same day I finally received a reply to the query I had sent to our old school. Someone there knew of Jennifer’s family. My hopes were raised, only to be dashed almost immediately by the news that my searches in the national archive had brought me to the correct conclusion.
That little girl whom I’d fallen in love with on that first day at school, was dead. And a little bit of me died too, when I learned that.
In the book, my main character, Fin, gets to see Marsaili again – eighteen years later. Here is the moment…
He slowed and turned down on to the Macinnes drive and stopped the car in front of the garage doors. A blink of moonlight splashed a pool of broken silver on the ocean beyond. There was a light on in the kitchen, and through the window Fin could see a figure at the sink. He realized, with a start, that it was Marsaili, long fair hair, darker now, drawn back severely from her face and tied in a pony tail at the nape of her neck. She wore no make-up and looked weary somehow, pale, with shadows beneath blue eyes that had lost their lustre. She looked up as she heard the car, and Fin killed the headlights so that all she could see would be a reflection of herself in the window. She looked away quickly, as if disappointed by what she’d seen, and in that moment he glimpsed again the little girl who had so bewitched him from the moment first he set eyes on her.
I don’t know why I should have believed that any of us is immortal. But somehow, I really always thought I would see wee Jennifer again.
I am in touch now with her family. She is survived by her sister and two sons. And I wanted them to know that even although Jennifer passed away eight years ago, she lives on in the words I wrote, and in the memories I have of those days on the farm.
Wow. What a post! I look forward to reading The Black House.
John played this song so many times for so many different reasons. One I know for sure, he did hope to see you again. Just finished reading “Freeze Frame” today, so you were on my mind. Damn, damn, damn.
Nice new blog, nice piece. We’ve all done things we wish we could go back and fix. But then our lives would probably not turned out the way they did, would they? “Water under the bridge” is the only way to look at the past…
I’ll be in London for the launch of the book in February, DJ, so if I see Carol I will try to get her a signed copy for you.
Inge, I would have given anything to have seen John again, to sit and talk, and laugh, and chew over stories. He has a very special place in my memory.
It’s true, Bill, we can never go back, and probably wouldn’t even if we could. I have lost a number of close friends over the years but every one of them still lives in my heart. And in the end, what are any of us but the sum total of our memories?
That was one hell of a first post Dad!! So sad…we always think we have all the time in the world and then suddenly there is no time left at all!
On a different note, what do you mean if you see Carol? Just you try and stop me coming to your book launch! (and I have a sneaky suspicion that if she can make it DJ will be there too!)
C x
It seems strange, Carol, to be grieving for someone who died eight years ago, but it feels to me as if it just happened yesterday. I feel so sad for her. She was just 50, so think about it… that’s only 15 years older than you! Live your life to the full!! My publishers were so moved by the post that they are putting excerpts up on their website and linking to the blog.
Sounds like karma, Peter. You know someone the moment you clap eyes on her. Maybe you’ll meet again next time around. and p.s. I also insisted on walking myself home on my first day of school and became similarly lost. I found my way back to school and the janitor walked me home (more trusting days). We met my mother on the road, looking for me in a panic, my baby sister perched on her hip.
Ahhh, Donis, the days of independence – and the days when it was safe for kids to walk the streets. These days all the kids get taken to school in cars. A sad decline in trust and morals in present day society. And now I just sound like an old person!
Wow, I really enjoyed reading that and it has left me with a lump in my throat. I will definitely be looking out for this book next year. Peter, will you be coming “up north” to do any signings?
I certainly very much hope to be touring and talking about The Blackhouse throughout the UK following publication in February, BW. Dates and itinerary still to be fixed. This was a particularly sad postscript for me, following the writing of the book, but I am happy to say that Jennifer’s family are taking a great deal of comfort from the fact that she has been remembered in this way.
Great, I’ll keep an eye out for the itinerary. I like the sound of this book.
Peter
Dust in the wind…………….all we are (eventually) is just dust in the wind
Harvey
As one of my friends said, Harvey, “intimations of our own mortality”.
Enjoyed The Black House immensely! Can hardly wait until The Lewis Man comes out!
Hi Sharon. Thanks for leaving your comment. I’m delighted you enjoyed the book. You might like to sign up for my Facebook author page for latest news on the books: http://www.facebook.com/petermayauthor
Just read the Black House a couple of weeks ago it is the best book I’ve read to date. So many reminders of my childhood growing up in late 60`s early 70`s in Scotland. Funny, sad, loving and dark, an utterly beautiful thing. Thank you so much.
Can`t wait for the Lewis Man.
Hi Al, thank you so much for your kind comments on The Blackhouse. I am delighted that you enjoyed it. We are obviously contemporaries – or nearly (I would guess you are a bit younger than me). It is very rewarding to know that I have been able to strike a chord with my peers. The Lewis Man is out at the beginning of January.
A touching, emotional story. So sad, and beautiful. I wanted to cry when I finished reading.
It sent me into quite a depression for a number of weeks when I found out, Darla.
Hi Peter. I loved the Black House and look forward to reading Lewis Man next. Thank you for sharing ‘The girl from the farm’.
Hi Simon. Delighted you loved the book. Jennifer is forever immortalised for me as Marsaili.
Hi Peter,
The Lewis Man. Once again thank you for a beautiful book, I was a bit worried it might not be as good as the Black House, however it did not disappoint, I can`t get enough of these stories. Can`t wait for the next one.
Many thanks
Al
Pleased you enjoyed it, Alan.
Loved The Blackhouse and The Lewis Man. I got Lewis Man on audio and downloaded it onto my ipod and listened to it in the car. I am a nurse working in the community in a rural setting (Orkney) so many longish drives between calls sometimes, problem was I didn’t want to get out of the car when I arrived. Spent my lunchtimes looking over Scapa Flow and listening. I’ve got my friends hooked on your books too, especially Etta my colleague who hails from Lewis. More power to your pen Peter, loving your stories and eagerly awaiting The Chessmen.
The Blackhouse was beautifully read, too, Morag by an actor called Steve Worsley. I got a very clear image of you sitting in your car, buffeted by the wind, gazing out over the wild seas as Tormod told his tale. I shall think of that while writing my next book. The Chess Men will be read by the same actor who read The Lewis Man. Hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
I forgot to say I also have the books!
Just as I began to read your blog….I thought hey up! (I’m from lancashire) I recall this story, but how sad to hear of Janet’s death. Twenty years ago, I decided to have a school reunion. We would all be ‘around’ the 40-years-old mark, my goodness Peter, I was so shocked to learn about five deaths of my dearest old school friends, it was so sad. The reunion still took place and we remembered our friends. I hope to organize another reunion as we all approach 60-years-old in two years time and again we will recall old friends we never forget. I know make sure if I see an old friend passing by, I will always make the effort to say hello…..we never know what is around the corner. Thank you for sharing a little piece of you Peter.
It’s a shock, isn’t it, to discover that your contemporaries have passed away? Intimations of your own mortality. My best friend, Bryan, died aged 30. And years later I discovered that the young man who played drums in my teenage band had died aged 24. We really just need to be grateful for the time that we have, use it fully, and not fritter it away. Thanks for writing.
sorry, typo….”I now make sure”