The Lessons: The True Story of a Parasitic Novel

By Madeleine Watson

The following story is true.

This book is about my novel, The Lessons.

Strictly speaking, it is not a novel at all, but something far more sinister. The dictionary lacks a word for what The Lessons actually is.

At the age of nineteen, I made the momentous decision to pen this novel – on April 24 1985, to be precise. I know this because I kept a diary between 1977 and 1988. As soon as I began, an illness cut me down for a week. I thought nothing of it, determined I was going to begin this novel as soon as I felt better. Little did I realise how this novel would affect my life.

I kept it secret from family and friends. I feverishly read books on how-to write novels, sitting in my flat for hours, eking out a few sentences. During episodes, I would lose weight and become ill.

My novel appeared to have no bearing upon my life at all. A psychopath operates in a creepy old house called the Hollows and heads a criminal ring. I was living in a sleepy village with my parents and siblings. I partook in kiddie stuff like babysitting, toy-making, Sunday school teaching and art.

During my writing, I connected with this ‘strand’. This strand grew addictive. It ran deep, powerful, compulsive, shameful, deathly, depressing, creepy and devastating.
Little did I realize the source of this strand.

Illustrations and excerpts from my diaries are included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madeleine Watson
• Release date: Dec 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370053742

Madeleine Watson

Madeleine Watson lives in the UK and writes under a pseudonym.At the age of 51, she discovered she had been repeatedly raped at the age of 3 by an uncle who shared her toddlerhood home.During oblivion, she kept a diary, wrote children’s mysteries, novels and short stories. She also went to art school for 5 years. Unbeknown to her, clues to her horrific toddlerhood had seeped into her creations.How she finally learned the truth is described in her books along with further revelations. Having lived through this experience, she is able to describe what life has been like for someone whose toddlerhood has been brutalised prior to the dawning of her conscious awareness.

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THE LESSONS

The True Story of a Parasitic Novel

Madeleine Watson

To my other I

This Edition published 1 January 2019

All rights reserved. The Right of Madeleine Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 77 and 78.

Introduction

Part 1: Prelude to The Lessons

Part 2: The Beginning

THE LESSONS

Map of Hitchfield Districts and Burntwood

Map of Hitchfield Central

Part 3: Secrets of this Novel

Part 4: Forces within this Novel

Forces and Domains

Part 5: The Other I

Part 6: Secret Scenes

Part 7: The Truth behind the Prologue

Part 8: How I Lost the Author-Hat

Part 9: Dolls, Degree Show and Other Outpourings

Part 10: Resolution

Afterword

The Secret Codes

Introduction

My parasitic novel begun on 23 April 1985

The following story is true.

In order to retain anonymity, I have changed names and locations but the events described are entirely accurate.

The Parasitic Strand

This book is about my novel, The Lessons.

Strictly speaking, it is not a novel at all, but something far more sinister.

The dictionary lacks a word for what The Lessons actually is. But for want of a better word, I shall describe The Lessons as a ‘novel’ for now.

At the age of nineteen, I made the momentous decision to begin this novel – on 23 April 1985, to be precise. I know this because I kept a detailed diary between 1977 and 1988. Excerpts from my diaries are included within this account.

My decision to pen my fantasy world into a novel clashed with a terrible illness that cut me down for a week. Chronic throat and migraine sent me to bed. I thought nothing of it, determined I was going to begin this novel as soon as I felt better.

Little did I realise how this novel would affect my life.

Feverishly, I sketched characters, places and maps, imagining scenes at night. In response, my secret world burned brightly. I kept my novel from family and friends, paranoid about my drafts getting lost. I read books on how to write novels, sitting in my flat for hours on end, eking out a few sentences. During feverish bouts of which I will call ‘novelitis’, I would lose weight and become ill. During my marriage, I had the peculiar notion I was being unfaithful to my husband. My secret fantasy world felt more real to me than my marriage itself.

During my writing, I connected with this ‘strand’. I let it guide and fuel my writing. At times, I would lose it and the fuel would peter out, becoming tame and safe. I wanted to reconnect with this strand because of a growing addiction. This strand feels deep, powerful, compulsive, exhilarating, shameful, deathly, depressing, creepy, shocking and devastating.

Little did I realize the source of this strand.

My diaries 1977-1988

Early Mysteries

Between the ages of nine and sixteen, I had written a dozen or so children’s mysteries. These mysteries possessed haunting titles like Windswept High, Hollow Hill and The Secret of Melhound Creek. I delegated these efforts to amateur-land and stuffed them into the bottom drawer where they were almost disposed of. I believed I had come of age to be a ‘serious author’.

My children’s stories written between 1977 and 1981

Due to the magnitude of what has happened to me, the lead-up to the writing of The Lessons is vital as the events are truly strange.

Part 1 describes the prelude.

Part 1: Prelude to The Lessons

The Story of Big Untitled

My final children’s mystery was written when I was sixteen. I hadn’t given it a title, so I have called it ‘Big Untitled’ for this account.

The following is taken from my 1981 diary.

On 30 Aug 1981, a wheelchair-bound girl called Donna Jenkins who lived round the corner from us came to visit. She was fraught because she thinks she’s pregnant. (She was at this time seventeen). My twin, Eve, Donna and I sit in the garden by the swing and it is sunny. In such an idyllic setting, her next words were incongruous. Donna says she was raped by her friend’s uncle and fears her future would be ruined, (I had written in my diary).

I am struck dumb at the utterance of that awful word. The encroachment of such stuff upon my childhood home unnerved me. I was incredulous but keep my thoughts to myself. I live with five siblings and my parents in an idyllic cottage. We go to church most Sundays and I am a Sunday school teacher. I engage in kiddie pastimes and hobbies like babysitting, bike riding, story-writing, toy-making and I adore Nan who came to stay that day. I believed my childhood to be embarrassingly innocent and cosseted.

According to my diary, after Donna’s disclosure, I go upstairs and start a story in bed. Eve and Donna continue to chat in the playhouse.

For the next few days, I am working hard on my story.

On 6 Sept, I am Sunday school teaching and feel unwell. When I come home, I work hard on my story.

On 7 Sept, my cousin Dan comes. During his visit, I am upstairs working on my story and don’t come down until he is gone. Donna comes later that day. My diary doesn’t mention her rape or whether she is pregnant. I had obviously disregarded her claim and forgot all about it.

On 9 Sept, Dad wants to read my story, but I tell him ‘not till it’s finished.’ The following day, a black mood descends upon me and I quit Big Untitled for two weeks.

On 19 Sept, I have a photo taken for my art diploma course. My mug-shot appears blotchy and I dislike it. On the same day, I’m painting a tiger in the bushes for an art project. Big cats and jungle scenes had been my preoccupation for several years now and would continue to do so for years to come. The next day, I am Sunday school teaching again and I show the children round an exhibition of historic village photos. For some reason, I really dread Sunday school but Mum pressures me into going. In truth, I am ashamed of my jangling nerves. What is there to feel anxious about? I’m just teaching a few kids about the Creation and Noah’s Ark! When I return home, I am feverishly writing again.

8 Nov is Remembrance Sunday and I finally quit Sunday school, much to Mum’s disgruntlement. My nerves had finally got the better of me.

Since beginning Art College, I had two boyfriends but both affairs are fleeting due to mishaps and my crippling shyness. I suffered a terrible crush on another boy whom I barely spoke to. After a disastrous date where I lose my tickets and feel unwell, I am working on my story after a six week break. I skive off college with depression. Later, I’m singing carols round the tree with my baby sister.

It seemed part of me was averse to becoming a woman.

My story-writing episode ends on 30 Dec 1981 with the following entry: Couldn’t sleep last night and woke early so got up. Wrote lots of story in best. Mum sat by the fire and she read some of it and corrected the spelling. I’m on page 58 now! Had a giddy spell at late evening. Felt a bit sick and couldn’t sleep but feel ok afterwards.

On 31 Dec, I got up and felt awful. Things were on my mind. I tried to write story but didn’t get to it. We toasted the New Year in.

Since writing this book, Big Untitled turned up as a misfile. I was ecstatic, believing it had been lost forever. After my first read in thirty-seven years, I named this story after the old house featured: Daler Cottage. The Mystery of Daler Cottage would be my final children’s mystery story. This and my other children’s mysteries are looked at in my other book.

The End of my Kiddie Mysteries

I have forgotten about The Mystery of Daler Cottage and four months have gone by. It is 23 April 1982 and I make my first diary entry of telling my twin Eve a ‘silly story.’

This silly story is nothing like the kiddie mysteries I had been writing in my early teens. These were adult romances with a dark subtext. I believed adolescence had spurred this evolution. I was reading a few Mills and Boons books at the time, which I thought were cheesy but entertaining. I continue to tell Eve ‘crappy romances’ throughout that summer.

My diary first mentions drawing a man’s face on 12 June that same year. He was a central character to my stories. I called him John and he had broad features, shaggy dark hair and glazed eyes. His creepiness was sort of funny. My twin and I ridiculed creepy John to death. I would hide his face under her pillow or prank her by sticking it on her window. One day, the wind blew it away and the drawing ended up on next door’s lawn. I was mortified. Before long, a friend and I rang Eve from a phone box and did silly voices down the line pretending to be creepy John. By 1983, I had created another version of John, which I called Bernard. Bernard was more maverick than John with a toady grin. On 19 Sept, I drew a body to go with the Bernard head and hung it in Eve’s wardrobe. She got freaked when she saw the ‘man’ hanging behind her door. Later, Dad had stuck the head on a pole and was tapping our window with it as a joke.

On 23 Sept I told a student about my Bernard drawing. Later that day, I applied detail to Bernard. The next day (24 Sept) I got caught out in town with a gripping period pain which gave me a temperature and shaking muscles. It was one of worst I’ve ever had, I had written. I had been suffering these crippling period pains for some years now but thought nothing of them, believing I was simply an unfortunate slice of the female population.

Meanwhile, numerous plotlines assaulted me at night. They started to take over my mind and I would get depressed. On 5 Oct 1982, I wrote, I hate writing in this diary but I know I won’t give up. On Jan 1983, I was drawing another life-sized body; not Bernard’s but my own for art homework. I had stuck two pieces of A1 sheets together so the seam would have slashed through my midriff. On 14 Feb when I was due to finish this drawing, I retreated to the college library gripped by one of my vicious period pains.

I would not notice the recurrence of my period pains with drawing life-sized bodies.

The telling of my ‘crappy stories’ takes a new turn when on 6 April 1983 I hear about a derelict house at the bottom of our lane. I had seen a documentary that day called Simon’s War, a QED programme describing Simon Weston’s facial burns. I explore the place with my youngest sister but I wouldn’t return until 30 May 1986 whilst working on my second draft of The Lessons.

My John-drawings, facial disfigurements, period pains, the derelict house and Donna’s disclosure would all converge to The Lessons. I have not seen Donna in months and I had entirely forgotten about her rape story.

A Normal Life

On the face of things, my life was nothing surprising. I am in my second year of my art diploma course which starts badly due to the usual nerves. We were supposed to visit a local zoo to do preliminary drawings and I kept skiving. My parents’ difficult marriage didn’t help. Mum suffered mood swings and Dad’s mental illness brought violent outbursts. He had been out of work since I was four and had moved into the spare room to the north of our cottage. He was forever sculpting balsawood for installations and holding exhibitions in local galleries. I revered Mum who appeared to keep things together in the face of adversity. She was fiercely protective, to the point of being somewhat controlling. But I could hardly blame her, as she had Dad’s temperament to worry about. The cottage was shabby and cold in the winter and conditions cramped.

I explained my disturbed thoughts to my bumpy childhood and the belief I took after Dad. I feared I would become mentally ill like him. For this reason, I would not start a family until my mid-thirties. For now, I accepted my life as it was without question. Family ructions had become old hat and I had come to terms with my ‘plate’. Everyone has difficulties, don’t they?

Mr Krakatoa

On 10 May 1983, I became aware of a student called Mark who fancied me. He was a bit of a grunge, being tall with dark shaggy hair and broad features. I had never associated him with my John-drawings despite both bearing basic similarities. But Eve started to tease me about Mark and draws him as well. This spurs baffling trapped feelings inside of me and I tell her to stop.

Being a hobby-addict, I prove to be a highly productive art student, spewing out mountains of creations despite skiving. My bedroom was not only littered with unfinished kiddie stories and jungle paintings, but puzzles, poems, felt-tip drawings, made-up quizzes, and an astronomy project. I was obsessed with nature’s fury such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes.

It was as though I was feverishly distracting myself.

Sample pages from my colossal weather project (Feb 1982 – June 1983)

One of my biggest ventures was a weather project which I had begun on 28 Feb 1982 (superseding an earlier weather project). I would skive in the college library and cut out pictures of clouds and photocopy images of tornadoes and hurricanes. Every morning, I would tap on my barometer, take readings from a psychrometer (a wet and dry bulb that measures humidity) and write a description of the clouds. By the time I had met Mark, I had written about air masses, cloud families, climates of the world, thunderstorms, lightning and more. I savoured books bearing titles like Earth Shock, Element’s Rage and Clouds of the World. I dreamed of becoming a storm chaser.

On 13 May 1983, Mark utters his first word to me: ‘hello.’ I conjure a reply, shrinking inside but putting on my usual front. People think I’m a bit of a laugh but part of me just wants to merge into the background and hide.

Pages from my chapters on hurricanes and tornadoes

I had been working on a scorched theme for preliminary artwork. On 11 May, boils erupt on my face. Steam treatments never helped. A headache develops and my brain fogs over whilst I was recording the top 30 charts. On 14 May, I randomly start drawing toys that I had made for my baby sister three years earlier. I recall hiding them under Dad’s bed up to Christmas 1980.

When Mark spoke to me, I must have looked a mess, as I had developed a nasty cold and upset stomach too. But on 15 May, something weird happens to my weather project. I decide to include a chapter on Krakatoa – a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait. I recall being annoyed at myself. Why would I insert a chapter on volcanoes within a book about the weather?

I continue to write about Krakatoa into 2 June 1983 when I would follow this with another volcano, Santorini and finally Mount St Helen’s.

My chapter inclusion on volcanoes including Krakatoa (May 1983)

I did not realise at the time, but Mark had triggered this veer in my weather project and my selection of the scorched theme for my artwork. My subconscious had seen something I would fail to see for 33 years.

My weather project meets its end on 10 June 1983 after I had reverted back to hurricanes. I write in my diary: I woke up with terrible vertigo. Don’t know what it is. I’ve had it all my life, but it’s been extra bad lately. Even when I sit up slowly, it comes on strong. It lingers for about 10 minutes before it goes away. Had day off from college. Tried to do a bit on hurricanes (the eye) but my heart’s not in it.

Except for a few revisits in August and September, my weather project is done with. It is 200 pages long and crammed with images. I have my first date with Mark ‘Krakatoa’ on 4 July 1983. He writes silly love letters and my unexplained trapped feelings return. At first, I wanted to run away from Mr. Krakatoa, but he would become my husband in October 1987.

My Degree Years

In September 1983, I begin my Fine Art degree course in the city and I don’t see Mark for months at a time. The following three years would be the toughest of my life so far, hampered with terrible homesickness and missing my twin. I was the youngest of my year.

My opening term features a mini-foundation course focussed on printmaking and sculpture, which I was never interested in. I created a model of an eyeball exhibiting cogs at the back in order to express the fusing of the industrial with the natural. The eyeball was gross, a big blue staring thing with veins and wires. During its construction, I was struck with a mysterious sick pain that cut me down for a week. I couldn’t attribute it to my sterile pre-packed pasta of my final meal and I wasn’t actually sick, just nauseous with terrible neck ache. I soldiered on with my eyeball to completion. When I returned home half-a-stone lighter, Mum thought I had been dabbling in drugs.

The Black Panther

When I finally begin painting in the New Year of 1984, I encounter a brick wall. My opening painting is my usual jungle scene featuring big cats that I grow to dislike. On 18 Jan, I am struggling with the Black Panther’s face. Students remark on its ferocity and haunting eyes. On 19 Jan, I move onto the owl and foliage as the Black Panther glowers at me. Blotches erupt on my face again. By the 24 Jan, I write, I look like someone had stamped on my face. Skin treatments never helped as the lumps weren’t acne or blackheads, but swellings yielding nothing but clear fluid when squeezed.

Two years previously (17 Jan 1982), I had painted a large tiger’s head overlooking a pond with an owl and lots of foliage. I have no recollection of this painting but it seems to bear a startling resemblance to this one. What is this preoccupation with jungle scenes? During the painting, I report of stomach upsets, depression and a burning fantasy world that started to take over.

On 7 Feb 1984, I write, the only thing I look forward to is going to bed and thinking up stories that I would like to happen but know they won’t come true. Don’t get to sleep till early morning hours. It’s a blunt hit when the alarm brings me back to reality. On 10 and 11 Feb 1984, I have two nightmares featuring plagues and brutalised bodies. Such dreams were nothing new to me, but these distressed me greatly.

On 15 Feb, I graft the head of a leopard onto the jaguar. At the time, I’m reading Ira Levin’s trilogy: Rosemary’s Baby, Stepford Wives and A Kiss before Dying. I’m skiving in the library again.

In the meantime, my fantasy world is burning a hole in my head.

My painting of the Black Panther and Jaguar (oils 3.5x5ft Jan 1984)

During my twin’s brief visits, we buy cheap sketchbooks and cram them with drawings of John and his split-offs. Bernard now has company in Marty, Leonard, Dominic, Luke, Nurse Nadia and sinister Father Jonah. On 3 June 1984, I draw a particularly ominous character called Dean in my ‘black sketchbook’ that I reserved for these characters and I conjured tales of his relentless pursuit and roving eyes. We ridicule his stupid glower like always but Eve and I retire to bed spooked. I dispose of the portrait and never drew Dean again.

But shadows of Dean was nothing new, for on 29 Oct 1983, I got hold of Eve’s sketchbook and I tipexed the eyes of one of her Bernard drawings to make him appear ardent. It went wrong and he appeared demented instead. When Eve saw it, we were in stitches over this drawing. I continued tipexing and inking over his eyes until he mutated into an alien. I reasoned my compulsions were the result of my upbringing, Dad’s psychosis and the weird seventies’ culture. Heathcliff-like men of Poldark or Armchair Thriller must be the source of these tall, dark, tortured men that I imagined. No one I knew resembled them, so they must be fictional. I have always favoured precarious characters to safe anyway.

On 10 Nov 1983, I had a distressing dream. A big man was at my door with an ill atmosphere, nightmarish and murderous. Instead of having eyes, he had white specks that appeared to be made of cloth. He was going to get me. I awoke frightened and opened my door to let the light in.

I had just completed my gross eye sculpture and hadn’t made the connection between the white cloth, the eyeball and Bernard’s tipexed eyes.

The Face Montages

On 16 Dec 1983, I am painting my first of three ‘faces montages’ in Dad’s bedroom, which I seldom entered. This painting featured Bernard, Luke, Leonard and others. My diary reports a bad dream during the planning stage. On 14 Jan 1984 shortly after completion, I dreamt of a cat being raped. On 9 April, I am conceiving my second faces montage, this time using my own face as reference. My diary says, Got big mirror out and drew in my black sketchbook. My face came up in blotches for no reason. Put cream and cleanser on which made it worse but went down significantly after half-hour. Can’t sleep.

The following day, Put radio on and drew a bit. That’s when my face became a Medusa. Again, the swellings yielded no puss. This seems a repeat of what happened when painting the scorched theme and the Black Panther.

On 16 May, I begin painting my second faces montage featuring a sneering Luke. Also included is a man lighting the cigarette of another man, an old woman and two figures in conversation. Going to add others, I wrote. During the painting, I report of a painful, pulsating lump coming up on my left hand. A headache develops in the evening and I work hard on the painting the next day. I spend the following weekend alone in my university digs working tirelessly on this second faces montage. That night, I thought I heard someone try my bedroom door. When I looked, no one was there.

Eve visits that weekend and I surprise her with my almost-complete second faces montage. I continue the painting on the weekend of 11 June, using two mirrors to attain unfamiliar angles of my face. On 21 June I write, I was terrible last night when I just cried. The Luke figure smirks then smiles at you. It unnerves me. Since I’ve painted its eyes in, I’ve dropped my paints and spilled the water.

However, on 22 June, I am thoroughly dissatisfied with Luke and cry on the phone to Eve. In the end, I scrub the paint off and start again. I work diligently over the weekend and I report that the 22-26 June 1984 were the longest days of my life.

27 June bears an odd diary entry describing one of my unsettling dreams: The cottage is sold against my will and my family don’t belong to me anymore. I misinterpret this dream as homesickness.

6 July 1984 is the day I return home after completing my first year at City University which has been mired with depression, melancholy, health niggles and a burning fantasy world that won’t go away. I reasoned my experiences were nothing unusual being a young student miles from home and missing her twin. Art attracts students who are somewhat emotionally lopsided, doesn’t it?

On 8 July, I start my third and final faces montage featuring a poker table. Being home, I start seeing Mark Krakatoa again. I stop at his house on the 9 July with sporadic visits over the summer.

On 12 July, I am feverishly painting my poker table scene using my reflection as reference again. On 20 July, I add an extra face which might have been a female. I was reading Colleen McCullough’s The Thornbirds at the time. The scene where Mary Carson is found dead in her bed deeply distressed me.

On 24 July I complete my poker table.

Sadly, all three faces montages have gone missing after they were misplaced at the end of my second year at uni. However, I had taken photos of the poker table painting which is shown here. I was 19 when I painted it. On 25 Sept, I planned a fourth faces montage but instead veered onto idyllic garden scenes of our cottage, an odd turn in subject matter. I was reading George Orwell’s 1984 at the time.

The Poker Table (oils 2ftx18in July 1984)

Big Brother

I have now started my second year at uni and on 29 September 1984, I write my first short story since The Mystery of Daler Cottage in 1981.

I had finished reading Orwell’s 1984 on 26 Sept and wrote, it’s really affected me. The saddest story I’ve ever read. Wanted to cry all afternoon but couldn’t. I then finished writing a ‘silly story’ and posted it in Eve’s letter.

On 3 Oct, I write another ‘horrible romance’ in Eve’s letter, which becomes serialised throughout the autumn. None of these stories have survived due to my opinion of them: they possessed themes of tormented men, derelict houses, pursuit, kidnap and other trapped situations. It seemed my faces montages have been delegated to writing about the subjects.

On 8 Nov, I have a distressing drowning dream after writing into the late hours. My symptoms seemed to indicate the usual homesickness and a troubled childhood. I couldn’t explain them to anything else and so I ignored them.

By 12 Nov, my vivid fantasy world is consuming the life out of me leaving me feeling empty. I have now moved from my idyllic garden paintings onto still lives featuring toys (shown in part 9 of this book). This abrupt change in subject matter was as mystifying as my inclusion of Krakatoa in my weather project on meeting Mark. It seemed these abrupt shifts in subject matter were simply a reflection of a chaotic mind. I soon dislike my toy paintings and follow these with a new concept with my big cats theme.

Concept pen sketches of the cottage garden for paintings (summer 1984)

Nightmare Cats

On 30 Jan 1985, I have a disastrous assessment when two tutors turn my toy paintings to face the wall. I am accused of trying to be modern with my new big cats’ idea and advised to return to my idyllic garden paintings. I write in my diary, I think my paintings are shit. My fantasy world has grown to claustrophobic proportions and I am missing my twin terribly. I write to the head tutor to inform him I wish to quit the course. He calls me into his office and he talks me into staying on.

On 19 Feb I continue to develop my big cats’ concept against my tutors’ advice. An idea first conceived in June 1984, distorting big cats’ faces seemed an exciting idea.

Distorted cats’ faces based on my earlier drawings (spring 1985)

Throughout the spring of 1985, I am filling my sketchbook with contorted big cats and creating relief art from drawings I had completed in the summer of 1983.

On 19 Feb, a student remarks that my distorted cats appear violent and unsettling. I reply I want them to be disturbing with ‘ugly attractiveness’. I inserted bike reflector lights into the eyes so that they glowed in the dark. I thought nothing of my imagery as I had been studying German Expressionism and Vorticism at the time. However, I would later realise that these were not the inspirations for my artwork.

On 4 March, I order a 6.5x8ft panel for my biggest Nightmare Cats painting yet. Moments later, acute nausea like the time of my eyeball sculpture sends me home. That night, I’m awake with a nasty period pain. I don’t begin this painting for two weeks due to health niggles and depression.

Concept pen sketches for my Nightmare Cat paintings (Spring 1985)

On 23 March, Found someone had left nearly a whole packet of Marlborough cigarettes and I took it (being a thoroughly immature cow). Spent the morning in the park to collect reference on trees and on the way there took puffs at my cigarette. Decided it was a filthy habit but it made me feel a bit superior just holding one. Drew trees and took photos. I had puffed at 5 cigarettes by then. Got back. The flat is empty, so am I.

Soon after I had started smoking, I am peroxiding my hair and go full-pelt on painting my Nightmare Cats.

Looking at the bigger picture now, one cannot help but notice that something was obviously wrong with me. But in the day-to-day context, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Stuff can be explained away: teenage angst, hormones, homesickness, a troubled childhood or simply exploring artistic influences.

I go home on 21 April 1985 to find one of my terrible romances I had written the previous year. Eve suggests it could be great if I improved it and sent it to a publisher. I pause at the idea. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I had lived this claustrophobic fantasy world for years now so I might as well do something with it! Why not shape it into a novel with mass appeal?

The idea excited me.

The Illness

The day after I made the momentous decision to pen my fantasy world into a novel, I was struck down.

On 22 April 1985, I wrote, my throat came sore and my head and neck ached. Hardly slept a wink last night. Suspected I had a temperature. Never had one for years. Watched TV and started improving my story. Hopefully when it’s readable I can send it off. Only Eve knows about it.

23 April: I came down with something really fucking horrible. My throat is sore and my neck feels tense. A horrid reminder whenever I moved my neck. Have dizzy spells. Feel crap. That day, I had bought a dictionary and thesaurus. Really enthusiastic about my story but this fucking head stops me from doing anything. Watched TV with thudding headache and went to bed. The worst of my sore throat was here. Couldn’t do much to my story tonight.

24 April: My 8x6.5ft painting hits a brick wall. I couldn’t get the lid off a jar and everything seemed to go wrong. In fury I threw the glass pot filled with blue paint down the stairs. The paint splattered everywhere.

25 April: I want to abandon my Nightmare Cats painting. The crouching cat looks disturbing and compact like it weighs a ton. The other cat is descending from a tree. Most of it was from my head.

I am now writing my novel.

My Nightmare Cat paintings with 3D effects (acrylics 4x5ft March 1985)

Beginning my Novel

On 26 April 1985 I skived all day from uni, engrossed in writing my story on the coach home. Eve meets me on the other end. Her friend visits and they both plan to go jogging. Despite feeling like death, I decide to join. We jog past a pub to the east of the village then walk for miles. In the fresh air, I experience a high, resonating with my bike rides of years ago. That night I report of distressing dreams. Woke in the middle of the night with a nasty sick pain. Had to sit up for a while and it gradually went away. Don’t know what it was.

This doesn’t stop me from writing my novel. In fact, I continue in spite of everything. My novel would soon become my obsession that would take over my life.

My first draft features Marmaduke, a John-precursor who suffers acromegaly (a condition of overgrown bones like Elephant Man). He had haunted my mind during my senior school years, never twigging he was a precursor of creepy John until writing this account. Visions of this big man standing beside a railway track had recurred for some reason. Marmaduke was doomed to a tragic life in a dead-end town with no future. He has terrible acne scars earning him the name Crater-face. Where do these horrid notions come? I decided to change the story and his name. And I would change it again. And again. During the process, he would become less Frankenstein’s monster and more ‘normal’. I purchased a second-hand typewriter from my brother-in-law’s office. It was thirty years old and thudded when I pressed the keys. If only laptops existed in the eighties! I got uptight about ribbons, tipex and paper. I set myself an hour or two every day to writing my secret novel and jealously guarded this time. Soon, Eve would grow disenchanted with my compulsive novelitis. She even got annoyed and took an interest in other things. Who could blame her?

The Tunnel Mouth

I am now in my final year at City Uni. My subject matter had taken yet another turn: studio pieces sourced from onsite oil paintings of a railway tunnel overlooking a cattle gate and cornfield. Surrounded by my huge paintings in my studio space, I drew maps and sketches of my fictional place, including a railway track, woods and a derelict house. Little did I realise the railway bridge had recurred in my early children’s mysteries.

The climax of the novel is set at the foot of a railway bridge. Shortly after beginning my novel I changed Marmaduke’s name once again to Aidan. This time, the name would stick.

For ease, I have provided an outline on The Lessons:

The Lessons is a story of Laura, a young English teacher who had believed her student to be a schoolchild needing a little brushing-up on literacy. But she is shocked to discover that her subject is in fact a dyslexic thug who is part of a criminal ring headed by psychopath, Kurt who operates in a derelict house near a railway track.

My typewriter had been tapping away for weeks now. My novel is reeling out before my eyes. My exhilaration soured to despair when I saw how abysmal my writing was. The pacing of the story sped ahead like a demented train, the scenes crashing into each other. The dialogue was stiff and the plot spaghetti-thin. Worse, Aidan failed to come through how I had imagined. My impression of him was stuck in my head and wouldn’t come out. But I wouldn’t give up. My story continued to burn a hole in my head and I would write and rewrite the scenes into the night.

On moving out of Mum’s into a bedsit after graduating from City Uni, the tenant downstairs complained about the thudding. I was mortified, as I didn’t want anyone to know about my novel. I soon had this crushing sensation of every word representing a brick to a huge pyramid and I was at the bottom.

But Aidan and my storylines wouldn’t let me go. Images continued to flash at night; action sequences obscured the day. They seemed fantastic when I was watching them in my mind’s eye, but turned to drivel the moment I laid pen to paper. The Lessons was rooted in my John drawings. His glower must signify a wretched and tormented life. I asked myself, what would cause such a glower? This question spurred me to insert my own difficulties into his life; my thoughts, my fears.

Isn’t that what authors do?

I had inserted myself behind the man’s face.

Part 2: The Beginning

With the prelude described, it is time to move on to my novel, The Lessons.

At the beginning, young teacher, Laura leaves home after a family disagreement and bumps into an old school friend. She is like the author who leaves a real place and enters a fictional one as an avatar. The avatar-analogy is key when understanding the nature of The Lessons. Laura is in a sense, ‘me.’

The Undercurrent

What I didn’t realise was that this novel holds a message. During the writing, I was blind to it. Only on seeing the message years later, would I notice an undercurrent running throughout. It is like watching reflections upon the water’s surface only to notice objects at the bottom. A different mode of focus is required. Since noticing this undercurrent, my novel doesn’t feel mine anymore. It has been written by another force that I didn’t know existed. My novel is in fact, two novels: a sunlit one and a shadowed one. For this reason, I have supplied elements at the end of each chapter. These are: ‘diary entries’ and ‘author’s notes.’

The ‘diary entries’ inform upon my life whilst I was writing this novel. This in itself tells a story. My entries are abridged, omitting noisy life events centring only upon the silence of my novel and my secret world.

The ‘author’s notes’ draw attention to the unsettling