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1990 - 1995

My first attempt at a novel, was completed in 1993 when I was twenty-one years old.

Laid Bare was a full length novel set in London chronicling the birth, life and death of a short but revelatory relationship between young adults, Gabriel and Caroline - a relationship which effectively ends their youth. (Buoyed by my father’s enthusiasm (he hadn't read it) I entered the novel in the Vogel. Needless to say...) 

Reading parts of Laid Bare now, after all these years, I can see that it is utter drivel. Self-indulgent, crude and dull. But it was a completed work. And any writer will tell you how important finishing a project is. It would be another ten years until I completed another novel. But through all those intervening years, I knew it was something I could achieve, as I had already done so. And that was something.

Laid Bare

CHAPTER ONE                   

I was oblivious to all. I boarded the tube train, letting my gaze fade in and out of focus on the people who had jammed themselves into the carriage. The train jolted in to movement, waking me momentarily. I saw that the cold white light of the carriage penetrated the skin of the passengers causing their faces to seem wax like. Theirs bodies were too close to me. Their many smells. All were swaying with the carriage, crowding me. Too many people. Then dark.  The lights went out as the train roared on through the tunnel. I could see nothing, and understood little. I was pushed further towards the carriage wall. The low curved roof caused me to be uncomfortable, forcing me to bend my neck. I felt a foreign warmth on my arm. 

Then light again. My eyes fell upon a woman who I was practically standing on. She was looking up at me. She seemed to be talking to me. With difficulty I focussed my attention on somebody other than myself and heard her say. ‘It’s crazy to see you again.’ I jerked towards her with the grace of a commuter. ‘I never see people twice on the tube. I saw you yesterday. Do you remember?’ I stared into her eyes; they faltered, looked down, then shot back. ‘You’re different to them,’ she said and motioned to the people in the carriage. She smiled awkwardly, waiting for me to speak. 

There were words but I was unable to release them from my mind. I smiled the best I could. Then, as the train curved its way into the central station, she balanced herself on my arm and asked ‘Do you want to go for drink?’ Her words were so clean, honest. ‘Yes’ is such a clean word but one I could not find in my cluttered mind. Some safety barrier shot up and I instinctively refused her invitation. Her eyes revealed her predicament to me. ‘Some other time,’ I mumbled apologetically, embarrassed and ashamed of my hopelessness. I watched her get off the train at the central station. Only after she disappeared into the crowd did I click. ‘There would be no other time.’ I felt myself get off the train and follow in her direction, but, as with all of my actions during that time, I hesitated and lost her in the crowd. 

Unlike the rest of my failures this one sparked something inside, a new flame appeared, a determination to succeed, to break away from my child-like self. I took on a new courage. I began to feel confident. What she had said to me, embraced me. I had been noticed. I had felt I was transparent, a puff of smoke in the form of a body. I was moved by my intestine-like brain propelling me with its expelled flatulence. Now I had been noticed, I took form, I became real. It was like I had been wrenched from the puddle I had been drowning in for so long. I wanted to find her - to find out what she saw in me. She had recognised me. Something I had been striving to accomplish, but had never achieved.  

So, I had gone at the same time, the following day, to Waterloo station. I went, with a one in eight million chance, to see her again. I was leaning against the bannister. I had to see her again. I could sense it would not be considered normal to wait. A stranger would only have to ask me why I was waiting and I would either be forced to lie or break down. I couldn’t face asking myself. I acted only on the sensations. These sensations led me to the station. I was lured by hope. To me the situation was insane. I could feel the contradictions of my mind washing into my sanity like waves, slowly undermining its stability. But such circumstances demanded a touch of that insanity. On a tiny thread of reason I stood facing the exit, scanning the faces with my eyes. It was peak hour, hundreds of faces poured forth and all I knew was one of them would be my salvation. I knew it was imperative to wait. Imperative. I started to interrogate myself, questioning why I had come to such extremes.    

My eyes were recording each face that came up out of the tube station. An hour passed, the number of people was declining. Was I to wait all night? I searched myself for answers. What was it I felt for this woman? I started to realise that I had been acknowledged - did it matter by whom?

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