Here are some examples of my writing some of which have been published or broadcast. See Biography for details.

 Garden

The garden is simple to understand. The brightness. The sunlight. The purple plums ripening and falling. The apples still with white pips. The flowers for butterflies are blossoming but no butterflies yet. The garden seems easy and light but the house is dark.

She planted bulbs, seeds and nuts and subsequently flowers and trees sprouted in their places. Not so straightforward in the house.

The rooms are confusing. They seem to change. Many of them contain broken furniture. Ivy covered one of the windows in the attic and grew through a sharp split in the glass. Sometimes extra rooms appear and have to be explored. Her house is uncomfortable because it is uncertain. She never knows what she will find. She tries to be optimistic. Exploring can be exciting. Something wonderful might be found, something unimagined and undreamed. But the uncertainty is wearing her out. She might find something so terrifying that it could never be lost or forgotten.

Last week another room appeared. Its walls were cracked and the paint was peeling. There was a black mould in one corner and the woodwork was rotten. The cracked panes of glass in the high window threatened to fall into the room. Unidentified insects lived in and under the floorboards. Scuttling.

Downstairs was reasonably predictable and sometimes even comforting. The furniture was familiar and some pieces even held memories. But upstairs was becoming a real threat. The windows from which she used to be able to see her garden were becoming increasingly overgrown. She never knew what she would find when she opened a door.

There must be a final room. Could someone be found to help her to repair and explore?

In the garden it is warm, free and relaxed. Somehow without responsibility but with surprise at nature. The small seeds planted in the early spring are now fully grown and flowering. She is always surprised when she looks at the trees she planted last year and sees how much they have grown. The seeds, the chestnuts, were so smooth and dark. It was a pleasure to hide them beneath the soil. She remembers the excitement when the first shoot appeared.

When she is in the garden she can sometimes hear the distant voices of her neighbours. She has seen a bee alight on the fence and make a scratching sound on the wood. She tries not to look back at the house.

If she does, she can see the red brick and part of the wall and the wooden fence surrounding the remainder of the garden. The door to the garage is shut so nothing can get in. She feels safe and warm. The plants are predictable even thought she doesn’t know much about gardening. Friends have given her seeds, bulbs, cuttings and small trees that grow where she plants them. Not knowing many of their names relaxes her responsibility towards them. The seasonal cycle brings comfort. The predictability and regularity of the plants as they sprout, flower, make seeds then die or rest for the winter. She is regularly, gently and pleasantly surprised.

Occasionally a cat wanders in over the fence. This is a local cat that seems to know the area better then she does. He lies on the roof of the shed sunning himself. He provides a link with the surrounding gardens. He is peaceful, quiet and soft, even silent, on his padded feet. He moves around the garden by a familiar route – his presence a reminder of others.

The soil comforted her. Digging out the weeds and brambles gave her a sense of purpose and satisfaction, while preventing her from looking back at the dark windows of the house.

Trying not to face the house, she would always mow the lawn from side to side. Although she usually couldn’t see through the windows anyway she avoided moving directly towards the building. When she was planting or digging or dead heading the flowers she would try to face away from the windows in case something, some movement, might catch her eye.

Working contentedly in the garden for hours she would only become uneasy and apprehensive as it became time to go indoors.

Some rooms were reasonably constant and regular. But occasionally, even in the more stable rooms, new spaces might appear. These would usually be quite small and easily explored and then often even understood. These extra spaces, small at first, appeared in cupboards or under the stairs. Extra drawers, cabinets or shelves were almost welcome, as extra storage spaces were always useful, but lately they had been getting bigger and housed an atmosphere of foreboding.

When she had had a good rummage in a small new space, tidied it up a bit, perhaps scrubbed or painted it, the strangeness dissipated. But she always had to gather herself for exploration – and she wasn’t always up to it. If the space could be defined as a room or a cupboard there was a possibility of exploration but sometimes the space would have no boundary. No walls or fences. No ceilings or floors. No possibility of understanding.

But really, if she was being honest, even the extra small cupboards and shelves and rooms were too much. She rarely knew, as she moved around the house, what would be found in any room. A room might develop an extra door with the possibility of a new room beyond. The size of her house had become indeterminate.

When moving around the house, she would always try to face the garden. When vacuuming, she would always go back and forth across the carpet parallel to the window, turning her head to see the light and to be reassured by her trees. Even when she was upstairs she could sometimes catch a glimpse of their top branches and leaves. A tree or flower never appeared unexpectedly – either she had planted it or it had seeded itself. This was her anchor and stability. This was the knowledge that kept her going. Her garden was stable and understandable and had a stout fence. It remained the same size – the fence enclosed a safe and comfortable amalgamation of lawn, plants and trees.

Anchoring her mind to the garden, she tried not to think about the house but she knew she would have to come to terms with it.

Recently a long corridor appeared beyond the spare bedroom. She had gone in to the room to do a bit of ironing and had found the foul dark and cold space. No doors or windows. Perhaps it had always been there, and was part of the past, but she hadn’t been able to see it before. Perhaps the long thin space held echoes of others. Deciding not to explore it, she quickly left. Ironing undone. Downstairs and into the garden to calm herself. She could rarely see the extra rooms from outside and could see no trace of the corridor from the garden.

The next time she entered the room she was very agitated. The dampness and cold had spread into the spare room from the corridor so she had no option but to explore. Corridors usually led somewhere or linked things. Perhaps it would take her somewhere. To another part of the house. She had no way of knowing where it might lead. No way of knowing. But it could not become familiar, become part of her house, unless she explored it. The corridor, being bounded on two sides by walls, having a floor and a ceiling, held only two options. To go forward or to go back. Frightened of what she might find, she hesitated.

Yesterday she had gone upstairs to her bedroom to sleep. As she lay dozing she saw, to her horror, the corner of her room begin to disintegrate. First the paint cracked and gradually the wall crumbled inwards revealing a huge, open, unbounded space beyond. Once she stepped into it there was only the ground. Even the opening through which she had come became indistinct. Could she return to the familiar? The only sure thing was the ground but it wasn’t even a floor. It there were ceilings or walls she couldn’t see them. She could see no fences, doors or gates. She floundered, panic stricken and breathless. She gathered herself and located a familiar wall. She followed it until she found a room, exhausted.

She knew she would have to investigate. A routine was impossible with the unfamiliar. Routine kept her from panic.

But, for the moment, she returned to the garden – to the light and to the certainty – to the regular repeat patterns in the flower heads. To the inevitability of a few weeds – to the colours and the soft-footed cat. She would dig for a while to gather her strength. She got courage from the calmness of the heavy clay. She collected stones and pebbles from the earth and ordered them on the pavement.

Her first instinct when planting had been to place seeds and bulbs in ordered rows or even squares. She resisted this temptation but still the garden was an ordered space. Each plant had its own symmetry and calmness. Nothing haphazard. She sometimes felt as if she could see the trees growing – their branches calmly elongating and their leaves gently unfurling at their own predictable pace. Weeds and slugs could be contained.

She always knew exactly what she would find when she peered closely at a flower. Even an earwig or a bee didn’t surprise her. The ordered circles of petals and sepals, the dependable stamen. The colours of the flowers also had their own harmony.

Inside the house – chaos accepted and expected. Unavoidable. The house held a dread, a desolation, an uncertainty and an isolation that was impossible to admit. New rooms and decay continued to appear.

In a new attic she found trunks full of scrap-books, letters, loose photographs and albums. She read all the correspondence but there was no reference to any peculiarities. Putting some of the old photographs up around the living room she could feel past links more strongly. Looking hard at the images of her ancestors might explain the house and make some sense of what was going on. How many of these people had lived in the house? Had they seen any new rooms or corridors? Seeking knowledge of the house from the still faces she frantically searched the cold photographs for a hint. No hint appeared. Nothing.

She had to go back to the garden. The garden was a safe place. It did not judge her. She could be herself in the garden. It surrounds her with growth, order, regeneration and continuity, all of which she craves as a barrier against chaos. Continuity is what she seeks. It is a hedge against death. Is this why old family albums and letters have been so fascinating? They provided a link with the past which carried a reassurance of a possible link with the future, as if to circumvent death.

The garden surrounds her. It can even come quite close to her body and become a shield. A defence against reality. But a gathering dread inhabits the house.

In the garden she has power and control. She can shape the flowerbeds – choose seeds and bulbs – decide where to plant – work to make the lawn free of weeds. The garden is calm, light and unencumbered. Even if she neglects the garden it can easily be brought back to order, but she dare not neglect the house.

When she has explored a new space, control may return but she never knows when further space may arrive. Her power is shortlived. Drawn to the house, she knew she could never live anywhere else. It was filled with coldness and dread, particularly the new spaces, and she knew she would never be content until she had explored the whole house and it potential. She knew she could not fully relax until she learned to consider each new room.

Things might be better when she needed neither the garden nor the house. It she was at peace with each new space as it arrived. If there was only unbounded space where there was nothing to fear. Nothing to find. No disorder. No chaos. No order. Nothing. Has she to let go of the house and its chaos and constant uncertainty? Must she leave the calm and predictable garden? Maybe she will not find the peace of the space unless she abandons both the garden and the house.

This morning, she will find a new gate in the garden.

© Sheila Gorman