A new book by Val P Gould to be launched shortly.
Confusion and loneliness. A scene which triggers a fragmented memory.
What is she doing there and why can she not recall those lost years? Did she have a family somewhere, and friends? Where are they now?
All is a jumble of unanswerable questions. Maybe it will all come back to her, maybe not.
I was born. My mother, Cynthia gave birth to me, with some difficulty, or so she often reminded me, at approximately midnight and probably in a thunderstorm or hurricane or maybe both… Either way I quickly interpreted her message as being that she would rather it had not happened irrespective of the place, time, or weather conditions. Consequently my early experiences of motherly love and nurture were zero.
I collapsed into uncontrollable giggles one evening thinking of Mother. Finally getting my breath, I explained that she would probably have a stroke if I told her I was not only mixing with the working classes but sleeping with them. Little did I know that she was already dead.
I received the ‘phone call later that night after Dennis had left. Dad sounded demented with grief and I felt absolutely nothing.
It becomes apparent early on in her story that Stevie is strong. By necessity or by nature? She works hard to get to the top in a male dominant profession and succeeds.
However, an unexpected invitation to a celebratory party leads her into a spiral of intrigue which alters her whole life.
Review by Cheryl Culver PPPS RBA
Val once again demonstrates her skills as a writer.
She has an amazing capacity to create believably ‘real’ people with all their idiosyncrasies and to weave them into a story which encompasses mystery, love, loss, fear and laughter. Stevie’s story begins with a deceptive light-heartedness, even the account of her childhood is tongue in cheek. Her resilience enables her to maintain this, but for how long?
Val’s stories are emotionally deep and at times heart-rending. However, she manages to seamlessly combine these dark emotions with wit and cheeky passages which make one smile or sometimes squirm at their audacity. The child was called Jess though I doubt he liked the name very much when it gradually wove its way to being Jesus, often followed by ‘Christ what have you eaten now?!’ A bowel movement later and Frances’ earring, as good as new, once sterilised, again hung gracefully from her ear despite Christabel’s comment “Those are shit ear rings!”
Val transports us into nature: the scents of a pine forest, the dark shadows on the rugged cliffs interspersed with a myriad of colours when the sun breaks through. The deep dark depths of a cold fjord or the beauty of reflections on the mirror-like surface of a lake, somehow encompassing the mood of the protagonist.
She perfectly expresses a woman’s dilemma of how to achieve all she wants to achieve in the time allotted.
I enjoyed my solitude but always at the back of my mind was the image of my son or daughter trotting along beside me on a little pony, he or she would notice the same things as me, the fi rst bluebells, the almost invisible tree creeper camouflaged against the bark of an oak. We would laugh and maybe have a pretend race, where I always lost, I would say I love you and he or she would say I love you too Mummy.
And the sarcasm:
How my father must have loved his golf to drive all this way to hit a ball into the rough. I went with him just the once to our local golf course when I was home from sixth form college for the summer. I surmised that he was doing what they call ‘bonding’. It was the biggest laugh and the biggest bore I’d ever experienced, in fact to this day that still stands. He was rubbish, tore up the turf when teeing off, missed the green by the length of the M25 plus a bit, lost his ball in the sandpit or whatever they call it, oh yes, the bunker, and generally made an absolute fool of himself.
And the ability to laugh at oneself:
I had a reply by return. I held the envelope tentatively between my fingers hoping it hadn’t been sprayed with some Russian nerve agent, although the postman looked pretty healthy when he delivered it so I assumed it was safe.
Light-heartedness:
“Oh you poor love, (that doesn’t sound like me! It must be my guilty conscience) stay there and I’ll make a cup of tea.” I bent forward as I was passing and gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head much the same way I kiss Tommy, and was rewarded with a sweet smile. The only thing missing was a wagging tail, perhaps I should have rummaged his ears and tickled his tummy.
And the pathos:
How can a woman give birth to an only child and cast it from her mind like a bad menstrual period? My memories of my own childhood where I had been as near to invisible as possible without burying me in the back garden, would never leave me I was sure.
Stevie is often intolerant and thoughtless, finds it difficult to trust, she has a cynically wicked sense of humour, she longs for love but finds reciprocating it difficult. She is real: as are all the characters in Val’s books. She reminds us that reality and mystery, grief and happiness, love and cruelty, walk in tandem in all our lives. Life is not merely black and white. People are able to laugh even when in the depths of despair, cry when they are happy, joke when frightened. The human psyche is not clear cut, and neither is one’s passage in life.
Val P Gould Writer 