If you create a recurring idea or motif in your narrative, then the motif gives your writing a natural structure and helps your reader to orientate themselves through your story or recollections. A motif acts like a ‘glue’ to keep your narrative coherent and structured clearly. So, you might create a story around family meals or football victories or broken bones or friends. This helps with the chronology too and also might reveal the transformation of your narrator or protagonist, seemingly naturally.
In this set of ‘fragments’, I revisited several memories through the motif of ‘hands’ that seemed important and resonant over time.
Hands: Fragments.
One.
I could begin with my first teacher with her flaming red hair, a son called Edward who was in my class and her farm’s land rover that defied the Buxton snow. Mrs Pearce would pat me on the head, ruffle my hair and call me Janny Sunny as she circulated the classroom chanting vowel sounds.
Edward was left-handed and I was spellbound. I would watch him slowly forming letters with a pencil in his rough book and the hairs on my hairs would stand up.
At Christmas, I fell ill with bronchitis and stayed for a treat at my godmother’s. Mrs Pearce and Edward battled through the snow in the green land rover with a Cadbury chocolate machine that I could feed pennies.
When I found out my first child was a boy, I went back to Janny Sunny and tousled hair and named him Edward. He too has a weakness for hands in his hair.
Some things endure.
Two.
We sat in a row of four so we could share the popcorn. Clara remained unconvinced that she was getting her equal share and kept nudging me for the first hour until the dinosaur chase and the girl in the nightie started screaming. By the time King Kong was forced to leave his island, all the popcorn was gone, Clara was on my knee shouting ‘ No, no, no !’ at the mean men on the screen and I was brazenly weeping into my daughter’s hair.
At the male end of the row, Edward and his friend Callum played with Yugioh cards and pretended we were nothing to do with them.
But all cards were abandoned when Kong broke free of his manacles in New York. He starting rampaging on Broadway throwing aside fake blondes like flies, in search for his beloved Anne. Not this one. Not that one. Kong only wanted his baby. Imagine that I thought. Nothing compares to you. Oh, the passion of the guy.
And then suddenly there she was. The world was broken around her, but Anne, floodlit with love, stumbled towards him like a miracle. We cheered! Kong’s girl climbed into his hand and the audience melted. The lovers discovered Central Park’s ice rink. Kong got to waltz with his girl.
His moment in time.
Twenty minutes left and Kong was on top of the Empire State building brushing away planes like gnats. He held his hand to his chest We wept. Yes, Anne understood. ‘Beautiful’ she said. And he lowered his immense head. Yes. She had climbed to the top of the world just to be with him and his monumental, raging love.
When he fell from the Empire State Building we knew the world was wrong and their love was right, and the four of us left the cinema all holding hands, raging inside, believing in King Kong forever.
Three.
At first, there were just two. My father’s stubby hands did things and then suddenly could do nothing at all. We were a family of season watchers for whom summer could never be too long or too hot. Autumn and winter invaded his world and his fingers would slow down, freezing together like bunches of grotesque stalactites. I can still see his hands like stone claws in the air trying to make a point at breakfast, angry at the papers, failing to lift a cup. I reach across and sugar his tea. The sound of the spoon on porcelain.
Sta -lac-tites, I spell the word slowly bringing the past near. I am small again on a school trip, staring at cavern after cavern of limestone contortions, numb and ridged to the touch. I trail my hand against them to be sure. I felt unexpectedly sick.
Years later, I watched my father’s hands and faced up to the metaphors. I thought of Castleton with its ancient minerals and of the deadly secret deposits that were eroding away his movements and his future.
Seasons became irrelevant. His saucepans were too heavy. His coats were impossible to put on. He would hold out his arms like a child when he wanted to go out and he would smell of liniment. We bandaged his hands to support them; we teased him that looked like a Dr Who villain.
My brother and I became conscious of the weight of everything. I would pick up objects at night even by myself, try handles on doors, test locks. The world appeared hostile, full of foreign things: keys, shirt buttons, books, letters.
The Doctors would try new approaches – of course, they would. . They were aware he was still a young man and wanted a full life. They smiled. No awkwardness here. Miss Taylor will write soon. Then they offered a neat strip of perfectly new tablets. Keep a record, please. We will monitor your progress with interest.
Take care.
