Chapter 4 &5 Lexington: Anatomy of a novel

 

Chapter 4

Geneva, Switzerland

November

 

 

I’VE FOUND MY British soldier. At first, I named him James Hathaway. Then I watched the British television series, Lewis, where James Hathaway was a detective. I wanted to keep the name James because it was my father’s. I changed my James’s last name to Holloway.

 

Matching a character’s name to time and place can be a challenge. I couldn’t have any early American woman named Madison or Mackenzie, for example. I find names in graveyards, telephone books, lists such as those giving favorite names for any given year.

 

There are also national considerations. Simon might be common in England, but not in America. Hamish definitely has a Scottish flavor. I decided on Gareth for one character because I know a number of Brits about the age of my character with that name.

 

For this book, the Mayflower passenger list was a help for Boston names in 1774.

 

I’ve wanted to use my grandmother’s name Florence for a French character. Flow-Rence would be the pronunciation the French way. I don’t yet know the part Florence or Flow-Rence will play. Maybe it will come to me some sleepless night.

 

YouTube has some great historical documentaries. There was a series that I watched about bread making at different times throughout history. There were other documentaries about bread making featuring the Romans, Vikings, and peasants, as well more scientific ones about the chemistry of bread making.

 

Watching them made my mouth water for freshly made bread. When we’re in Argelès, we can wander around the corner for bread still warm from the oven. In Geneva there’s an excellent bakery about a five-minute drive from the studio.

 

I’ve begun to create James Holloway’s life.

 

Where should he come from? Because of the pandemic, I can’t visit the UK. One friend suggested Richmond. Then I thought of Ely where I researched Murder in Ely. The members of the historical society helped me with that location for the book. I toured Oliver Cromwell’s house and spent hours in the local museum. A known setting is a definite timesaver.

 

In the case of Ely, I have to be aware that 245-plus years can produce massive changes in a place. Also, my artist friend Pauline, who still lives there, can verify certain facts if I can’t locate the answers elsewhere.

 

Some writers have their characters completely worked out. I have a form that I give in writing seminars for aspiring writers to help them develop a character. I’ve used it, but with James, I just write, creating his life as I go. He will reveal himself.

Chapter 5

Ely, England

February 1773

 

 

 

JAMES HOLLOWAY PULLED an armful of faggots from the shed behind his family bakery. He estimated they had enough for another week before needing to forage for more in the woods outside Ely.

 

Too bad it was so time consuming, but broken branches on the ground from winter storms were free. If they bought wood from Jonathan Herrick, it would rob them of some of their profits. When the damned rain stopped for more than a couple of hours, they would go to the woods and restock before they ran out.

 

No, not they. Him. His older brother William gave James the chores he himself didn’t want to do.

 

His brother hated leaving the bread baking to James, claiming he never added the right amount of salt or flour. He didn’t knead it long enough. The loaves weren’t quite regular. The oven cooled too quickly. According to William, only he and sometimes his wife Alice could turn out the quality bread that made their bakery successful. It didn’t hurt that theirs was the only bakery in Ely.

 

From under the shed roof, James stared at the second-floor window that peeked out between the half timbers where he lived over the bakery.

 

In his imagination he could still hear the screams of his late wife Bess bringing their daughter into the world. The baby had not lived long enough to scream even once.

Rain pelted down. Tiny rivers filled the ruts between the shed and house. The Fens hadn’t flooded this year, but if rain continued it would happen. Again.

 

James wished he had the courage to throw himself in the River Ouse. He had gone so far as gathering rocks for his pocket to guarantee that he would sink.

 

With Bess gone, he had little to live for.

 

People said men die in battle. Women die in childbirth. Three other neighborhood women had not survived the births of their fifth, second and eighth children, respectively in the last year.

 

He’d felt sad when they died. They had been neighbors since he was a little boy starting his apprenticeship under his parents’ instructions. The women rested forever in the Cathedral burial ground along with his Bess. All had died before her.

 

He never thought it would happen to her. She had been too strong. Why he thought that his wife would be different from all the other women who died in childbirth, he didn’t know. Had she lived she would have been 22 next month, the same age as he was now.

 

He often dreamed of Bess’s last moments. He’d been called into the room where she lay on blood-soaked sheets. All she said was, “I’m sorry.”

 

At least his brother wouldn’t mock him for the tears running down his face. Rain would mingle with them.

 

He found the cloth that they kept in the shed for days like this and wrapped it around the faggots before dashing across the yard.

 

In the bakery his brother William paused from scooping foam from the beer before pouring it into a wooden trough where the bread would be mixed. Not only did the beer give their bread a special taste, it helped it rise.

 

“It took you long enough,” William said.

 

“Can you help me get this bag of flour down?” Alice, William’s wife, pointed to the sack on one of the upper shelves over the mixing trough. She was forever diffusing tension between the brothers.

 

William was two years older than James. The other three surviving children of the ten his mother had given birth to had been girls. They were married into other local families where they now worked. One was married to the shoemaker. One had become a farmer’s wife and the third had married the baker in Little Thetford, three miles away.

 

The rest of the morning the two men worked without speaking: mixing flour into beer foam, kneading the dough, letting it rise, punching it down, heating the brick oven with the faggots and then cleaning out the ash. They shaped the dough into round loaves.

 

James didn’t need to think. He worked automatically as his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had done. Maybe even longer than his great-grandparents. He didn’t know any other life or even if any other life was possible. As a small boy of seven, he, like William before him, had begun to work in the bakery before and after school.

 

They had gone to the village school to learn to read, write and handle the math necessary to run the bakery. James had loved school: his parents had allowed him to go three years longer than William, who had declared being in the classroom was a waste of time.

 

After school, James would be sent into the village with the loaves still warm in a twig basket. Most villagers were their customers. Three times a week he went into the countryside where there were no bakeries, and the farmers were far too busy to bake their own bread most of the year.

 

Today was one of the days he would visit villagers. Considering the weather, he was not looking forward to being drenched to the skin. If he suggested to William that he not go or that William take his place, his brother would have a tantrum and throw things.

 

James noticed that when William threw things, he was careful not to break anything.

 

Note: The full novel and other D-L Nelson novels can be purchased from Amazon and other on-line book sellers. Check out her website at www.dlnelson7writer.com

 

Christmas/Solstice/Advent Calendar

 

December 6th is St. Nicholas day when children in some countries put their shoes outside and St. Nicholas fills them. (I'm writing this on 8 December.)

It was also day six to open our Advent Calendar to reveal another Auer chocolate. As Rick put on his gloves, hat and Sherlock's leash, I opened the little box, bit half of the chocolate and put the other half in his mouth. As good as Auer chocolates are indoors, the flavor is even stronger in the cold.

I spied the calendar in the window of Auer's Chocolate well over a decade ago. It's my favorite chocolaterie. Walking in, I'm surrounded by the aroma of chocolate. The case is full of all types of small squares of chocolate. Each is something you savor - no swallowing one after another as one might with say M&Ms. I prefer to hold it in my mouth and letting it melt as slowly as possible. Even after it's gone, the memory of the taste lingers.

When American diplomat John Kerry is in Geneva, it is said he always goes to Auer's. I don't know if it is true or not, but as a Bostonian living on Beacon Hill  ('m a former Bostonian too and that city always will be in my heart) it is the quality he would appreciate.

Each year I bring out the red boxes and with the exception of two years, trek to Auer's to buy 24 different black chocolates. I take them home and with great tenderness fill each box. On the night of the 24th when all the boxes are empty, I will take the calendar and return it to its safe place ready for another year.

That doesn't mean I won't shop at Auer's when I walk by.

Note: Tomorrow I will publish chapter 4 of Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel.

 

Chapter 3: Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel

 Note: I have found my subplot. Don't worry I'll get to James and his experiences from being a baker to being in 10th Regiment of Foot and taking part in the early days of the American Revolution.

 

 

Chapter 3

Boston, Massachusetts

April

 

 

“I THINK IT’S bloody hypocritical.” Daphne Andrews looked in the closet for her jacket. She’d only lived in the apartment for forty-eight hours. Between movers and staff, everything they had brought from London had been put somewhere, location yet to be determined.

 

They hadn’t been installed at the British Consulate General’s home, where they should be living. A fire, two weeks before they had arrived for the assignment, had made the place inhabitable. Repairs were estimated to take at least three months. If American workmen were like British, Daphne wasn’t counting on their time estimate.

 

The Consulate had scurried around to find this Commonwealth Avenue, four-bedroom flat in a brick building located in the neighborhood Bostonians called Back Bay. In the 1600s it had been underwater or, so she had been told at the briefing for her and her husband.

 

The flat, like the official residence, had come furnished with everything imaginable, including four pizza cutters. Who needed four pizza cutters?

 

The flat covered the second floor of the building. Each room was larger than her basement studio in Edinburgh where she’d lived before marrying Gareth two months ago. While waiting for their transfer, she’d moved to London. 

 

From the little she’d seen of Boston, she thought she’d enjoy their time there.

 

This apartment was four times larger than Gareth’s London flat in a modern building with square, uninteresting rooms. These rooms had character with high ceilings, moldings and bay windows bathed the rooms in light. A fireplace with a marble mantle might take the chill off the room on a cool April evening. 

 

Whoever readied the apartment for them had prepared logs and kindling for a fire. All they needed was a match from the box to the right of the basket containing more logs.

 

Looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows she saw three- and four-story brick apartment buildings from converted mansions. The trees on the center grass strip dividing the street had not begun to unfurl. Why should they? It was still bloody cold for April.

 

Boston reminded her a bit of some sections of Edinburgh, which she missed. If Gareth hadn’t been appointed Consulate General after the last one dropped dead of a heart attack, they might still be there waiting for his next overseas assignment, and they would have continued with their commuting relationship rather than marry. Training from London to Edinburgh or vice versa on weekends had been the norm in their nine-month relationship.

 

He thought he would be assigned to some African country or even the boondocks in the United States. Daphne knew if she married a diplomat she would need to get used to many different places and cultures. Moving periodically to God-knows-where would be the norm in her marriage. Part of her was thrilled at the challenge and adventure; part of her worried she would miss the rich cultural life offered by places like London or Edinburgh. 

 

For the first assignment as a couple, she wasn’t worried about finding culture in Massachusetts. Boston had theaters, museums and forty-four universities.

 

Some of her friends thought it was fabulous, adventurous, amazing. Others wondered how she would be able to create a stable family life. So did Daphne.

 

Nine months ago, she hadn’t even known Gareth. They had met by accident, literally. He had bumped into her on Princes Street, knocking her over. He apologized, claiming he’d been looking at the bagpiper, dressed in a kilt and playing “Amazing Grace.”

 

 Gareth offered to buy her coffee and a scone.

 

He’d been in Edinburgh on a government errand. She was drawn to him in a way that she’d never been drawn to any other man.

 

She had expected that eventually she would find someone, maybe another historian like herself, and end up living near her parents in the same section of Edinburgh where she’d grown up. She wasn’t panicking as she approached thirty that she wasn’t married, engaged or living with someone. It would happen someday … or not. 

 

Except it had happened, and here she was in Boston with a challenging new role as the wife of the head of the Boston British Consulate. There would be many events where she would be hostess or required to appear. Today wasn’t one of them.

 

“You’re going to a ceremony that celebrates our loss of thirteen colonies. What you should say is good riddance.”

 

Gareth frowned. “I thought you loved history?”

“I do, but I’m not sure I want to see a lot of fake British soldiers get beaten by the rag-tag rebels.” She half smiled. “It might be fun if this year the rebels lost and we Brits won.”

 

Gareth frowned. “Daphne, as my wife, you have to watch your tongue.”

 

Daphne found her jacket. “Go. I’m going to watch the Boston Marathon.”

 

The book is available on Amazon and other on-line book sellers in paperback or ebook.

Christmas/Solstice decorating

Usually we don't decorate until the solstice. Our trees come from the local florist, Galdric. This year he wasn't selling regular trees, but smaller ones in pots, a living tree. We always bought a table tree in case Sherlock thinks we had installed an indoor toilet for him.

How wonderful. 

I like the idea of having a living tree. Other years, I've gathered the needles and thrown them into the river, a ceremonial burial of sorts, a return to nature. Now we can put the tree outside and hopefully next year it will be our tree again.

Sunday, Rick and I put on our traditional Christmas hats, played Christmas carols and brought down our decorations from the closet.

Most of the decorations were painted by my daughter and I when she was three. Over the years some have been added, gifts from friends. A couple were dated and he mentioned they were 40 to 50 years old. They've hung on a lot of trees over the years.
 

Some tough decisions had to be made on what decorations to use. Size became a major factor, but then we also decided to put some of the bigger ones on our front door. Other families on the street have also put up decorations. Most of our street traffic is on foot. Sherlock will guard the decorations.

Lastly, I hung the stockings Llara embroidered for Rick and I. Mine she did a lifetime ago when we still lived on The Riverway in Boston. She did one for herself too, but switched who would get which one when my Japanese Chin Albert peed on the one intended for her. He was house trained but it was during a bad snowstorm, and Albert hated going out in the snow. Of course it was well washed before she presented the stocking to me.

This year, since neither of us can think of anything we want or need, we decided to limit our gifts to the book we give one another on Christmas Eve before going to bed to read them. This year, we may add to the Icelandic tradition of including hot chocolate. As for gifts, I have everything I want and am blessed with my life.

I will do a traditional dinner having cranberry sauce and pumpkin from the now defunct American store in Colligny, Switzerland stashed in my cupboard.

The flat feels festive. When we go out the village is decorated too.

 Ho Ho Ho! 

Note: Wednesday I will publish Chapter 3 of Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel.