The short story that gave me the idea for my first novel: Formica Circles
Also, a confession. Here, June is meeting someone from her past, but this time she has a photograph in her pocket and a secret she's waited forty-years to tell.
Do all novelists write short stories?
When you have a book published, there’s publicity to go with it. Sometimes (I’ll save the ‘sometimes not’ for another post…). Quite often, this involves writing articles or short stories for magazines or newspapers, all of which come out sometime around your publication date. Hopefully, people will be like ‘that was good! I like her vibe! I shall purchase her book!’ and then you can go laughing into the hills. Magazines will often pay for these articles and short stories, so that’s nice in a world of ‘but it’s great exposure!’ However, there’s a reason that fiction appeals to me and that has a lot to do with how long it takes to write. I can set my own silly little deadlines, and then I basically get left alone for months at a time.
I find short stories… stressful. The short form doesn’t come naturally to me, yet it was mainly what I produced at university. Last week, I wrote about the writing lecturer I had who described my work as ‘unrealistically happy’ (yeah, I know) and wanted more ‘grit’. Well, to him I say a big THANKS, BUT NO THANKS, I will stick to my delightfully stubborn pensioners and vegetarian farmers, thank you!
You’ll never know when you need to pull out a short story with no notice
In January 2021 (yeah… when everything was plaguey and rubbish) I was asked to write two or three short stories in the space of a few weeks. My friends, the ideas did not come a-floweth. They had to be of a ‘similar tone’ to my novel, The Lonely Fajita, and some even specified the kind of characters they’d like to see and what time of year they’d like it to be set so that it worked with the season of publication. By the time I got to my last story, I was completely wrung out, partly from writing for 6-8 hours a day, partly because the world was on fire and we were all baking banana bread to preserve our sanity.
Long story short (lol), I dug out the story that I had been marked down for at university. I had read it out at an open mic night and it went down well, and besides, I loved writing it and I still love it now. I re-wrote some of it, took out some of my more heavy-handed metaphors, and submitted it to the editor. They loved it! When it came out in print, I was so tempted to print it out and post it to my old lecturer, but at the time we were only allowed out of the house for ‘essential groceries’ and I really don’t think this counted.
How can a short story help you write a novel?
The tiniest of ideas (the reuniting, the first love, pensioners being their wonderful, stubborn selves), ended up becoming a major theme in The Lonely Fajita and this story was a big influence on Annie’s plot. When I was coming up with the idea for my first book, I had a crisis, having just abandoned the gothic novel I’d spent a year working on. This short story felt like coming home.
The reason I’m sharing this with you
I haven’t re-edited what you can see below, as much as I’d love to. There are some things I’d change, but I wanted to honour the process of reflection and growth by showing you where things started. My writing has changed slightly—improved, as it should—but I haven’t. I’m still a sucker for a geriatric love story.
Formica Circles
June wasn’t sure why she thought it would have changed. After the best part of seventy years, the same ivy weaved between the building’s crumbling mortar, as though the bricks are stitched together at the seams. It draped itself like bunting above the doorway of an otherwise ugly facade. ‘Shabby chic’ would be generous indeed.
When June was a child, it housed coal for the steam trains before electric cabling and fluorescent boiler suits were swapped in. As the tracks extended northwards, so did the workers, leaving the hut empty until a local couple took over, serving fry-ups to tradespeople who liked the fact that oat milk didn’t feature on the menu.
On the pavement opposite the café, June paused, smoothing down her pea-green coat whilst trying to catch a glimpse at faces through the window, distorted as they were by an iridescent sheen of condensation and residual cooking oil. Pulling back her shoulders to make her dainty frame appear more assertive than she felt, June pushed the door open and stepped inside under the tinkle of a bell.
June tried to shunt the door closed, but sixty years of paint build-up made it sticky in its frame. She tried using her shoulder too, but she’d bumped it on a shelf in her greenhouse last week and it was still bruised and sore. The longer June had her eyes concentrated on the latch, the more reluctant she was to turn around. Have a peek. He might not be here yet. June felt like a taut balloon, pressure squeezing at her sides. She’d been drifting for too long – happily – that much was true, but after so many years she wanted someone to catch the string, the same person who let it go.
‘Hello, June.’
The voice came from over her left shoulder, unwavering and gentle. June’s small, gloved hand slipped off the handle as she turned to face the speaker, recognising his crystalline eyes. The man looked back at her with an intensity softened by delicate, concertina wrinkles, but it was still the same smile. The one that made her think she was a teenager. The one that made her leave her stockings on the beach during a balmy Midsummer Night’s Eve. The one that made her feel safe. She didn’t seem to notice that his curly hair had turned silver, combed and parted on the side, reflecting the white light from the florescent bulbs above.
He stood beside a Formica table, clutching a plaid flat cap with both hands in front of him. The pair stood like swans, backs hunched, heads dipped.
‘Roger…’ June said the name on an outward breath, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she broke into a grin. Roger held his chin high, compensating for a working life spent stooped over aeroplane engines, rusting cars, and now model boats. He motioned to a small booth in a corner of the cafe.
June reluctantly looked away from Roger as she shuffled along the bench, hooking her umbrella on the lip of the table. She wanted to touch him to make sure he was real.
A waitress placed two chipped mugs on the table with a dulcet thunk, filling them with filter coffee they hadn’t asked for. When she turned back to the kitchen, Roger pushed them to one side, taking June’s hand. Beside them, a group of broad-shouldered men burst into laughter, as fried egg slipped from forks and cutlery clattered onto oval shaped plates. June looked tired, like she used to when Roger would meet her here after she’d finished her shift at the hospital, her ankles swollen from the heeled Oxford shoes she wore as part of her uniform.
‘You haven’t changed a smidgen, June.’ Roger beamed and rubbed his chin.
‘Oh stop it you, we both know that’s not true!’ She turned away from him, glancing back with a barely restrained smile.
‘You haven’t got an accent.’
‘Did you think I would?’
‘Well, you have been in British Columbia for…’
‘Around fifty-five years, give or take a few,’ said Roger, nodding absent-mindedly at the thought.
‘Well, that’s enough time to get an accent, isn’t it?
‘Not if you don’t want one.’
June laughed; an infectious, high-pitched giggle that jiggled her shoulders in amusement.
‘How’d you find me, June?’ asked Roger, pushing the knot of his navy-blue tie back up to his collar.
June finished her a long sip of coffee, her hand shaking slightly as she put her mug back down. She coughs to clear her throat.
‘Well, when John died last year I was at a bit of a loss what to do with myself. I felt as if the whole world was speeding up and I was getting left behind. Sounds silly, really. There’s only so many nativity scenes you can knit before the place is overrun with woollen Virgin Mary’s. Anyway, I signed up to an internet class that the old folk’s charity were doing at the library. I wasn’t too fussed about being on the line or whatever you call it – I just wanted to get out of the house. In one of the sessions we were told to email someone. And, well… I don’t know why but I emailed the local records archive. It took a while, but I found you on an RAF list – a base over in British Columbia. I know you’d gone there after my father said… after he said those awful things. I thought you might remember me and…’ June wasn’t sure how to finish her sentence. She looked over to Roger, her mouth parted, mid-sentence.
‘Remember you?’ said Roger, a wheezy breath . ‘Remembering implies detachment – some forgotten memory that pops up every now and again. I don’t remember you, June, because I never stopped thinking of you. I had a wonderful time with Elodie, when she was here – God rest her – but that doesn’t mean I ever forgot you.’ Roger smiled, but there was pain caught behind his eyes. He wore the same expression that she’d last seen on the platform outside, so many years ago.
‘Do you remember the day you came in here from the nursing station to your new auxiliary uniform? How could I get an image like that out of my head, eh?’ Roger chuckled to himself as June playfully slapped the back of his hand.
‘What would my grandson say if he heard you talk like that?’ says June.
The café slowly emptied as midday ticked into the afternoon. A waitress swept beneath chair legs, but neither June nor Roger noticed they were the only ones left.
‘You have a grandson?’ asked Roger, his eyebrows lifting.
‘Yes,’ says June, her cheeks pink. ‘I’ve two grandsons and three grandchildren – quite a brood!’ June swallows, fiddling with the catch on her handbag. ‘Do you have any grandchildren?’
Roger fiddled with the napkin dispenser on the table, attempting a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘No, no, Margaret and I never had any children… shame really. We were both keen, but… no, it never happened. I should like to know more about your family though.’ Roger clasped his hands in front of him and leant forwards.
June nodded. She reached for her coffee, but it had long since gone cold. The waitress turned the radio off, the sound of a dishwasher cutting through the silence as she idly braided her hair. June took out an envelope.
She turned over the pictures one by one to face Roger, telling him of spouses, career changes, karate belts and finger paintings.
‘This one is my second grandson, Frances,’ June continued. A knot constricted in her stomach. ‘Spelt the French way. His dad is from Brittany. And this is his mum.’ June turned over the last photograph and placed it directly into Roger’s hands. Her chest expanded as she cupped his fingers, willing composure on herself.
‘Our daughter.’
Roger’s nails turned white as he held the photo. He looked at the curly-haired, middle-aged woman in the picture, at his own eyes in someone else’s face. A tear trickled down his face, plopping from his chin to the table.
‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,’ he says, smiling like the woman in the picture.