Pansies (Spires #4)

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

1 . Paragraph begins with: Eventually, he headed back to the town centre…

Alexis: I think I write a lot about places in my work, but I usually default to the beautiful: the rolling English countryside or Oxford with all her spires and gold. Because of this, it felt important to pay the same amount of attention to South Shields, which has its own kind of loveliness, even if it’s a loveliness coupled with loss. Loss of its industry. Loss of its future. It’s honestly kind of the ideal setting for a book about grief.

2. Paragraph begins with: Later, he sat in his car…

Alexis: When I wrote this book, the Raj was still there. Now it is not. This makes me intensely sad.

3 . Paragraph begins with: Before he’d got his car…

Alexis: Some of these places have gone, others have come. But Greggs will always sell you a disproportionately sized Belgian bun.

4 . Paragraph begins with: “So? I’m retro.”

Alexis: She was retro when I wrote this. Now she’s either fossilised or in again.

5 . Paragraph begins with: “It’s fine, it’s not a crime.”

Alexis: I don’t care how old this book is, Trent Reznor in opera gloves will never not be a whole mood.

6 . Paragraph begins with: Gothshelley gazed at him and then shook her head sadly.

Alexis: This remains some weapons-grade trolling.

7 . Paragraph begins with: When the bucket was about a quarter full…

Alexis: I couldn’t tell you if I identify more deeply with Luc trying to clean his flat or Alfie Bell trying to do this: maybe it’s a both situation?

8 . Paragraph begins with: And then a jet of cold water hit him right in the face.

Alexis: It’s been a while since I’ve read this and the level of fucking up Alfie perpetrates on Fen’s innocent bathroom genuinely took me by surprise. Like, this is impressively disastrous.

9 . Paragraph begins with: “Yeah, I’m in town at the moment.”

Alexis: I think this probably tells you everything about Alfie’s dad. Like, he may have made some questionable parenting choices when his kids were younger, and he may not understand Alfie’s sexuality, but when you have a practical problem he will be there without question, without hesitation. It’s how a lot of working-class British fathers express love, though obviously it’s not without its problems.

10 . Paragraph begins with: There was a familiar pink jumper…

Alexis: So, obviously C.S. Lewis is a complicated figure, especially as regards queerness—although he did have something of a habit of forming very emotionally intimate relationships with queer men. His work and his perspectives are pretty inextricable from his Christianity, and I’ve read things that suggest A Grief Observed was a heavily fictionalised account of his real bereavement (rather than a direct expression of that experience). But when it comes to emotions as intricate as grief, I think it’s very hard to track where narrative begins and emotion ends. The fact is, to this day, I find A Grief Observed rather marvellous. Irrespective of how meaningful you find Lewis’s wrangling with God—I personally find his doubt more convincing than his faith, but that probably says more about me than about either Lewis or faith—the grief feels terribly true. And I have always appreciated that the book ends, in a way, slightly arbitrarily (Lewis has run out of notebooks)—not necessarily with a greater understanding of grief, which is unfathomable, but with an acceptance of grief itself.

11 . Paragraph begins with: His parents used to have a record player.

Alexis: I am usually a person who favours convenience over sentiment. I prefer ebooks to hard copy, for example. But I was raised with vinyl and—embarrassed though I am to admit it—I get sentimental for vinyl. For me, the inconvenience in this context brings something to music, and how we listen to music, that we should be wary of losing. And now I hate myself a little bit.

12 . Paragraph begins with: “I’m complicated.”

Alexis: Honestly, I think this is not so very complicated; it’s just Fen isn’t ready to be completely forthcoming with Alfie yet. But, knowing Alfie’s background, I think Fen instinctively understands (even before Alfie admits as much) how difficult it must have been for him to come to terms with being gay and to come out to his family. And so Fen recognises that reaching out to his dad for help must not have been straightforward for Alfie. Yes, it’s another gesture, but it’s a real one, demonstrating Alfie is willing to put Fen’s well-being over his own comfort.

13 . Paragraph begins with: Fen just stared at him, expression unreadable.

Alexis: It felt important to me that Fen was gentle here, even in spite of all the tense and messy things between him and Alfie. I think there can be this sense that “out and proud” (or whatever) is the natural culmination of a journey into comfortable queerness, which it can certainly be for some people, but I also believe we should be wary of positioning anything as the single, or right, way to be queer. And shaming people for their shame is, you know, the opposite of helpful.