Pansies (Spires #4)

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

1 . Paragraph begins with: “Yeah, all right.”

Alexis: To be fair to Alfie, it’s a good idea to do this in general if you drive a Sagaris because the door release button is under the wing mirrors, and this is bananas, delightful, and confusing for nearly everyone.

2 . Paragraph begins with: “Doing this to me.”

Alexis: I can’t lie, there’s an element of very direct fantasy fulfillment going on in Alfie Bell for me (and for Fen as well). Essentially, in writing him, I wanted to take all the particular qualities I feel are inherently northern and celebrate them in a queer context.

3 . Paragraph begins with: He whirled round, pale with outrage.

Alexis: Sooo…I was kind of trying to explore a bunch of different things with Alfie. Part of it is as straightforward as him trying to find his place within various paradigms. I mean, it goes without saying, I hope, that he should not be slapping anyone’s arse casually, irrespective of their gender identity. But I think, in moments like these, he’s trying to reorientate himself in a dynamic that he always understood (erroneously, I hasten to add) to be defined by gender. Like, Alfie has his ways of loving and his ways of wanting to be loved. It’s important to him to feel like a caretaker, and that’s no bad thing, but he needs to let go of the idea that this makes him “the man.”

4 . Paragraph begins with: “I can’t tell if it’s hot or annoying…”

Alexis: Alfie has a lot of traditional views, some he needs to let go of, but I don’t think he’s wrong here.

5 . Paragraph begins with: “Any friend of Alfie Bell’s.”

Alexis: Something I tried to do consistently throughout Pansies is demonstrate to Alfie (and to the reader) that his very narrow view of South Shields (like many of his other narrow views) would benefit from a more flexible perspective. Like, yes, it’s a small-ish community… yes, the town is long past its glory days… yes, there are people who may be old-fashioned, ignorant, uncertain, or flatly queerphobic…but, actually, there’s a lot of care and acceptance to be found as well.

6 . Paragraph begins with: Fen didn’t seem impressed by this line of reasoning.

Alexis: Fen is being deliberately pissy and obscurantist here. Like there are less dickish ways to express this idea. But I share his frustration. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool if you don’t like musicals. But there is a special circle of hell reserved for people who trot out the old “it’s just not realistic, man” chestnut. Very few genres of fiction take realism as their primary goal; we only get sneery about it when it’s a genre we don’t like.

7 . Paragraph begins with: “Oh man, they hate that down south…”

Alexis: This is absolutely true. The south has spent centuries exploiting the north, but will they share a plate of chips, will they bollocks.

8 . Paragraph begins with: “No, but”—Alfie finished the last swallow…

Alexis: Alfie isn’t articulating himself very well here, but I don’t think he’s way off base. He’s kind of a work-to-live person, which is probably an odd choice if you go into investment banking. But at the same time he does have this strong need to take care of people, and I think it makes him feel safe to have a job that will let him do that: it’s this one stabilising idea for him when everything else seems to be shifting. On top of which I think he does like knowing he’s got a place in the world and things he’s demonstrably good at (since he isn’t good at the same things his family are).