worked on in graduate school. At that time it had been called The Harmony Argument and it concerned a young musician whose personal life fell apart just as her career took off. Rupert Hawes-Dawson had been particularly critical of the novel-in-progress, both inside class and out, and eventually Celia put the project aside to focus on writing short stories, ultimately collected and published to great acclaim in West of Blessing, North of Hope .
Scanning the manuscript, I remember enough of the earlier draft, even after several years, to realize that this is a substantially not just different, but improved version of the text. Did Celia rewrite the novel in hopes of finally getting it published? I didn’t think she had written any fiction since her second book and first novel, The Pursuit of Sorrow , was a critical and commercial failure three years ago.
Was there something within the text of this revised manuscript, a note or a clue, that Celia hoped we’d find in the event that something happened to her? Come on, Celia. I’m here for you. Let me help you. Tell me what I need to know.
*
I leave the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road and wait on the Northern Line platform for the next train back to Hampstead. Still absorbed in Celia’s novel, I am reminded of what a gifted writer she is, of the pristine beauty of her sentences and her ability to convey, in just a few words, depths of despair and utter desolation.
As I read I am only vaguely aware that the train is taking a long time to arrive. I can feel the weight of bodies gathering behind me as people mass on the narrow concrete platform. A hot, anxious, impatient press of flesh inches me forward as I instinctively search for open space in this dense and humid tunnel, which seems to grow smaller by the second. The layering of body upon body thins the air to a dank and sour cloud of carbon dioxide.
I feel the train before I see it, feel it as a rising rumble beneath my feet from somewhere down the line. Then I catch a slim glimpse of light in the tunnel, on the edge of my peripheral vision. The waiting crowd stiffens, straightening in expectation and pressing me toward the warning painted on the floor in white: MIND THE GAP.
Suddenly something strikes me from the side, knocking the air from my lungs as the rumble of the train picks up speed. My hands shoot out to steady myself and Celia’s manuscript flies from my arms, slips of white paper rising like doves, darting, dispersing, and fluttering back to earth. I reach out to grab the pages before they are whisked away on the rushing tunnel wind and I lose my footing, tumbling to the platform. My cheek strikes concrete and pain echoes through my skull. A woman screams; voices shout for help. Stunned, I cannot move my arms or legs. Hands reach down to grab me; someone pulls my jacket but the fabric slips.
A disk of intense yellow light appears in the tunnel, expanding quickly until it explodes into a white-hot corona. I close my eyes, too frightened to weep, too scared to pray beyond asking God to take me quickly.
Rising above the metallic shriek of wheels on steel comes a jagged, jarring wail, a noise I will remember forever and which I was told I could not have heard: the high-pitched rushing cry of my child entering the world—the only sound he uttered in the fifty-three minutes that he lived.
Chapter Seven
Wednesday
2:21 p.m.
I am not even certain that I’m still alive until I feel the damp, cold concrete of the station floor rising into my spine, followed by the thrust of foreign hands tapping my cheeks and poking my throat. I blink rapidly and open my eyes to find two women crouched over me, one on either side. They must be mother and daughter; the younger, about thirty, is a slim, freckled, long-haired brunette with high cheekbones and a pointy chin; the elder woman, midfifties, has the same pert, pretty features, but on her they have been expanded, loosened, and softly lined.
“Are you all
Scanning the manuscript, I remember enough of the earlier draft, even after several years, to realize that this is a substantially not just different, but improved version of the text. Did Celia rewrite the novel in hopes of finally getting it published? I didn’t think she had written any fiction since her second book and first novel, The Pursuit of Sorrow , was a critical and commercial failure three years ago.
Was there something within the text of this revised manuscript, a note or a clue, that Celia hoped we’d find in the event that something happened to her? Come on, Celia. I’m here for you. Let me help you. Tell me what I need to know.
*
I leave the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road and wait on the Northern Line platform for the next train back to Hampstead. Still absorbed in Celia’s novel, I am reminded of what a gifted writer she is, of the pristine beauty of her sentences and her ability to convey, in just a few words, depths of despair and utter desolation.
As I read I am only vaguely aware that the train is taking a long time to arrive. I can feel the weight of bodies gathering behind me as people mass on the narrow concrete platform. A hot, anxious, impatient press of flesh inches me forward as I instinctively search for open space in this dense and humid tunnel, which seems to grow smaller by the second. The layering of body upon body thins the air to a dank and sour cloud of carbon dioxide.
I feel the train before I see it, feel it as a rising rumble beneath my feet from somewhere down the line. Then I catch a slim glimpse of light in the tunnel, on the edge of my peripheral vision. The waiting crowd stiffens, straightening in expectation and pressing me toward the warning painted on the floor in white: MIND THE GAP.
Suddenly something strikes me from the side, knocking the air from my lungs as the rumble of the train picks up speed. My hands shoot out to steady myself and Celia’s manuscript flies from my arms, slips of white paper rising like doves, darting, dispersing, and fluttering back to earth. I reach out to grab the pages before they are whisked away on the rushing tunnel wind and I lose my footing, tumbling to the platform. My cheek strikes concrete and pain echoes through my skull. A woman screams; voices shout for help. Stunned, I cannot move my arms or legs. Hands reach down to grab me; someone pulls my jacket but the fabric slips.
A disk of intense yellow light appears in the tunnel, expanding quickly until it explodes into a white-hot corona. I close my eyes, too frightened to weep, too scared to pray beyond asking God to take me quickly.
Rising above the metallic shriek of wheels on steel comes a jagged, jarring wail, a noise I will remember forever and which I was told I could not have heard: the high-pitched rushing cry of my child entering the world—the only sound he uttered in the fifty-three minutes that he lived.
Chapter Seven
Wednesday
2:21 p.m.
I am not even certain that I’m still alive until I feel the damp, cold concrete of the station floor rising into my spine, followed by the thrust of foreign hands tapping my cheeks and poking my throat. I blink rapidly and open my eyes to find two women crouched over me, one on either side. They must be mother and daughter; the younger, about thirty, is a slim, freckled, long-haired brunette with high cheekbones and a pointy chin; the elder woman, midfifties, has the same pert, pretty features, but on her they have been expanded, loosened, and softly lined.
“Are you all
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