It’s all about the desk. Although I can write on my laptop just about anywhere – in the kitchen or in bed, upstairs in Ballyroan Library, at the airport, on trains (but not planes) – my favourite writing spot of all involves sitting in the attic room in Wexford (with no view) at an ancient desk which was part of my childhood – the desk from my mum’s sewing room. I have three siblings, and we were born two years apart to a creative and brilliant woman who was part of the generation who made their own clothes. She was also part of the generation who gave up work on marriage, expected to find fulfilment in the challenges and joys of motherhood. Expected, I realise now, to put away any notions of self-actualisation except in the narrowest of spheres – being Mother.
Mum’s creativity and brilliance became focussed on sewing. And the sewing room became the only place where she was ‘allowed’ retreat and close the door. ‘Because I need to concentrate.’ When Mum shut herself in the sewing room, we’d hear the whirr of the sewing machine and the boring grown up talk on the radio and know not to disturb her on any account for any reason, no matter what. She was working. It was for us. So we mustn’t disturb.
The desk at which I am writing
The desk at which I am writing this is the small, three-drawer desk which used to sit against the end wall of the sewing room. It was the desk for hand stitching. The desk for sketching and planning. Everything Mum needed was either on or in this desk. Fabric was folded in neat parcel shapes and stacked along the rear. Much of the fabric would be recognisable from garments we had outgrown, which had been unpicked and ironed and were ready to be used again.
In the top drawer sat the measuring tape and chalks for marking patterns, several pincushions and boxes of needles and bobbins for the machine and, most importantly, the fabric scissors, (which must never, ever be used to cut even the tiniest scrap of paper or you would ruin it and blunt it into perpetuity.) The other two drawers contained her favourite patterns and an old-fashioned sewing box which had belonged to my grandmother and beneath that, the drawer containing the button box.
If we were off school sick (unlikely unless there was actual vomit or a high temperature) the button box was the only thing in the sewing room which you were allowed play with. It was placed on a large wooden tray and the buttons were spilled out in a riot of colour, shape and texture – plastic, childish-looking buttons in primary colours, pearl and diamanté buttons which a princess would wear, military with insignias, buttons with initials and crests, buttons that gleamed like jewels, buttons with sequins and enamelling.
My favourites were a set of twelve lilac-coloured spherical buttons which seemed to be made of moonstone. They glowed with an inner light making them easy to spot, even if you were tired and headachy. I would line them up and ask Mum to tell me again about the dress on which these used to sit – the pale pink halter neck maxi – which she had worn to Trinity Ball, accompanying my father to his Alma Mater. College was not for her, or so she had accepted back then. And fabulous pink halter neck maxis were no longer suitable attire for her as a clergyman’s wife either. Another fact she seemed to have accepted. Even at a young age, I sensed the loss of a life left behind, a young spirit corralled and controlled.
What ties me to my mother
I digress. Or maybe not.
Because this desk is what ties me to my mother in the sphere of creativity and the life of the imagination. It also ties me to her in the joy of making something for the people you love because, make no mistake, all creativity has to come from a place of love. Even as I write this, I am leaning my forearms on an offcut bit of fabric printed with Beatrix Potter characters which I recognise from a cot blanket Mum made for our elder daughter over thirty years ago. On the wall, framed behind glass, are two items of clothing she made for our girls – the ‘Lady in Red’ tutu dress she made for Jessie and the glamorous sparkly sequin fringed top which seven-year-old Sara wore for her starring role in the Christmas play back in the nineties.
It is at this desk that I wrote most of my third crime novel, The Night I Killed Him, which explores, among other things, the complexities of grief, loss, and regret of a daughter whose mother died too young.
It is the desk where I wrote All Of Them Lied, where a handstitched garment from the last century is a symbol of escape and hope for the future.
This desk is a place where, even now, a woman can hide away and be true to herself completely, right down to the smallest, sparkliest button which has no match and no chosen garment. It exists just for itself.
(c) Gill Perdue
About The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue:
The world of beloved influencer, Gemma Fitzgerald, seems ready to implode when the body of her brother, Max – who disappeared 18 years earlier – is washed up on a beach. Everyone thought Max had taken his own life the night of his twenty-first birthday party, but Gemma knows the truth – she is responsible for Max’s disappearance.
With the police bearing down from one side, and her glamorous lifestyle hanging by a thread, it seems the devastating truth is about to destroy Gemma’s life and take her away from her precious little boy.
Gemma has created a dazzling world in trying to forget that fateful night. What if it’s all been a lie?
‘Great writing, gorgeous characterisation and such a plot! I was so deliciously engrossed.’ Marian Keyes
‘I devoured it. So tightly plotted with great characters … it had me on tenterhooks throughout and my nerves were shot.’ Patricia Gibney
‘A compulsive heart-stopping read, that makes you forget to breathe! I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough … a gripping, tense, bone chiller of a book that you won’t forget.’ Sam Blake
‘Absolutely riveting and eminently readable.’ Liz Nugent
‘A writer at the top of her game … I could not look away until the shocking end.’ Edel Coffey
Order your copy of The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue online here.
And read more from Gill on Writing.ie here.
