Stromness Dragon

‘Here, let me help you with that.’

Olivia recognised the voice and turned, uneasy, to see Jonathan. It took her a moment to work out the source of her discomfort – he had addressed her in English rather than German. His voice had an American twang she had not noticed before.

‘Oh, hello.’ They looked at each other for a second before she said, ‘Yes please, this wind is playing havoc with the laundry.’ He moved forward and held one end of the sheet whilst she pegged it on the line.

‘Feels like spring today, don’t you think?’ He handed her a peg.

‘Does it? I hadn’t noticed. I’ve been busy’.

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Sun’s shining, birds are nesting…’ He handed her another peg. ‘…and I’ve got a special treat for you’.

What was he doing here? Infuriating man. She had only met him a few times, and always in the kitchen when he was delivering a parcel.

‘A present? For the convent, you mean?’

‘No, Olivia. A present for you.’

She rummaged in the basket for a pillow case. ‘Is that appropriate?’

‘Well, I don’t know, Fraulein. But I do know that underneath that prim exterior lies….’ - he grinned at her shocked look - ‘….the heart of a true coffee lover.’

Coffee! Her mouth twitched. She hadn’t had proper coffee for months, just horrid powder that tasted like ash. She narrowed her eyes at him but said nothing.

‘You do like coffee, don’t you?’ He looked very roguish standing there.

‘Yes,’ she was wary. ‘How did you know?’

‘Oh, I have my sources.’ He leaned against the clothes line pole and folded his arms.

‘Well yes, as it happens, I do like coffee.’ Olivia straightened up and squared her shoulders. ‘I like it a lot.’

‘OK, Fraulein, I guess this is your lucky day.’ He paused. ‘But you’ve got to come to my room to get it.’

‘Oh! No. No, I couldn’t possibly. It’s simply out of the question.’ She tucked her wandering hair behind her ear, picked up the laundry basket and started to walk back to the laundry. He pushed himself off the pole and ran to catch up.

‘Hey. Hey! I’m sorry! Look, I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

She stopped. He was smiling. She sniffed.

‘Frightened? I’m not frightened,’ she said, scornfully she hoped. Under the terms of her internment, she was not supposed to go anywhere with anyone, except under strict agreement with the German authorities. Her excursions outside the convent trod a well-worn path between various shops: the butcher, the ironmongers, the bakery and so on. If she was caught deviating from the prescribed route the punishment was immediate detention and probably a prison camp.

Jonathan laughed at her expression. ‘Oh gosh, Olivia, you do look magnificent when you’re shooting those withering looks at a poor fellow. C’mon, let me carry that.’ He took the basket. He had large hands with long fingers, she noticed. Glancing at his face, she saw under the dirty blond hair a pair of startling blue eyes – like crushed blue glass they seemed to reflect the light in a hundred different directions.

The convent cat slunk past. A plane droned high over head. What an annoying man! Then – ‘Alright. I’ll do it.’ What was she saying? Had she taken leave of her senses? ‘Give me five minutes and then we can go.’

He looked startled, then pleased. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Five minutes. I’ll be right here.’

The flagstones were unforgiving beneath Olivia’s knees. Her hands were raw and her nails had cracked and flaked. The bristles on the brush, already worn when she had arrived at the convent the year before, were threadbare and ineffectual, and her cold fingers caught painfully under the wooden handle. The soap was as hard and shiny as a stone and yielded no lather despite her vigorous scrubbing. She was exhausted.

There had been an air raid the night before and she had heard the bombers overhead as she scrambled for the cellar. In the panic to get down the steps, a cloaked figure had pushed Olivia hard in the small of her back, causing her to lose her balance and stumble down the last few stairs. In the semi-dark, several arms had reached out to support her.

The cellar had held wine during the Middle Ages, but now lay empty. It was dry and cold and the walls were lined with rotten shelving which the nuns broke up and used to make small fires. The smoke made the atmosphere even more claustrophobic. In the feeble light, Olivia had counted over thirty shapes, which meant there was probably no-one left above in the convent except the bed-bound and Sister Anna, who refused to leave her sick charges.

She had found herself pressed into a corner with Sara, who had grabbed her arm and whispered ‘What were you doing in the kitchen?’ Olivia had the urge to tell Sara the truth – it would be a relief to share the excitement, and the burden. ‘I…’ she stopped and looked at Sara’s eager face. The girl looked so young. Could she trust her? Their friendship, such as it was, rested on the perpetuation of deceit. They had helped one another out, and had worked side by side hoeing turnips, but no real confidences had been exchanged. Olivia knew nothing about why Sara was a convent novice – from her observations she was not at all convinced that there was a vocation at work.

Once a nun took holy orders in a contemplative order her old life was finished – she was reborn in Christ and had little contact with the outside world, stepping away from family, friends, lovers, even children. Novices had several years of preparation, and many left the convent before they adopted the habit permanently. Sara had let slip that she had two older brothers, both in the army. There was also a hint of some misdemeanour in her past, something that had hurried along her entry into the convent, if not actually prompted it. Olivia sensed a strong personality in Sara, but an immature and wayward one, too.

‘I was helping a friend,’ she had said, opting for the half-truth. And that friend, she had thought, with a frustrated thrill, was lying in her bed. Her moment of warmth with Jonathan had barely begun before the sirens sounded and she had to run for the shelter. Jonathan had remained in bed, tired but alert, flexing his bound hand and smiling at Olivia as she cursed and threw on as many clothes as possible. ‘Hey,’ he had said, making a grab for her hand. ‘You saved me.’ He had raised her hand to his battered face and kissed it. ‘Thank you’.

Sara had seemed satisfied with her answer and grinned as a short wide nun bustled down the steps, huffing and puffing. Olivia found herself smiling. She caught Sara’s expression and they stifled a giggle, holding on to one another as the absurdity of the situation struck them. The odour of damp wool mingled with the nuns’ stale breath, and the smoke from the oil lamp. The door to the cellar slammed shut and the last sister was helped down the stairs. They all moved around the cramped space to accommodate the elderly nuns and Olivia and Sara were separated. Sister Maria cleared her throat, and began to sing. One by one the nuns joined in until the sound they made was loud enough to drown out the noise of the sirens, the planes above, and the deep, earth-shaking tremors which were too near for comfort. Who knows, thought Olivia, maybe it had been loud enough to reach God.

When Olivia got back to her room, Jonathan had gone.

Olivia’s feet were like ice. Dressed only in her nightgown she tried desperately to think of a reason why she would be standing in the unlit kitchen at 3.00 in the morning holding a packet of cotton dressings. In the shadows, the nuns were silent and alert to the prospect of trouble and therefore novelty.

‘I was getting…..I needed these….things…..for…um….’she grasped for words.

‘For me!’ The plea burst out and the dark shapes gasped, parting to let Sara through. ‘Begging forgiveness, Sister,’ she said, bowing her head to the nun then looking at her with guileless eyes. Sister Gertrude glared at Sara – a look that had turned many a novice to stone. ‘You, girl? Are you ailing?’ Sara stared at the floor and mumbled something. ‘What are you saying? Speak up, child!’ snapped Sister Gertrude. ‘My monthlies, sister…I…Fraulein Olivia was kind enough to….I’m sorry’. Silence fell and everyone, Olivia included, stared at Sara. Sister Gertrude inhaled loudly. ‘Very well. I will make a report,’ she said, turning to Olivia. ‘Give me those. I shall take care of this.’ She held out her hand and Olivia had no choice but to hand over her bundles. ‘Maria, take the Fraulein back to her cell.’ Led away, Olivia exchanged a brief glance with Sara, and was disturbed to see a gleam of excited complicity in the girl’s eyes.

Thankfully, Sister Maria did not linger at Olivia’s door as she slipped in, grateful for the dark. Jonathan, a huddle shape under her cloak, had slipped into unconsciousness. His hand seemed to have stopped bleeding, but he was deathly cold. She tore up her only undershirt and dressed his wounds as best she could, then gently stripped him of his wet clothes, checking for other injuries and finding nothing worse than bruises.

Despite his recent troubles and the hardships of the war that they all suffered, Jonathan seemed a reasonable specimen. It was not, she mused, as if she had much to compare – the only other male form she had tended at close quarters had been her elderly father. Jonathan was lean, with a tall, wiry frame and a taut stomach. Olivia’s nursing skills had been largely confined to care of the old, but she remembered reading somewhere (a book of Eskimo lore, she fancied) that the best way to warm someone up was through the direct exchange of body heat.

The bed was small and Jonathan was tall, and it felt awkward to move him. She rolled him onto his side and removing her nightgown, climbed in and wrapped her body around his, pulling the blankets over both of them. Her nose was buried in his neck: his damp hair smelt of smoke. As she pressed closer into his back and curled her legs around him, she decided that Eskimo wisdom was not without its merits. After a while, his breathing deepened and he relaxed into her embrace, warmth creeping back into his body. Her last memory before drifting into sleep was Jonathan easing himself round to face her and without opening his eyes, reaching out a hand to touch her face.

It was raining so hard that at first Olivia did not hear the knocking at her window. She had gone to bed, exhausted, before Compline, earning herself glances of envy from the novices, who had sent spent much of the day working in the kitchen garden. Olivia had helped them brush their long skirts but the heavy cloth had been soaked and filthy, dragging around their ankles. Whilst the religious duties of the day were far from over, her own work was done. She felt achy and bad-tempered and decided it would be best if she retired for the night. Her bed was not built for comfort, but the scratchy woollen blankets were thick and heavy and she was grateful for them as she lay and listened to the relentless downpour.

She drifted in and out of sleep before dowsing her lamp. She dreamt that someone was calling her name and that she, statue-like, could not move to answer the summons. One moment the supplicant was her father calling for a glass of water, the next it was a child, weeping for its mother. When she finally struggled to wakefulness, she heard the rhythmic knocking on the glass and an increasingly urgent whisper. ‘Olivia! Olivia, for God’s sake! It’s Jonathan, let me in! Olivia, wake up! Please!’

In darkness she stumbled to the window and dragged open the shutter. As her eyes adjusted she could see the sheen of water on the cloister and the figure pressed against the wall. Her cold fingers fumbled with the latch, and he clambered in, collapsing on the floor, breathing heavily as a puddle formed around him. ‘What’s going on?’ she hissed. ‘Are you hurt? What are you doing here?’

Jonathan did not speak but pushed himself up into a sitting position. Groping for the lamp, Olivia struck a flame and turned it down low. The yellow glow revealed a sorry sight: Jonathan, soaked to the skin, had clearly been in a fight and had come off worst. His face was badly beaten and his left eye was closed and swollen. His right arm hung limp at his side and as Olivia’s eyes adjusted to the dim light she could make out the misshapen bloody mess of his hand. Her stomach heaved as she watched his fingers twitch in pain. Pulling her cloak from her bed, she wrapped it around him and made him stand, supporting his weight. She led him to the bed and he made no sound as she lay him down against the hard pillow. ‘Stay here,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t move, or we’re both done for.’

Heart thumping, Olivia found her keys and slipped out of her cell into the corridor. She had no idea of the time, and prayed fervently (the irony not lost on her) that the nuns were at office, or asleep. The medical stores were in a small cupboard in a corner of the kitchen, which meant crossing the cloister. The rain was easing but it wasn’t until she felt the water splashing on her ankles that she realised she was barefoot. From across the courtyard she caught a twinkle of candle and a phrase of plainchant that she recognised as Matins – that meant it was almost three o’clock. Trying to make as little sound as possible, she felt her way across the kitchen and round the large table in the middle.

Lifting her keys gently, she slid the key into the lock and eased open the medical cupboard. As she reached in to find dressings, her elbow nudged the door and she dislodged the key, sending the ring to the floor with a clatter. The noise of metal on stone seemed to ring out for hours, and Olivia’s heart stopped.

Within a few seconds, a rustle of cloth announced the arrival of Sister Gertrude and several other figures, clustered in the dark and sensing drama.

‘What is this? What is happening? What are you doing in here?’ Sister Gertude stared at Olivia and raised her lamp. She stood, clutching the packages of bandages and dressings to her chest. There was nowhere to go.

‘Sister,’ she said, trying to slow her breathing. ‘I did not mean to disturb you, please accept my apologies.’ The nun’s eyes were flat and hard. ‘I repeat, Fraulein, what are you doing?’ How could she explain what she was doing raiding the medical cupboard in the middle of the night? Sister Anna, who ran the infirmary, dealt with the sick or injured of the convent – she would surely have known if anyone needed medical attention. At best, Olivia might be accused of stealing supplies to sell on the black market; at worst…well, she didn’t want to think about that. Whatever happened, Jonathan was lying hurt in her bed and she had to get him out.

The stairs to Herr Jonathan’s room were narrow and they had to go in single file. He led the way up three flights, passing several dusty, drab doors before they reached his, tucked under a roof slope. He held open the door for Olivia in mock ceremony, pulling off his hat and bowing, his dark blonde hair sticking up as he grinned. ‘Fraulein,’ he teased.

She began to wonder if this was a good idea – after all, what did she really know about him? He came to the convent regularly to deliver parcels of food and clothing, but where he got the sugar and thick cotton and other rationed goods she did not ask. Her job was merely to write it in the stock ledger and store it carefully. Sometimes, weeks might pass without him coming, but after these absences he usually returned with something special. It was on such an occasion that he discovered her secret vice – coffee. Since coming to the convent she had barely touched a cup and what she had managed to find was certainly not worthy of the name. ‘Ol-iv-ia,’ he had said, rolling her name around with his mid-Atlantic drawl. ‘I have real coffee in my room, you know. And a book I think you might like.’ Careful, said a voice in Olivia’s head. What’s the harm? said another, louder voice.

Jonathan’s room was plain and held little in the way of furniture. It was devoid of personal effects, not unlike the convent cell she inhabited. Whilst he busied himself with a gas ring and a brown package with a very tantalising aroma, she looked around at the bare walls, chest of drawers and single iron-framed bed. On the small cabinet next to the bed was a book, its title hidden from Olivia’s view.

‘I’ve forgotten something,’ said Jonathan, standing. ‘An extra treat for you. I’ll be right back,’ and smiling, he opened the door, heading for the stairs. She could hear his footsteps and deduced he was taking the steps two at a time. She leaned forward and pushed the book with her forefinger, turning it just enough to see the gold-embossed lettering on the spine. She was craning to read the title when he bounded back up the stairs, startling her. She jumped, and her hand struck the book, knocking it to the floor. Flustered, she knelt to pick it up and found that was well as the book, she had dislodged an identity card.

The photo was unmistakeably him – the rumpled hair, clean shaven, and eyes which even in the small black and white picture seemed to pick up and refract light in a thousand different directions. As Olivia’s heart took an unexpected jolt, she caught sight of the name on the card. It was not his. For a few seconds, the room was still and silent as she half-crouched on the floor, Jonathan looking at her as he clutched a white paper bag spotted with grease.

‘I’m sorry,’ she blushed. ‘I didn’t mean….’. He stepped forward and took the card from her hand. ‘Olivia,’ he said briskly. ‘I should explain….’ Then he seemed to run out of words. ‘I’m not…I was…’. Olivia looked into his handsome face. He tried again to find the words. ‘It’s standard in my line of work, you know, to have several identities,’ he said. ‘It makes things less complicated.’

‘Less complicated?’ she said. She sat down heavily on the bed. ‘Jonathan, who are you?’

Olivia cooked the books. She wrote in the domestic stores book that the dried fruit, the jars of preserved fish and the cans of vegetables that Sara and the other novices had stolen, were rotten, cracked, or otherwise spoilt. It was not a deception that was difficult to carry off – the elderly nun who had kept the stores before Olivia, and was still nominally in charge, made infrequent visits to the larder and even fewer visits to the heavy ledger where the details of all the convent food stocks were kept, along with a brief description of how they were used.

Olivia’s main difficulty in covering up the novices’ crime was simply that she was unused to deceit. Alone in her cell she tussled with the problem, as she would with a philosophical argument. On the one hand, stealing was a crime and should be punished. On the other, Sara and the other novices had been hungry (they were young girls and still growing), and to reveal their crime would almost certainly result in their expulsion from the convent. She was on shaky ground herself – if she told the Mother Superior what she had discovered, there was no guarantee that she would be thanked for her honesty; indeed, she could open herself to accusations of duplicity – it could easily be argued that she had stolen the food herself and blamed the novices to cover her crime. But the nuns, however distant they might seem, had taken her in, and provided her with shelter and protection when the alternative was a labour camp. She owed them a debt of gratitude and her deceit belied their trust in her.

And then there was God. Olivia’s relationship with the almighty was an awkward affair. Her early unquestioning faith had not withstood her parents’ illnesses and her obligatory spinsterhood, save as a matter of routine. Any lingering remnants had been thoroughly thrashed during her sherry-fuelled afternoons discussing philosophy with Herr Professor. Yet she was in a convent. A community dedicated to the contemplation of the work of the Lord – a powerhouse of prayer. Sometimes, when her soul felt raw, as she emerged with the terrified nuns from the underground shelters after the bombers – her own country’s bombers – had dropped their load on the industrial heartlands…sometimes the sound of the nuns chanting seemed to be the only thing of beauty in a world of ugliness and conflict. There were times when she gladly raised her voice to the glory of God.

The arguments fought in Olivia’s head until it ached. In the end, self-preservation won the day, and she decided would take her chances with God. She said nothing, altered the ledger, and earned the gratitude of the novices. Two weeks after the incident, she found on her bed a small sachet of pillow herbs, stitched into a canvas pocket embroidered with flowers. It was, she reflected, a very long time since anyone had given her a present.

It was snowing hard. The line of people stamped their feet and blew on their fingers as they waited for the office to open. The internment office was manned by a retired policeman who had been hoping to spend his retirement doing nothing more than growing cabbages. In the few conversations she had had with him, Olivia had gleaned that working for the Reich was not a matter of choice; he had confided in her that his daughter was hoping to get a secretarial position, and that by co-operating he would smooth the path for her. It would not do, she said, for her father to show unwilling.

Herr Brocken unlocked the iron gate and they filed in. Looking around, Olivia saw the French teacher, Pierre. He nodded at her – he was here most mornings. At the front of the queue to have her papers checked she saw Frau Weiss, an American who had married a German musician shortly before the war. Whilst he travelled Europe playing to the troops, his wife was under strict controls. America might be a neutral country, but the talk was that they would swing the Allies’ way if push came to shove.

Herr ex-Polizei looked at her papers and slid the forms under the glass for her to sign.

‘Cold today.’ It was a statement of fact, rather than a question.

‘Yes,’ she said. Then, thinking this might be her only vocal interaction of the day, she made herself speak.

‘Is the butcher’s open today, do you know?’ she said, pushing the papers back. Her voice sounded cracked and croaky.

‘Oh yes,’ he looked up, his forehead catching the orange glow of the streetlight. ‘Herr Jonathan came in last night with some good meat. You should go quick!’ His eyes flickered at the queue behind Olivia and he leaned forward, baring his yellow teeth.

‘Your friend Herr Jonathan will save the best bits for the English Fraulein, eh?’ he laughed and looked delighted at his own wit. Olivia made herself smile and left the office quickly.

Out in the street the snow was still swirling, coating the drab streets with a layer of white. There was already a queue at the butcher’s. Herr Brocken was right –there had clearly been a delivery. A tired-looking woman with yellow hair came out, clutching a seeping brown parcel. She scowled at Olivia, who lowered her gaze; she should be used to it by now – the underlying resentment towards an enemy foreign national. It would be no consolation to the woman to know that Olivia’s movements were severely restricted, and that she was obliged to report to the authorities every day. As far as the local volk were concerned, she was a snake in their midst – a snake fed and clothed at their expense, eating food that they could be giving to their children.

At the butcher’s counter she peered through the smeared glass. A plate of glistening offal seemed the freshest thing on offer. There was no indication of what animal it had once been, but Olivia swallowed hard and bought a kilo. Lowering her head against the battering wind and snow, she walked the two miles back to the convent. She pulled the iron ring and heard the bell ring deep inside the medieval walls. Sister Konstanza peered through the bars, saw who it was, and hefted the circle of keys hanging at her belt.

Olivia walked to her cell, removed her sodden coat, and took the parcel of meat to the convent kitchen. She pulled a bucket of small grey potatoes towards her and began to peel.

Olivia looked up from her papers. The wooden sash window rattled in its frame and outside a rook flew from one pinnacle to another. A blast of air rushed down the chimney and sent a plume of ash and smoke into Olivia’s room. She chewed the end of her pen and surveyed the mass of books and papers and ink on her desk – what time was it? Indeed, what day was it? Had she eaten? Casting around for clues she saw a paper bag from a nearby bakery, but judging from the layer of dust on it, she concluded that it had been there for some time.

She stood up, arched her back and stretched, hearing her joints crack. The window rattled again and looking out, she saw a swirl of leaves eddying around the courtyard. There was no-one about, but then she wasn’t looking for anyone – her days here were in the main untroubled by human contact. Every now and again she sought out the silent old woman who looked after her rooms, gave her a crumpled note and asked her to get toiletries and food – nothing fancy – Olivia’s taste buds had long been dulled by invalid food. A bag of bread, sausage, ground coffee and occasionally apples, would appear silently at her door, along with the coins, which were stacked up neatly in order of size. On her two-ring gas stove she brewed coffee and drank it thick and dark – her one vice, as she saw it.

Every month or so Olivia climbed the broad stone steps to the college department where Professor Schmidt held court. The Professor always looked surprised to see her, but once she had drawn forth the handful of notes and papers from her leather satchel (once her father’s), he was happy to discuss her work and ideas. Sometimes he would reach into the dark varnished cupboard and take out a bottle of sherry and two sticky glasses, and they would sit, one either side of the fireplace, talking until the college housekeeper came to turn down the lamps. She felt happiest there – if the satisfaction of philosophical grappling and a sense of not wanting to be anywhere else could be described as happiness. The feeling lasted until she got back to her own room, heated up the dregs of the morning’s coffee and climbed under her quilt for warmth. Using a pile of books as a bedside table, she would lie there for hours, thinking about life in the abstract and sometimes hearing her sisters’ voices of pity. They had both sent letters over the last year, but Olivia had stopped opening them after a while – they seemed to have nothing to say except things of a domestic nature – children, garden, troublesome housemaids. Three or four unopened envelopes lay strewn under her desk.

Watching the trees being stripped of their foliage, Olivia decided that perhaps it was time to go home for a visit. There were documents and things to do with her parents’ house that she had to attend to, and she supposed she should visit her growing and uninteresting collection of nephews and nieces. Wrapping herself in a thick woollen coat (her mother’s best and too good to throw out) and pulling on a sturdy pair of boots, she headed down the street to the railway station. How much was a passage back to Britain? She couldn’t remember how much it had cost to get here – she just knew that you could buy a ticket that got you from one place to another: a ticket including train travel at both ends, and a boat trip in the middle.

The streets were quiet, but then it was still early morning. She berated herself: what if the station didn’t open till later? She didn’t know if she had the mental strength to make the journey again. The wooden gate creaked and she saw the smoke from the station guard’s pipe through the hatchway. Relieved, Olivia pulled off her mittens and in her crisp, clear voice asked for a passage to London. The station guard took his pipe from his lips and gave her a strange look. She repeated her request.

‘London. London, in England.’

He smiled and leaned forward.

‘Fraulein, it is not possible to go to England’ he said.

‘Whyever not? Is there a problem with the train?’ she frowned. This was most inconvenient.

‘No, Fraulein. You cannot go to England because we are at war with England’.

To be continued…….

This is based on a true story. I am going to write it as a short story in several parts, but if I get a good feeling about it, I might expand it and see where it goes!

When her mother died, Olivia felt nothing but relief. She had played the part of the youngest daughter diligently, and followed her parents’ Victorian notions of duty by staying at home to look after them in their old age. Her sisters had both had jobs, if not careers, and both had married and now lived too far away to be of any use.

Her mother’s death left Olivia financially independent (her reward for giving up her youth, she supposed) and she was at liberty to pursue whatever dream had not been stifled by the claustrophobia of the sickroom. Lying on her wooden bed and hearing the springs creak beneath her, Olivia’s first thought was ‘away’. Away to where, though? She had never travelled and had little notion to see the world. If she had a companion perhaps, or a husband, then a journey of exploration might have been undertaken, but Olivia could not envisage herself mounting camels, or taking a train across continents. She could not see the point of holidays.

What leisure time Olivia had enjoyed during her parents’ years of sickness and dotage had been spent in educating herself. She had forced herself through her father’s leather-bound Classics (mostly untouched and some with pages still uncut), and to stretch her mind through the long nights of nursing, had taught herself German in order to study the works of the great German philosophers. Her sisters, in their rare visits, had accused her of being humourless. They’d be bloody humourless, she’d thought, scraping the burnt toast, if they’d had to wipe the ancient backsides.

Olivia’s glance drifted around her book-stuffed room and she allowed her mind to slip. Heidegger and Kierkegaard sat alongside Milton and Keats. A collection of dog-eared Bibles paid testament to Olivia’s religious habit. And it was a habit, she supposed, borne out of years of her father’s stern voice and the silent, dusty Sundays. From her prone position, she stretched out her hand and slid her bedside Bible onto her chest and opened it at random, just in case it could offer her any words of wisdom. It didn’t. It offered her a page of begats, doing no more than reminding her of her loveless state of spinsterhood.

Her first task was to clear out her parents’ belongings and clean the house from top to bottom. The scrubbing of the sickroom floor provided a monotonous rhythm to Olivia’s thoughts: ‘What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do?’ she muttered under her breath. It never occurred to Olivia to do nothing: it was simply not in her nature. She heaped woollen coats and flattened leather brogues onto the cart of the rag-and-bone man and locked her father’s Great War medals in her wooden box. As she swept out her mother’s wardrobe, she found a pile of old school exercise books, inscribed with her fastidious hand. Untying the string she was faced with faded ink lines of Latin and Greek and the reminder that she had once shown an aptitude for scholarship. Her hand paused in the turning of the pages.

A week later a brown envelope arrived bearing pamphlets and booklets. A fortnight after that, a letter, bearing a florid embossed crest, informed Olivia that if the financial arrangements were found to be in order, her place at the Faculty of Theology in Paderborn, Westphalia, would be secured.

I’ve got this idea. It’s crazy, but it might just work.

In September last year I attended a fantastic three day residential course at Newbattle Abbey College, in Contemporary Oral Storytelling. You may recall that there’s an Orkney connection with Newbattle, as George Mackay Brown spent some there, when Edwin Muir was warden. Anyway, if there’s one thing this dragon likes doing, it’s talking, and in particular, telling stories (the writing thing is an extension of that, I suppose – the benefit of the writing being you don’t have to be in the same room as me). I had a magic time and emerged hungover, frazzled, and full of ideas.

There’s another Newbattle Abbey course in May, and to get the full qualification, I also have to produce a piece of written work in the form of a project; a plan or report about how I could use storytelling in my community or working life. We have some outstanding and notable storytellers here in Orkney, but they are relatively few in number, and there is not much in the way of regular, organised events, particularly for newbies like me to cut their teeth. A bit of research on the interwebs, and I discovered that there been, once upon a time (see what I did there?) an Orkney Storytelling Festival. It ran in 2000 and 2001, and was intended to be an annual event, but failed to materialise: not from lack of support, it was just that the organisers simply didn’t have the time amongst all their other commitments, and nobody else was available to take on the task.

My idea for the course project was to write a feasibility study into the re-establishment of the Orkney Storytelling Festival. I would speak to venues, get quotes on accommodation, website design, advertising, seek grants from the council, carry out market research……..can you see where I’m going with this?

Quite simply, if I am going to all that trouble to fact-find, and if I discover that it is actually really feasible, then for goodness sake I’ll have to do it for real. As of next week, the Orkney Storytelling Festival 2010 will be a very exciting but very scary reality. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been extremely encouraging, and many have offered help, support, discounts, and their time and expertise.

My pencilled-in dates are 22-24 October. I’ve chosen that weekend for several reasons: it coincides with the Scottish International Storytelling Festival which is based in Edinburgh but links with events all over Scotland (and I could piggyback on their marketing). It is half-term. It is at a time when there are no other festival-type events in Orkney, and slightly out-of-season, which makes it more eligible for council funding. It is the same weekend that the clocks go back, thus marking a symbolic turning of the year, when we all hunker down for the winter, beside our fires, telling stories……

I’m going to start the nitty-gritty next week, and hope to have costs worked out in the next week or two. It’s hugely exciting, and will be an enormous amount of work, but I think it could be fabulous! And if you, dear IBers and readers, wish to see the Dragon in action…..well, just put that date in your diaries and watch this space!

Tags: 2010, festival, Orkney, storytelling