An accompaniment to the short story of Richmal Oates-Whitehead

What if it was just that one little thread

Which meant the difference between him going to her instead of me

What if it actually never happened

Existing only as another ‘what might have been’

~

What if I were to weave this thread in my tale

Diverting it into a vacant and adjacent stitch of fate

For me that’d be a far more refined resolution

Than the tears that run down when all is too late

~

Copyrighted image belongs to Sharon Smith (portfolio)

For background: Liar: A New Story Idea

And in particular, an article from NZHerald.co.nz – The colourful life and sad death of a fabulist

This will probably be the last little peek at the ‘Liar’ short story about Richmal Oates-Whitehead for a while before I go on and finish the whole story. Obviously what’s been pasted here is all still very young, rough, not fully developed. But it’s a direction and a foundation for the final product.

Questions to think about: details details! What was New Zealand fashion like for early 90’s University students? What was the social climate like for young people in the late teens and early twenties in the society, and how did dating fit into it all? Were funky cafes like the one described even in existence back then? What real life University would best fit the story in terms of location and mentality? What are some subtle little Kiwi phrases for when I take over as Richmal in the first person? “Blinklessly” is not a word, although it bloody well should be.

…..

Intro. Richmal: age 32. Fantasy.

Inspiration. I have begun work on a new fictional story project, tentatively titled “Liar”, involving a very real, very unique person. Richmal Oates-Whitehead was a medical writer-turned doctor who came to prominence during the London bombings in 2005 having been hailed as something of a saviour after assisting victims, however it was this fame that ultimately led to her downfall. It was later revealed that she was not really a doctor, that the stories she shared with colleagues (including details of her marriage and the death of her twins) were in fact all entirely fabricated and, tragically, Richmal passed away shortly afterwards from the adverse-effects of the bombings without ever being able to provide an explanation as to what motivated her actions.

Her story just got me thinking: what would compel somebody to create so many lies of such significance that not only are the lines between fantasy and reality not so much blurred but rather melded and fused together and existing as the one entity. So here I am now, attempting to fill in the gaps. It’s immensely interesting given the amount of fiction present in her own life and the fiction from my end colliding in an attempt to explain Richmal’s unique life; her childhood, her university years, her adulthood, so much of it unknown in a life which surely cannot be dismissed as simply being “crazy”. She lived multiple lives it seems and, in an ideal word, the richer she would have been for it.

And what better way to explore the mind of someone with multiple personality disorder than to purposely create her actual existence, as well as her fantasy, in my own head and experiment to see what happens?

I won’t give away details as to how I am exploring these personalities given that I could “blow my cover”, but I will say that it has so far involved the creation of a fictional character with her own web space and virtual reality presence through a blog site and a virtual online world, respectively. I will continue to work on The Secret Project of course, but I am also truly excited about the possibilities in taking on such a project and the benefits it could yield in terms of the expansion of writing style and ability and, most of all, quite literally getting into the head of different characters. Or should that be the other way around?

So here’s a very early and very rough look at a fictional Richmal, aged 10. In the meantime I will continue with the personality switches and take great care so as to not to let them overlap and overwrite my own sense of self. It’ll be a controlled state of psychosis and I’ll be fine, scout’s honour!

………………………………..

Richmal Age 10.

I lie sometimes, but don’t we all? It wasn’t until the end of term 3 of this year that I found out that lies happen all the time. Even mum and dad lie to me, but it’s okay.

Last winter when our 2 year old sheepdog Aihe jumped the fence in the backyard and went missing, mum and dad took me out in the car for three straight nights after dinnertime looking for her around the neighbourhood. Dad would drive around and around for hours, knocking on every door and asking everybody whether they’d seen her until I fell asleep in mum’s lap and dad would give up for the night and I heard him swear to himself softly and mum would “shhhh!” him because he would wake me up, but it was okay because it was only for a few seconds.

Then a few weeks later a policeman came to our house and dad called mum over to him while I was out refilling the bird seeds in the birdhouse in the backyard and when I put the packet of seeds down to go inside and listen to what they were talking about the policeman took off his hat and fell silent before mum turned to me, her face all red and her eyebrows pointed upwards like the roof of a house I once drew at school, and told me very gently and slowly to go back outside and finish feeding the birds. Dad put his arm around mum as she turned back towards the policeman and so I got worried that mum may have done something bad.

A little robin flew down and sat on the birdbath and whistled at me as I fed it the last handful of seeds when I heard the glass door slide open and mum and dad came out to see me and they both crouched down and put their arms around me. They looked like they were about to cry and they began to stutter a little as they spoke and they took a while to get ready and during all this I began to feel a little funny about it while the little robin whistled away, pecking at his food happily because he had got there first and there were no other birds around to snatch his seeds away. They told me Aihe wouldn’t be coming back home because she was now in heaven, and that God had decided to invite her up to his house in the sky so that she could play with all the other animals, and that up there every animal got along, even lions and zebras and cats and dogs, and they’d never fight. It suddenly made sense to me when they told me this that the sky was full of clouds but they weren’t really clouds; they were sheep that just looked like clouds because there were so many of them, and that Aihe would have the time of her life up there chasing them around because God had spent so much effort decorating his sky garden with sheep everywhere just for her because she had been such a good dog. I asked mum and dad if I could go up and play with Aihe and all the sheep, as well as the lions and zebras, but when I said this mum started crying so I lied to her and said I didn’t really mean it, even though I did.

That’s why I think lies can be good sometimes. To make people feel better. We learnt one day in religion class about St Augustine and what he said about lies, and how lies that don’t harm anyone but save people aren’t really lies at all. So I didn’t mind when my parents lied to me. They used to lie to me and say that they were going to have a private talk in their bedroom with the door shut, but it wasn’t a lie because I could hear every little thing they said to one another because they’d talk really loud but I didn’t know why they called each other those mean names and made each other sad. So I’d lie back to them when they asked me whether I got along with all the other kids at school and I’d say yes when the truth was that most kids called me names except for my best friend Natasha, and that my pencils and erasers got stolen and my bag was thrown over the back fence behind the canteen and into the dark bushes where the teachers told us never to go. I told mum and dad that I left my bag on the bus and they’d get mad at me but not for long because soon they’d have more private chats with each other in the backyard with the glass door slid shut when I would pretend to watch TV but really I was watching their silhouettes in front of the purple evening sky dance around and slouch their shoulders and point out their fingertips so it looked like they were holding starfish in their hands. When they would come back in when the sports news was on they’d take turns taking me back to my room and speaking to me about how sorry they were. I didn’t want them to feel sorry because it was my fault that I left my bag on the bus, not theirs.

I’m 10 years old now but it was only when I was 9 that I found out that mum and dad had been lying to me. I was a bit upset about it then but not anymore because like St Augustine said, lies that don’t hurt can help. When dad told me he had to go away to another country for work and didn’t come home when he was meant to I was worried that he got lost and so I asked mum where he was and she told me he was overseas, so I asked her whether he caught a boat because I’d always wanted to go on a boat, but she told me she wasn’t sure. But then a few days later on shopping night we ran into him at the supermarket when I was deciding what flavour yoghurt I wanted and he had a lady friend with him and I was about to introduce myself but then mum got upset and then dad left quickly with his friend before I had a chance to talk and he gave me a real sad look with his eyes as he walked off. When I told Natasha at school about what happened she said my parents were going to get a divorce just like her parents and when I asked her what that meant she said that it was when your mum and dad decide to take turns every weekend to take you out to the carnival and the markets and you get to live in two houses, but ever since she said that I’ve only seen dad once and so I got upset with Natasha the other day because she’d lied to me too and I told her I didn’t want to be her friend anymore, but that was a lie as well because she’s my best friend and I’m not upset with her anymore.

When mum asked me yesterday when she dropped me off at school whether or not I missed dad, I stared at her face for a second and saw that she looked real sad, so I told her no, even though I did. I thought that saying that would make her smile but she just looked down at the middle of the steering wheel and so I looked too but there was nothing there apart from the car horn. I wondered if maybe it had stopped working and that was why mum was sad because in case she needed to honk the horn she wouldn’t be able to. I was about to ask her this when she kissed my cheek and gave me a hug and told me to have a nice day and so I grabbed the new bag she had bought for me to replace the one I had lost and waved her goodbye as she drove off.

I bumped into Natasha just in front of the red metal gates at school and said “Hi” and she said “Hi” and we walked together side by side while the other kids around us played and made as much noise as they could before the morning bell rang. As we walked it started to sprinkle and Natasha looked up at the sky and said there were lots of grey clouds and that there was going to be a storm. I got excited and told her that I knew what clouds were made of, and when she asked me to tell her I said “they’re made of lots of sheep that God put up there so that Aihe could chase them around all day and that’s why the clouds move,” which then made me wonder where the rain came from but Natasha stopped walking and just looked at me weirdly and called me a liar.