What We're Writing--Deborah Crombie Missing London

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I am really missing London these days. Not that I had a definite visit planned for this year, but somehow knowing that I can't even contemplate such a journey (or that ten-hour plane flight each way) until there is a vaccine for Covid-19, or until there is some change from what is now the foreseeable future, has made the longing to be there painfully sharp.

I look at the photos my London photographer friend has sent me of empty streets, of Buckingham Palace with only a few scattered cyclists, of Piccadilly Circus without a living soul, and my heart contracts. It is a ghost city.

So I've been consoling myself with looking at some of my own favorite London photos.

Here's a Portobello Market vegetable stall. The market is always so full of life and activity--I can't imagine it deserted.

The Sun in Spendour pub at the top (south) end of Portobello Road, which used to be my "local" when I stayed in Notting Hill, and I still stop in every time I visit the market.

A flower stall on Portobello market.

And here I am back in 2017, having afternoon tea at St. Ermin's Hotel in Victoria (literally a stone's throw from Scotland Yard!)

Gosh, my hair looks short compared to what I'm seeing in the mirror now! (And, yes, it was tea AND champagne...)

I'm keeping up with the London news. I read the BBC updates every day, and Eater London, because you can judge the pulse of the city from what's going on in the restaurant world. (And that is not much these days...)

My favorite hotel is closed--as are all London hotels--which makes me sad and I wonder how all the lovely people on the staff are doing. But I had a little boost from an email newsletter today. One of my favorite London restaurant groups (which includes the restaurants Church Road, Elystan Street, and Kitchen W8) is providing meals for the NHS workers at the Royal Brompton Hospital!

Of course, I do have the advantage of being able to go to London in my imagination. Although, like most of us, I'm struggling to reconcile writing a pre-pandemic book with a post-pandemic world.
I'm also struggling with the "to prologue, or not to prologue" issue, so here is a little snippet from Kincaid/James #19, which might be a prologue...or might not.


     She stood looking down at her daughter, sleeping, damp hair tangled, her duvet kicked half off. The child had never slept easily. But those nights of walking and rocking, walking and rocking, were too distant now, a memory she struggled to grasp, just as she struggled to recall the warm weight of her baby in her arms. Now, the half-light from the open bedroom door made hieroglyphics of the unicorns dancing across her rumpled pajamas, as if the beasts were dancing in scattered moonlight.
     How could she bear to leave her little girl, perhaps for months? But she must, she knew she must. There were others who needed her more. And she needed to be herself, needed room to breathe, room to think, room to make decisions without the constant weight of his displeasure.
     She felt his presence even before she heard his footstep in the hall and his shadow blocked the light behind her. He grasped her shoulders. “You won’t go.”
    She didn’t turn, tried to stop herself flinching. “I have to. You know I have to. I can help—”
    “That’s your God complex,” he said softly. “Your place is here. A mother. A wife.”
    “Yes, but—” Her protest died away as his fingers bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms.
     His voice was a whisper now, a breath in her ear. “If you do this, my love, you will regret it. I can promise you that.”

So REDS and readers, what things do you want more at the moment, just because you know you can't have them? Including a proper afternoon tea...