Verity Gallant
The idea of Verity came to me, quite clearly, when I was going for a winter walk on a marsh in Walberswick, near my home, that is very dark, and often quite atmospheric with a huge dirty-grey sky. I could see her quite clearly, and within a few minutes I could hear her arguing with Henry. The things that felt most important to me about her, were that she should have a Grandmother who arrived suddenly from nowhere, and a family past her parents had kept secret.
I’m not sure I completely understood I was writing a novel for a younger audience when I first started. When you start writing everyone is so keen to impress on you at every stage of the process that you’re incredibly unlikely to get an agent, or a publishing deal, or to sell any copies of the book…
So in many ways Verity always felt like my own private story. Which is probably why it feels so strange to see her out there in the world, living her own life. I think, like so many things, once it’s done you can’t imagine how it could ever have been any other way. Verity is a story for a younger audience, that some grown-ups like too. And hers is a story I had to tell.
From Mistress of the Storm:
The next morning Verity could be found in the kitchen, buttering toast. She surreptitiously rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. What had possessed her? How could she have spent a whole night reading On the Origin of Stories: A Disquisition by Messrs R. Hodge, Heyworth & Helerley?
Her sister, Poppy, was busily wolfing down breakfast, consumed by thoughts of her audition for the Christmas revue.
‘So exciting,’ she chattered as Mrs Gallant looked at her proudly. She was such a pretty little girl: petite in every way, with fair hair, clear blue eyes and a sunny charm that people instantly warmed to.
‘I’m sure they’ll be delighted to have you,’ her mother encouraged. ‘It must be terribly difficult to find cast members with your looks and talent.’
Poppy glanced across the kitchen. ‘You should try too, Verity,’ she urged. ‘Shouldn’t she, Mother?’
Mrs Gallant looked uncertainly at her elder daughter. ‘There’s no harm in trying,’ she agreed hesitantly.
Verity knew her mother didn’t mean to be hurtful. Still, as her old friend Alice had often said to her: Not everything in life turns out as we would like.
Nor should it, Verity reminded herself. It just seemed a little hard sometimes to be tall for your age – and sturdy – with long brown hair that strayed from its clasp in an unruly fashion. To be the exception that proved the rule in a family of slender blonds.
Verity did not match the rest of the Gallants. Her solemn little face with its pink cheeks and charcoal eyes wavered constantly between very pretty and very plain. But it wasn’t just her looks. Like all good parents, Verity’s mother and father had lined up the full range of appropriate activities for their daughters: horse-riding, piano lessons, dance classes, choir practice . . . the list ran on and on. Poppy seemed to love them all, and Verity didn’t want to be ungrateful, but sometimes, when she was walking down the hill, she caught herself looking out to sea and wishing it was possible to pick herself up in the air and fly away. To feel the wind in her hair, and dirt on her face.
Not everything in life turns out as we would like. But things can change.
