Bleed Black

My first novel and winner of the Writing Magazine and Indepenpress Prize

This was my first novel, which I wrote for my Masters at Sheffield Hallam. The book won the Writing Magazine/Indepenpress competition and was published in 2013.

My writing has developed a lot since then but I am still very fond of the book and of the characters. I often wonder what’s happened to them since then and play with ideas for telling the next instalment of their stories.

I still remember the excitement of first holding my book in my hands and, later, seeing a copy on the shelf in Waterstones. You can buy the Kindle edition here

The novel is set in Northumberland, a landscape which inspired me from my first visit. It is structured around the seasonal festivals of the year and this extract is set at Lammastide - the 1st August - when some fractures in the relationships are beginning to be felt.

We celebrated Lammas in the evening, as the sun was beginning his slow descent into darkness. The heat hardly lessened as the light faded and my t shirt was soaked in sweat long before we reached the place Angel had chosen. She’d loaded me like a packhorse, whilst she skipped lightly through hedge shadows. Celia walked hand in hand with Ash but barely replied when I spoke to her.

          About a mile from the village there was an ancient tower, relic of the days of the Border Reivers. At weekends it opened to the public and the grassy carpark became a puzzle of picnics and pushchairs but in the evenings the tower stood solitary, circled by its swathe of mown grass. Angel climbed the gate at the entrance and signalled we should follow her. She settled on the grass beneath the tower walls and spread out her skirt in a crimson semicircle. She looked up expectantly and we arranged ourselves around her. I handed her the rucksack and she emptied the contents onto the grass

          ‘Now normally we wouldn’t have eats or drinks till we’d finished but this isn’t going to be a full on pagan ceremony – with having a Christian among us.’ She nodded towards Celia who nodded back. ‘So we’ll have a drink to start us off. This is supposed to be fun.’ She looked round at us. ‘It’s not church.’

          Celia didn’t rise to the bait and Angel handed wooden goblets round, then filled them with mead. Her eyes met mine across the top of her cup,

          ‘David is very fond of mead. He sampled it and me for the first time on the same afternoon. A very hot afternoon I seem to remember!’ she giggled. I pretended  to be embarrassed but shot Ash a sideways glance and was gratified to see he looked pissed off.

          ‘I’ve brought seed cake as well but we’ll save that for later.’ She lay back, folded her arms behind her head and stared up at the darkening sky. Unsure, the rest of us sipped our mead and looked at each other.

          ‘Are we going to do anything else or is this it?’ Ash asked eventually.’ I mean I’m never one to knock sitting about having a drink but I’d prefer a pint down the Plough.’

          Angel sat up abruptly. ‘I was trying to focus myself but we might as well get on with it. Now, do you have any idea what Lammas is about?’

          ‘It’s a festival of first fruits, celebrated by Christians for centuries and it used to be one of the big hiring fairs,’ Celia said. Angel looked a bit taken aback.

          ‘It might have been hijacked by the Christians but it’s not a Christian festival! It is to celebrate the first fruits of the harvest but also,’ and she shot a sharp look at Celia, ‘to commemorate the Sun God who lays down his life tonight for the sake of the harvest. And that’s definitely not Christian!’

          A God who lay down his life for others sounded vaguely familiar and  Celia’s lip curled in a knowing smile, though she didn’t say a word.

          Angel told us lots of things about Lammas – a pregnant goddess, the lord of the harvest, somebody called Mary Barleycorn and I tried to pay attention whilst thinking how good she looked in red.

          ‘….. the God and Goddess lie together for the last time.’ She had my attention now. ‘The last time before the God sacrifices himself and lets his power flow back into the earth. Sometimes we re-enact their final farewell, but I thought perhaps not tonight. Or maybe we could do that later.’

          I hadn’t time to turn scarlet or to really see how Celia and Ash took that before Angel was on her feet and dragging us along with her. She demanded we join hands and then started to walk us round in a circle, clockwise. Celia was pale and her lips set in a tight line.

          ‘First we go deosil, that’s clockwise, to raise the power in the circle. She pulled us round faster and faster, and I struggled to keep my balance. ‘And we summon the power of the Guardians of the four winds.’ She raised her face skywards as she circled and chanted to the Guardian Spirits of the North and the South, the East and the West.  I barely recognised her and it felt like we were intruding into her sacred world. I avoided looking at the other two. I couldn’t stand for Ash to laugh at her.

          Then, abruptly she stopped the circling and we sat round whilst she lit incense and an orange candle and sprinkled salt in a circle. She produced a corn dolly, ‘Mary Barleycorn and the symbol of the Goddess,’ she said, then passed the figure through the incense smoke and the flame, before handing her on to each of us. ‘Make your promise to the Goddess.’

          Celia passed her on as if the little doll were on fire. Ash ran his hands slowly over the figure and met Angel’s eyes with a long, suggestive gaze. I snatched Mary from him and glared and Angel laughed at us both. It didn’t feel very holy.

          Then she uncorked the bottle of mead and poured some into the centre of the circle, chanting,

          ‘Dark lord melts into the night

          Taking with him summer’s light.

          Merging wishes, law and might

          Removing evil from our sight.

          This is our libation, poured in memory of the God, in love of the Goddess, in thanks for the harvest. Blessed be.’ And it all seemed to be over.

           Angel cut the seed cake and Ash poured more mead, before, as he put it, Angel could waste any more on the soil. I was about to ask Celia how she’d found it but Angel put a hand up to stop me.

          ‘The ritual is over. But now we have to learn the lesson for the season. We have to assess our harvest, what we’ve achieved in the year, what we’ve learned and what we can change. Shall I go first?’ No-one argued.  ‘I’ve left everything I loved in Wales but found I didn’t need it anyway. I’ve learned that I never want to stay in one place for more than one turn of the year and that you have to make your life into what you want it to be. You take your harvest where you find it and if it’s someone else’s first then maybe they just didn’t appreciate it. Get the idea?’

          ‘I get it just fine.’ Celia sat up and hugged her knees. ‘I’ll go next shall I? This year I’ve learned you have to work hard for what you want, that my faith means everything to me and that when you find love you have to hold onto it, because there is nothing more precious and nothing more worth fighting for.’

          ‘How romantic,’ said Angel.

          ‘Only if the truth is romantic. Go on David, tell us about your harvest.’

          I had no idea what was simmering between Angel and Celia but the static was practically crackling. I had no idea either what my harvest was so I blurted out the things that were most in my thoughts,

          ‘I’ve found love and Celia’s right. It is the most precious thing.’ I tried to meet Angel’s eye but she was staring into her goblet. ‘And I’ve found sex and that’s pretty precious too!’

          God knows why I said that.  When I told Ash it was his turn he said,

          ‘I’m not talking some crap about my personal harvest. And I think we could have done without hearing about yours. If we’ve finished here I’m off to the pub.’ He hauled Celia to her feet and they set off, leaving Angel and me to clear up the cups and candles. As we placed everything back into the rucksack Angel reached over and kissed me on the lips.

          ‘I think that went rather well, don’t you?’