Rosie by Rose Tremain

Author:Rose Tremain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

It was a short step, then, from here to the idea that I might write a play we could perform.

My first effort was about two pampered girls who decide to see the world by offering themselves as cleaners to rich Italians, Americans and vodka-quaffing Russians. The whole idea was preposterous and the play deserved the mediocre reception that it got. It was a disappointment to me, of course, but I thought of Keith and all his disappointments, and pressed on.

I followed this first play with a work titled Always a Clown, thus ushering in another epic period of scene-painting, to create a circus arena. This, coupled with a rather moving performance from Jane Stern as the titular clown, and some stirring music (Sibelius’s symphonic poem Finlandia) to accompany his/her dream of thwarted love, gave a sentimental story some much-needed ballast. At least it expressed its distance from the short mysteries and drawing-room comedies that were the normal fare of form plays. And once again, the difficulty of the whole project inspired us as a group and brought us together. Another good thing happened, all the more miraculous for being unexpected: on the morning of the play, a telegram arrived from Keith, saying, ‘Congratulations on your first first night. Love, Dad.’

I kept this for a long time, but eventually it got thrown out, along with all my teenage letters and notebooks. I would give quite a lot to have some of these bits of my juvenile archive back. I envy Elsa her diary. But ninety per cent of all my records are gone and that’s that. What I can remember is that after Always a Clown, I was no longer unhappy at Crofton Grange. In fact, I was enthralled by all the work that could be done there. And – ironic though this may sound – when the longed-for holidays came round, I discovered in myself a peculiar unease that at first I couldn’t identify. Then, one afternoon, in my comfortable room at Frilsham Manor, I realised with something like shock that I was bored. I wanted to be back at school, painting scenery, learning Shakespeare, singing in the choir, playing the piano – and writing.

Throughout my professional writing life, which has now lasted forty years, I’ve very often been asked: ‘How did you come to be a writer?’ Are writers ‘born’? people wonder. Or do we struggle extremely hard to rebirth ourselves in this new guise? And if so, when and how is this rebirthing achieved?

The origins of our writing selves are all different. Some writers, like my old friend and mentor Angus Wilson, who didn’t ‘discover’ himself as a novelist until he was forty, come to it late, after they’ve embarked on other careers. The great Penelope Fitzgerald ‘knew’ she was a writer when an undergraduate at Oxford, but wasn’t able – because of family commitments and the need to earn regular money – to find the time to write novels until she was sixty.

For me, there are various answers, or perhaps what I should call ‘a list of ingredients’ present in the true answer.

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