I have a picture of my mother walking up the mountain, dragging her bag behind her. She is not so charmed now.
Kathleen Kent
Kathleen Kent's first novel has its roots in her own family history. The Heretic's Daughter follows the story of Martha Carrier, one of the women hanged in the Salem witch trials, whom Kent discovered she was realated to through her mother. A research trip for her second book brings her to Wales, where she gains first hand experience of two great British institutions; the weather and the rail network. Why take one train when you can take four?
We imagine a young Thomas Carrier, whose name was Thomas Morgan before he came to New England, standing in awe at the site of this behemoth, never before seeing anything larger than a single family house before leaving his country home.
Sunday
I'm flying to England from Texas with my "research assistant", who remarkably resembles my mother, to meet the Macmillan editors in London who are publishing my first novel, The Heretic's Daughter, a novel about the Salem witch trials. It's my mother's first trip to London - really it's her first trip anywhere outside of the continental U.S. - and she's as excited as a school girl (at 83) to be travelling. Everything fascinates her, the on-screen entertainment, the fuzzy blankets and, because I've sprung for first class, after all you only live once, the little amenities kits with their tiny tubes of toothpaste and bottles of mouthwash and booties. She sheepishly tucks the booties into her overnight bag at the end of the flight and I decide not to tell her it's hers to take and spoil her fun.
My mother and I have made many trips together during the five years it took to write the book. Her maiden name is Carrier and it was through her, and her mother, that I learned I was the descendent of Martha Carrier, hanged as a witch in Salem in 1692. We travelled together to Salem, Massachusetts, and all through Connecticut researching early family settlements, libraries, historical societies and lots and lots of graveyards. She was always a treasure trove of Carrier family stories and I soon learned she was a wonderful, patient researcher, digging through genealogical records and uncovering historical minutiae.
We are now going to England and Wales to do research on the next book which is a prequel to the first, about Martha's husband, Thomas, a Welshman, who fled with the regicides to the New World to escape an avenging Charles II.
Monday
We land in London and head for the hotel in a typical British cab and my mother keeps saying to the driver, in her Texas twang, "Say that again. I love the way you talk." We check our bags into the room and walk to St. James Park. It's a lovely day, warm and sunny, and I try to warn my mother that it's not always like this. But she is enchanted with the beauty of the park; the swans and the weeping willows trailing their branches into the water. I tell her for dinner I'm going to take her for traditional British food and she has her first curry. She thinks it's remarkably like Tex-Mex food.
Tuesday
We spend our first full day meeting the publishers, which is thrilling, and doing a walking tour of Buckingham Palace, Westminster and Victorian monuments of all sorts. Again it's a beautiful day and my mother keeps saying, "Why, the weather is lovely here! I don't know what everyone was going on about. . ."
When we go back to the hotel I ask the concierge for a train schedule for Wales. He blinks twice and asks, deadpan, "Whatever for?" I say, "Research for a book." He says, "Ah, well if you must. . ." and prints out a schedule and tells us what train station to leave from. What he does not tell us is that the English, evidently in order to confuse the Welsh, have not built any direct routes from point A to point B and we take four trains, often on opposing tracks, to get from London to Conwy.
We get off the train and it has begun to rain. We heave our suitcases up and over the bridge, through the main part of town, over the cobbled streets, past the Elizabethan style houses and come to stand in awe at the walls of the castle. My mother says, "Will you look at that. . ." We then ask a very nice gentleman, with "the cutest accent", where our hotel is. He points upward; up a very, very steep hill to our B&B perched on the crest of a hill, a mountain really, next to the castle. I have a picture of my mother walking up the mountain, dragging her bag behind her. She is not so charmed now. But we check in, change our clothes and admire the breathtaking view from our window. The rain is a misting sort and the gulls from the harbour hover over the castle walls very much the way they must have done for 500 years.
Wednesday
We explore Conwy, it's shops, and streets and castle, marvelling at its massive size. We stand on the parapets and talk about how the strength of the walls were a testament to the ferocity of the native people, compelling King John to build so many fortifications all throughout Wales. We imagine a young Thomas Carrier, whose name was Thomas Morgan before he came to New England, standing in awe at the site of this behemoth, never before seeing anything larger than a single family house before leaving his country home.
We have an early dinner of shepherd's pie and golden ale and somehow the walk back up the mountain is not so bad. We order a cab to take us the train station and, with only two trains, arrive in Betys-y-Coed.
Thursday
We wake in our B&B to the sound of sheep gently bleating in a field across the narrow road. It is raining and we go on walk-about discovering old churches, graveyards, museums and ancient public houses. My mother is impressed with the continuity of these old pubs, smudged with fires from centuries ago, housing the famous and infamous. We talk to local historians and listen to families still speaking Welsh in a prideful way. My mother says, "It sounds like a waterfall."
We go to sleep with the sound of rain and sheep.
Friday
We go to Mount Snowdon and take the steam engine slowly up the mountain. Everyone in the train is quiet, after the tour-guide stops squawking, and the stone walls and hefods, summer houses for the shepherds, glide past us, uninhabited and beautiful in their stark abandonment. The valleys unfold below us, but above us the clouds descend heavily to cover the top of Mount Snowdon, so that when we get to the end of the track, the crest disappears into a solid wall of dark grey mist. My mother and I stand, hand in hand, and look out over the vista for hundreds of miles. The wind is cold and damp, but the rain ceases to fall for the moment, and we imagine Thomas Morgan Carrier striding over the barren and resisting hills, on his way to London and a larger life journey he could not possibly then have comprehended. My mother says, "Lovely. So lovely."
Tuesday, 13 January, 2009
In My week
- Charlotte Grimshaw
- Susan Hill
- Ed Hollis
- Ali Sethi
- Wells Tower
- Con Coughlin
- Dirk Wittenborn
- Kathleen Kent
- Daniel Everett
- Mark Crick
- Glyn Maxwell
- Rabih Alameddine
- Nicholas Hogg
- Charles Boyle
- Mohammed Hanif
- Sarah Hall
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