A Girl Called Flotsam

  ‘After I’d held the skull,’ she began, opening the palm of her hand and offering it to his imagination, ‘I felt it charge me in a way I couldn’t understand, or give dimension to. Not long after I sat down by the river wall and dozed off to sleep. What you’ve just heard, the opening of the film, came to me then, not as a film at that stage, but a vivid picture of this girl, running, free somehow linking the past and the present, as her skull did in my hand.’

  Harry was nodding, wanting her to continue. ‘And the rest?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t explain how it worked. In a way, I don’t want to know. Flotsam became something I wasn’t, but I could glimpse her and the more I thought about her the clearer she became.’ She paused. ‘And then you came into the picture and gave another dimension to it all, not that I saw this at first. I would find myself thinking about Flotsam as a real person, which of course she was. But, and I’ve only just realised this, the more I could see the…’ she searched for the words ‘…well, what did Troumeg say, washed up state I was in, the more I created a world for Flotsam that perhaps I didn’t have. Three generation of self supporting women who were able to do something that I realised I couldn’t… trust their instincts.’

  She stopped and felt a great weight come off her chest. ‘And so the two stories began to appear in parallel, often in opposition, the events of my life and that of Flotsam and I would find myself dreaming of her and waking and wondering where I was, neither here nor there.’

  Not far behind where she was now standing, a grassy slope had once run down to the river where she was sure the three woman had walked and played. How she knew this she couldn’t say, but peering out of the window she quite expected to see them, hand in hand, emerging from the underpass, strong, sure of themselves and pausing now to look upwards to raise their arms in her direction to wave a salute.

  So now Beatrice, facing away from the two men, saluted back, a gesture that spanned a thousand years.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am indebted to Thames21 for setting me off on this journey. Cleaning the foreshore of the Thames, the valuable task this charity undertakes, is an odd but fascinating way to spend a few hours and clearly inspirational. I was given valuable help by the City of London Archaeological Society and by the Museum of London. If you get the chance, visit Billingsgate House and Baths on Lower Thames Street, not far from the Tower of London and get a sense of what London was like a thousand years ago. The Anglo-Saxon jewellery in the British Museum was a delight. Thanks, as ever, to my wife Sally, who along with Richard Barber, Rita Dallas and Chiara Messineo helped guide and inform the manuscript. Finally, my thanks to the late Doreen Fiol, writer, poet and teacher, who always believed in Flotsam

  Also by John Tagholm

  www.johntagholm.com

  COPYRIGHT

  First published by Muswell Press in 2016

  Typeset by e-Digital Design Ltd.

  Copyright © John Tagholm 2016

  John Tagholm has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-9954822-0-3

  Muswell Press

  London

  N6 5HQ

  www.muswell-press.co.uk

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