When I was growing up, I loved words: writing poetry, acting in plays, reading stories. However, I lacked the courage to study English Literature at university and become an actor: there was also a scarcity of brown female faces in the plays and films I went to see. So, I chose the easy option – I became a doctor.
Many years later, I took the course Finding the Poem with Paul Lyalls at the original Writing Room in Wood Green, London. At that point in my life, my husband was in remission, but we knew his cancer was incurable, it was just a matter of time.
Three months after my husband died, I sat on a pink sofa in Peckham telling my grief therapist that I was going to return to work. He asked me if I wanted to return to work, to which I answered, ‘I am a doctor, I ought to return to work.’
He asked me to consider doing something that I wanted to do. I left deep in thought. The next time I sat on the pink sofa, I told Ali that I had signed up to undertake a course: Introduction to Creative Writing.
I loved it. When the course finished, I told Alison Chandler the tutor that I wanted to carry on my writing journey with her, but I knew that the only other course she taught required you to have ‘a project’. I did not have ‘a project’. Alison sent me a project template and told me we’d touch base in a week. I was used to writing grants: aims, outcomes and deliverables. A week later I had a convincing novel synopsis: my ticket onto my first Prioritise Your Writing course.
In week one, I came clean with my peers: ‘The Novel’ was a vehicle to practise the craft of writing fiction: all I had ever published were neuroscience papers for academic journals. I needed to practise creating characters who spoke authentic dialogue and posed questions that remained unanswered (very hard to unlearn as a doctor!).
Alison created a safe space in which to experiment, have fun and be vulnerable. My peers imbued me with confidence that I could use words to make them laugh, cry and care about my characters. The structure of the course gave me permission to focus on my writing and I continue to learn so much from reviewing other people’s writing. Alison’s skill in facilitating is key to the reciprocal learning that she enables on the online course.
Giovanna Iozzi’s Nature Writing Workshop influenced my writing. Trees became characters in my novel, whether the protagonist is swearing at her inability to name the trees that line the freezing cold pond as she swims in deep midwinter or enjoying sex against the wide girth of oak tree on a hot summer’s night. Three years later I am still on Alison’s Prioritise course, only now I have a different strap line: ‘My name is Sara and this is my novel’.
Charlotte is living the perfect ‘North London life’: her husband cooks delectable curries for their hip European friends who have stayed post Brexit, her kids enjoy wild camping and at weekends she catches up with her girlfriends swimming in the women’s pond. But when Charlotte’s husband dies of cancer, she finds herself stripped of the neat labels that previously defined her identity: doctor, wife, volunteer working with Syrian refugees. Charlotte finds the blank canvas terrifying but slowly learns to embrace the opportunity to examine the unconscious decisions she has made attributable to her race and heritage. Charlotte’s Indian mother, Eva, is dropping the façade that covered up her dementia. Flashbacks to Eva’s early life in Kenya in the 1950s expose the impact of Empire on Indian families working for the British Government in East Africa.
The family home is a hub for intergenerational relationships and a cast of friends: Kam, Charlotte’s best friend, a human rights barrister; Miguel and Frederick, fathers to twins the same age as Charlotte’s young twins; and lastly Elijah and Toral, best friends to Sofia, Charlotte’s teenage daughter.
This is a story about how to find joy despite adversity: whether swimming amongst the cormorants on a grey winter’s day or navigating internet dating as a widow with an HRT patch on her buttocks.
An extract of Sara’s novel-in-progress
This is a recently written piece designed to show Charlotte’s status quo at the opening of the novel. She is a paediatric consultant who is about to go off shift, when a patient she recognises is brought into A&E by ambulance. Alexandro is very experienced but new to this hospital.
Alexandro is decisive. He has to be: we all know that the risk of brain injury goes up once a child has been fitting for more than half an hour. Ayana pushes the syringe of midazolam though the cannula, giving it directly into Abdul’s bloodstream.
‘Have we got the thiopentone ready? We may need to intubate.’ Alexandro makes eye contact with the anaesthetist who nods.
‘Everything is set up; we can intubate as soon as you give the go ahead.’
All eyes are watching Abdul. I can feel my heart beating fast. We have had to transfer him out to intensive care many times. I catch his mother’s gaze; Mariam is looking at me pleadingly. I nod, I don’t voice any false platitudes, much as I want to be able to say ‘it will be all right’. I want to avoid a trip to intensive care as much as she does, this little boy has gone through enough in his short life.
All four of Abdul’s limbs are jerking rhythmically, but I can see the pace is slowing.
‘From the top again please Ayana, let’s reassess.’
I can see beads of sweat on Alexandro’s forehead.
‘Airway patent, oxygen sats 99 percent, resp rate 20, good air entry to both bases, have we ordered a chest x-ray for those crackles?’
The A&E nurse nods. Ayana continues.
‘Heart rate 150, cap refill is now less than 2 seconds following the fluid bolus. Peripheries are warm, Glasgow coma scale still 12. Time now 28 minutes, the blood gas is running now, the first one clotted.’
Alexandro looks at me with raised eyebrows and I nod.
‘Ok, let’s set up to intubate.’
The anaesthetist moves quickly with calm movements.
‘Ok, maximise oxygenation please, let’s get ready to give the thiopentone.’
She is crouched behind Abdul’s head, a metal laryngoscope in her left hand, the tube that she will insert into his windpipe in her right hand. She takes one last glance along Abdul’s body…
’Wait stop!’
Abdul gives one last shudder and then his body slumps. I hold my breath. Abdul continues to breathe but he has stopped fitting. The silence is broken by Mariam, uttering a few words in Arabic, words that I now recognise to be ‘thank you God’.
Alexandro does not miss a beat. ‘OK, can we record that Abdul has stopped fitting at time 29 minutes. Keep giving him oxygen, let’s connect him to two thirds fluids. Steve, please make sure we have sent blood cultures and then write him up for IV antibiotics to cover for infection. Let’s get that chest x-ray and prepare for transfer to the ward.’
Alexandro lets out a huge exhale, reaches into his pocket and wipes his brow with a handkerchief. He has just run his first resuscitation in the UK. I walk up to him, squeeze his shoulder, whisper, ‘Well done – good job.’
Then, I turn to Mariam. She is holding her child’s hand, now there is not a barrier of healthcare professionals around her son. In a soft voice I say, ‘We’ve got cubicle 8 ready for him.’ She rests her head on his chest. ‘Let’s get someone to make you a cup of tea.’
I watch a tear roll down her face and onto Abdul’s bare chest, his skin the same shade of brown as hers, so they look like one body. I kneel by the bed so I am at her eye level.
‘Mariam, Abdul is not going to intensive care tonight.’
We have stood across Abdul’s fitting body so many times, but the familiarity of this scene does not make it easier. I know that each time Mariam thinks he will die, and I also know that I cannot take that fear away for her.
Author photo courtesy of Zoe Norfolk