As Winter Came and Went - Extract 1

I promised I would post extracts of my novel in progress, so here’s the first one! This is the incipit of As Winter Came and Went, a historical/literary fiction novel, set in 1820.

Please note that this is not necessarily the final version of the incipit, since I am still in the process of revising my manuscript.

Feel free to comment and let me know if you like or dislike it, what you think work or doesn’t work, and if this taster makes you want to read the rest of the book!

 

Incipit of As Winter Came and Went
 

…such a very long way away…yes…back there in Africa…so sad isn’t it…a savage country, savage and godforsaken…he didn’t say what happened...meant to be dead…a strange story… Here they are again, talking, always talking, and they think I can’t hear ‘em, they think I can’t see ‘em, they think I don’t know it’s me it’s all about. They think I lost my senses as well as my soul, back there in Africa, but they got it wrong, so wrong.
…so sad isn’t it…a disaster…yet I was told…gold in that city…a godforsaken land I tell you… What is it now? I don’t care…Nothing matters really, nothing anymore …lovely weather…soon arrive with that wind…very nice yes, very nice…I feel sick. No, not so much sick as empty… empty and meaningless...about to disappear into the wind, the sea, infinity.... If I could. 
A grotesque pantomime, I nod and smirk and hate myself for a hypocrite. It’s not a nice part I play; I smile with my mouth full of sand and rotting from the inside. With my mouth full of sand and the sea in my eyes, nameless I erred, in the immensity. Immensity of the desert, immensity of the sea and a screeching bird crosses the white white sky. I wander and wonder, doomed for ever to never know where I go. 
They wanted me to tell ‘em a story. What for? I spun stories with my legs crossed on the sand, I told tales and they were thrown back in my face. I told tales and asked for water and dates… Stories have to be paid for. Let me tell you one, all of ye who stare and talk over there. Let me tell you a story that starts bad and ends bad ‘cause happy endings are ever so rare. Damn you, why do ye stare at me, ye all under the mast? You talk and talk and never want to hear. Now the questions, then the whispered answers, the answers you think are right, and the pitiful glances …tragic, so tragic…savages, yes sir, savages…They got it all wrong. Pitiful glances, full of satisfaction…can you wonder…after what happened… But what happened?
Let me tell you a story that began one and twenty years ago. All the way to Timbuktu. Timbuktu which they never found, which I never reached and neither did I want to. I never, never wanted to, not if they had to find it too. I told them, you shouldn’t, and serves them right after all. They sold their souls to the devil and tried to make me follow them. All the way to Timbuktu… Timbuktu, my grandmother said, my ancestors and yours, they once dwelled there.
Something snapped that could not be mended. Something snapped and I held on, to the book, to the tales. To the ghostly memory of my name. Pearls tumbled out of the girl’s mouth and it was the fairies’ gift to her. But like everything that comes from ‘em, it was a curse, sorrow and greed. What was the fairies’ gift to me? The sea in my eyes and the desert in my heart. A curse. The green green shadows of the sea in my eyes… Oak trees round the house and a rose bush in winter and a single flower laced with frost. I fell and the camel winked at me, I fell under the blazing sky and the sun pierced my eyes.
I lost my compass on the way from Timbuktu but my chestnut horse went on and on, lowering his head against the wind, closing his eyes against the sand. The little pony trotted on the cobbled road and his hooves were so many bells on the long way to the church. I had to sit still and hated it but Victoria, she was watching me. Watching me with her neatly plaited hair tied back with blue ribbons the colour of her eyes. And James, he’d pull her braids and she’d squeal and once she hit him back with her hymn book. Littlest, youngest, smallest I was of all six of us. Littlest, youngest, smallest and they called me a changeling ‘cause I’m left-handed and the fairies poured the green shadows of the sea into my eyes.
The road to Timbuktu, all lined with palm trees that fluttered and sang in the wind. But they were out of tune. And there was no water. No water, no shade, no cool shadows. No trees under which to rest save those stringy palm trees that softly laughed at me. Then they were lost, behind the faded blue mountains and the wind rose thousands of sharp needles that tore my skin and choked my lungs. No escape, no end. No end to the story yet. The night came, again and again, and the stars sung their lullaby. I’d never seen so many stars. 
…delightful weather…isn’t it…nothing like the sea… I grew up with the sea on one side and the hills on the other. There, over the barren cliffs, the sea, and there was a forest of ancient gnarled trees, trees that whispered in the northern wind. I sat under an oak tree and leant my head against the trunk. The leaves could not shelter me from the rain and it fell fell fell, silver drops rolling from the branches and glistening on the mossy stones. 
It’s too hot on the deck. A white sky, a white land. Filling my eyes, my dark and sea green eyes with dreams I’d forgotten and memories I’d dreamt. …look at him…pale…isn’t he…malaria…terrible…can you wonder… Can you wonder? Stop talking, stop staring. To hell with that and the whole lot of ‘em… No one to give me a smile or a word of comfort. Alone under the oak tree as the rain fell down. Alone in the desert and the desert swallowed me. The Sahara, whose name is a song whispered by the southern wind. Palm trees and oak trees. Plant an apple tree over my head… over my grave... It’d be so easy to fall, in the deep blue sea. It is too hot on the deck but I’m doomed forever to be cold. A ghost. Crashing waves coming and going, battling against the hull of the ship. Tossing and rolling and swaying, swaying. There’s no end to it. Coming and going…