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Oranges and Lemons

by ornum13 

Posted: 21 May 2007
Word Count: 1268
Summary: A fleeting glimpse of two characters
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Hi there fellow sufferers
I suppose it's time for me to take the plunge and upload.
I stayed up till dawn one night writing this, went on automatic pilot(where's that switch now?!)
Please don't pull any punches - I might as well face the music.
I know some of my dialogue tags are old-fashioned. How much does this matter?
Thanks!
Tim





Oranges and Lemons

“Is that young Lawrence the poet?” Michael says into the phone.
There’s a groan at the other end. “It’s old Lawrence”.
“I want to speak to young Lawrence, not old Lawrence, where’s young Lawrence?”
“Young Lawrence is….” Another groan.
“We know not where?” Michael offers.
“We know not where” Lawrence confirms.
“How about getting together?” Michael says.
“Getting together?”
“That brilliant café you said you found?”
“Might be an idea”
“Half-an-hour?”
“Okay, but I’ll need to do a couple of things.”
“A couple of things? How long will a couple of things take?”
“Look, I said I’d meet you in half-an-hour so I’ll meet you in half-an-hour, okay?”
“Okay, okay. The art gallery? – then you can show me where the café is.”
“Nice one” says Lawrence.
“Nice one?” Michael laughs, “that’s a cool expression, man, what’s the cool reply?”
“You have to be cool to know” says Lawrence.
………………………………………………

Michael can’t see Lawrence among the people contemplating the pictures. Then he spots him over in the gallery shop.
He taps him on the shoulder “You’re under arrest!”
Lawrence turns slowly, with his alert, gloomy expression.
Just then a woman in tight trousers and high heels pushes the entrance door open and sweeps in out of the cold, adroitly converting her tripping gait into a wiping-feet-on-mat action. Michael tries to think of a jokey compliment.
Then he turns back to Lawrence.“I’m illegally parked” he says, “I’d better move the car.”
“There’s an empty space where I left my scooter” says Lawrence.
“Can you show me?”
The space is still free when they get there. This brings Michael’s good mood to a peak. “Fortune’s warm smile is upon us!” he exclaims.
Lawrence mumbles something Michael doesn’t catch, except for the tone.
“ Don’t you think today’s a good day?” he asks.
Lawrence looks out over the flat sea “It’s a great day for the Irish” he says.

They walk along Fore Street, between the water and the granite geometry of the town.
“Just need to go in here for some fly-spray” says Lawrence. They enter a shop selling fishermen’s jerseys, Wellingtons, odds and ends.
“I’ve got a problem with flies an’ all” says the shopkeeper, “they don’t seem to realize it’s November.”

As they walk, Michael suddenly finds himself delivering a speech. Lawrence has only recently returned to Cornwall. He left after being evicted by yet another landlord. Went to Totnes for a while. Now he’s back in Newlyn, in lodgings again.
“By the powers vested in me” Michael intones “ I am authorized on behalf of the people of Newlyn to welcome you back to Cornwall and to wish you ….er,” – his eyes fall on the display outside the green-grocer’s – “ oranges and lemons and the bells of St Clements”.

The café is brilliant – a little alley ingeniously covered with Perspex so that light streams down onto white décor and spare elegance. Reading matter for lone diners: poetry and today’s Independent. Two women murmuring at the first table. One of them smiles at Lawrence. The owner greets him.

“This one alright?” asks Michael pulling back a chair.
“Fine” says Lawrence, and puts the fly-spray on the table.
The music is a blend of jazz and reggae.

“Knowing what you do of the owner” says Michael, “when she takes our order, do you think she’ll make a joke about the fly-spray?”
“She’s too gentle for that”
“Wit can be gentle, surely?”

Michael’s soup arrives first. Lawrence’s full breakfast isn’t ready yet. Michael decides to go ahead. He has seen many films in which the protagonist takes a mouthful, says something, listens to the reply, takes another mouthful, replies to the reply.
The soup is wonderful, complimented by thick, fresh bread.
The reggae constituent of the music is in the ascendant. The heart-beat rhythm reaches a peak of buoyancy.
“Is there anything, right here, right now, you’re looking forward to?” Michael asks.
A meeting Lawrence is having later on.
Michael points his bread at him “Ah, hopes! Hopes are specific and detailed as dreams and they pass like dreams.”
“That’s true” says Lawrence.
“So give me the details!” says Michael, “I detest evasiveness!” (A Peter Sellers quote he often uses.)
Lawrence regards him steadily.
The jazz and reggae, right here, right now, are starting to clash. Rain clatters on the Perspex.
“Know what I should have said to that woman in the tight trousers? I should have said ‘You’re a natural!’”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I …….. don’t know. Know what I sometimes think? Maybe I should be writing poetry.”
Lawrence says nothing. He starts goes through his pockets, finds a notebook, flicks through pages of scrawl to a blank page and rips it out. He pushes the page, and a pen, across the table.
Michael stares at him. “Well, I didn’t mean…..you know…..eventually…..when I’ve…”

After a pause he writes:
Surely there is no more witty reply
To grey sea and stolid granite
Than light and flimsy Perspex?

“I know it isn’t poetry but…”
“Getting there” Lawrence says.

Lawrence works on his breakfast. He maneuvers the yolk onto his fork, and into his mouth intact. He leaves one square of fried bread on the plate.
“Now you write a poem” Michael says.
Lawrence considers. He tears another page out of the notebook. He writes quickly. And pushes the page over.


A confusion
Of cues, signals, hierarchies, dreams, eyes.
The compressed spring’s
released
when the child reaches home.

“Blimey!” says Michael.
Lawrence smiles faintly.

They go over to pay. Michael likes the owner not knowing what they’ve had.

They are back on the sea-front.
“Those are the rocks where people dive in every day at lunch-time” says Lawrence pointing, “I wonder how long it would take me to swim to The Lizard.”
Michael stares at him. “That’s like swimming the Channel. You’d need months of training.”
Lawrence turns towards him, his eyes inky depths. “Do you know something?” he says, “you’re face is completely closed up.”
Michael blinks. “Okay” he says, “I’ll open it!” He makes his eyes wide and pulls his lips back from his teeth.
Lawrence laughs.
They carry on walking.
“You were right” says Michael, “that was a brilliant café. What’s it called?”
“The Strand” says Lawrence.
“The Strand? Do you think that’s a good name?”
“Yes I do, it’s…. it has cachet.”
Michael informs him that strand is an Old English word meaning beach. He personally wouldn’t call it that, he’d call it something like, you know, The Forbidden City.
Lawrence grunts.
“What would you call it?” Michael asks.
“The Strand” says Lawrence.
“If you couldn’t call it the Strand?”
“Oh, I don’t know! The Blade of Grass!”
Michael sees that the lawn that has given him the idea. He points at a lamppost. “Don’t you think a better name would be The Lamppost?”
Lawrence frowns.
Or the “The Yellow Line” Michael continues gleefully, pointing at the double yellow lines running along the road.

They reach the car park. Michael gets into his car and rolls down the window “Nice one dude!” he calls out.
Lawrence is involved with his crash helmet.
Driving home Michael vows that he will do something to stop Lawrence being kicked out of yet more lodgings.























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Comments by other Members



Becca at 20:40 on 22 May 2007  Report this post
Hi Tim.
there's a kind of strange underground energy in this story, but I haven't a clue what it's actually about. What happened to young Lawrence, and if he's irrelevent, why is he mentioned? If Old Lawrence is a poet, and he responds to Michael's command, 'Now you write a poem,' I, as reader, am interested in the nature of the relationship between them. Lawrence has been kicked out of boarding houses, Michael likes him at lot. I'm curious about the affection Michael has for Lawrence and why he got kicked out of places - I think I'm saying I'm not hearing the more interesting story around these men, the one with heart and poignancy. I'm wondering if there's a deeper, less controlled story somewhere in the background.
I take Michael to be the main character, yet I don't understand anything about him. I say this because in the story we know that he likes films, we know he has affection for certain moments in films, and we don't know anything about Old Lawrence, although he is the stronger character of the two. But I can't get the relevance to the story of his liking certain films.
I am reading this as a short story rather than an extract from something longer because it's in short story 11, and in the 'best' short stories nothing does have to 'happen.' But I feel like your characters are floating in limbo, I don't want to sound pedantic, although I might well do.

So moving away from my bewilderment and onto a couple of technical points, you need to watch out for commas, there are a couple missing in the dialogue. And, “Well, I didn’t mean…..you know…..eventually…..when I’ve…” lets things down because it's not dialogue, it's like spoken conversation.
But I'm interested in where you're going with this, maybe there are many more stories to glean out of it.
Becca.

apcharman at 17:32 on 25 May 2007  Report this post
Hi Tim,

Thanks for taking the plunge and uploading. I enjoyed reading this; it reminded why I used to like the West Country and the way you focus so heavily on dialogue produces a very lively style with some healthy pace. I always struggle to write succinctly and you seem to have that completely licked.

Also ( and this always helps) these are quite upbeat and pleasant-minded characters, so it was nice to spend a few minutes in their company while they had breakfast.

I don’t think that your manner of tagging dialogue matters one bit. Given the level of dialogue in this piece, you could leave out all the inverted comma and go about it another way, but to be honest I think there are more fundamental issues, because while it is agreeable to spend a few minutes in the company of a couple of witty bon-viveurs , and while the pace and the nimbleness of the dialogue is a good showcase for your writing skills, nothing has happened. Not quite true; two men have had breakfast. As you describe it, this is a fleeting glimpse of two characters.

If we take the piece purely as that, a fleeting glimpse, then you could probably still do with adding some tension. This could be tension through events, or tension through differences in character. As things stand, the reader has no way of knowing who is Laurence and who is Michael whenever you withdraw the speech attribution and that is a sure-fire sign that there is nothing going on.

If very focused events are your thing I would suggest that you need some form of tension—some life-feature that needs to be resolved—in order to give context to all the small acts. For example, if Michael is concern to see that Lawrence will now settle he might be looking for signs and interpreting events unnecessarily; e.g. so Lawrence can’t choose anything from the menu? Is that because he has convinced himself everything in Newlyn is inadequate?

If you have that sort of agenda, but only ever express it through the dialogue it can take it to another level and you dialogue skills will come into their own. E.g. Michael is only heard to tell Lawrence that there are no better menus in other towns, that the beautiful woman is a Newlyn girl; he asks why would you want to swim to the lizard? Etc etc, until at the end, he learns that Lawrence is staying and the unspoken tension would be resolved.

Of course you could make the cause of tension something much more significant, or even less significant, but as this piece stands events follows event with little or no subtext and that doesn’t offer enough to really engage the reader.

So there you are—no punches pulled. I hope this is helpful feedback.

Andy


tractor at 22:36 on 26 May 2007  Report this post
Hi Tim,

I liked this a lot.

While the piece is fast-paced and dialouge focussed, you have elegant descriptive skill (I appreciated particularly
between the water and the granite geometry of the town
and personally I'd like this employed more in the scene setting.

Look forward to seeing more of your work.

Mark





ornum13 at 04:14 on 27 May 2007  Report this post
Hi Becca

Thank you for being completely honest. I was too close to the piece and couldn’t see the holes. (And special thanks for “strange underground energy,” I love that!)
I was going for the effect you get in the opening scene of a film when you meet two characters and you know nothing about them except what you get from the dialogue and body-language but you’re drawn in and want to know more (oops, I left out the body language, didn’t I,mistake no 1)
I wanted mystery: the way overheard conversations keep us intrigued. But perhaps it was too much show-don’t-tell.....
In defence, I’ve noticed that the pro’s don’t feed in backstory until well into the narrative, when the ground is prepared.
Am I protesting too much, getting shrill?

I think that’s my central theme: the irony of “making” friends, how much is contrived and how much spontaneous. Michael sets out to charm Lawrence with his favourite technique: banter and teasing. There’s no old or young Lawrence. By saying I want to speak to young Lawrence M means don’t be a curmudgeonly old git, lighten up, show us your youthful side(you know you want to).
Lawrence is a cynic and you never know when he’s going to flick Michael off. He does this after the café when they’re walking on the sea-front: “your face is closed up.” Michael to his credit forces himself not to be offended and clowns around.
I take your point entirely that it’s all promise that I don’t deliver on (there was me thinking myself trendy and modern,leaving it all in the air and unresolved!)
We want answers to questions like:
Will Michael’s charm offensive succeed, or will L’s deadly brush-offs defeat him?
If Lawrence is kicked out of lodgings again,will M help him? -Especially if he’s been brushed off?
Will they become friends? - you speak of poignancy and heart, I think the potential for those lies here.
Sigh! – back to the drawing board…
Now, let’s see if I can tap into that underground energy….
Thanks Becca.
Tim



Hi Andy,
Thank you for your wonderfully generous compliments, unsullied by flattery(I hope and pray!)They went straight to my head and are doing me a power of good, still.
But yes, this was not the full breakfast, we need the eggs, the bacon. Sizzle and smells only tempt (sorry, it's 3am and the metaphoramotor is playing up!).
I love your suggestion that the resolution is already latent in the set-up.That's so neat and tidy and organic.
I'm also pleased that everyone seems to be reading in different sub-text, because I like doing equivocal(naughty me).
Yes, this thin soup needs body (sorry!)If I can do justice to your insightful suggestions for touches: L hesitating over the menu, the Newlyn girl, the Lizard swim, perhaps I'll have something.(Maybe that's the new title - The Newlyn Girl)
Wish I had your problem of over-writing, that can be fixed. My under-writing feels distinctly like weakness.

PS Lawrence and Michael say Hi and thank you for liking them!
Thanks Andy.
Tim


Hi Mark
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
But you should have seen the crossings- out before I got granite geometry. "Practise scenery" is on my to-do list. Someone told me "work like a painter" - what was that about? I'd love to paint word pictures, but I'm so hit and miss and slow with it.But I'll try....
Cheers mate.
Tim




Becca at 08:37 on 27 May 2007  Report this post
Hi Tim,
you've set yourself a hard but honourable task in trying to show the subtlety of the relationship. I like the same writers you like, by the way. I do think you could use the business of Lawrence being kicked out of lodgings to much greater effect, as a device maybe to show a bit more of what lies beneath. If anything that is backstory, and enough of a backstory as well just to anchor it a little.
Becca.

cherys at 09:43 on 18 July 2007  Report this post
Hi Tim
Things that worked for me:
I liked the men. I was happy to spend time with them. Wanted to tag along again with them some other time. It had that feel to it.
I liked the ambling pace. Hard to pull off and keep focused. you just about did it. Think it just needs a light tap to nudge it into place.
The locations were fully-fledged. Like others I enjoyed the granite geometry, and also the rocks where people jump, the greengrocers. I got the impression their pottering day was completely visualised in your head - no cloudy patches and so it came out naturally onto the page.
But it needs a trim. Arch wit in dialogue needs to be used sparingly because the reader's not in on the joke. I definitely felt like the tagger on, the new kid at school, wanting to get to know these two but they were too locked into their banter. I'd say as soon as a piece of dialogue has done its job, move on. I.e. once banter is established no need to keep restablishing it. we get their relationship. Keep the forward-flow of the story. If you cut the opening dialogue by 50% you still get the info and with tweaking (this is a bit of a coarse cut) you still get their relationship and characters.

'Is that young Lawrence, the poet?' Michael says into the phone.
'It's old Lawrence.'
'I wanted young Lawrence. Where's young?'
There's a groan the other end.
'We know not where?' Michael offers.
'We know not where,' Lawrence confirms.
'How about getting together today?'
'OK, but I need to do a couple of things first.'
'How long does a couple of things take?'
'Half an hour. The art gallery? Then you can show me where your new cafe is.'

etc.

I also felt it needed a plunge point. Carver's great at those. A moment where we get a sudden vertiginous insight into the bleakness of Lawrence's transitory life, so that Michael's gentle, willing friendship is seen to only shore up the surface. But maybe I'm way off beam on that.

Thanks for the read. I'd gladly encounter them again, on some substantial escapade...
Cherys



ornum13 at 07:42 on 21 July 2007  Report this post
Hi Cherys, and welcome.
Your critting is assured and informed and highly persuasive!
Good to know that you “liked the men” and “wanted to tag along with them some other time.” That was encouraging. It’s not easy to hook a discerning reader.
Glad the locations were fully fledged. That’s always a risk when the writer knows the setting.
So far so good – but what’s this, you’re recommending major surgery? Cut out half the banter? Ouch!
You may be right. They do say kill your darlings.
You say you began to feel excluded from an esoteric conversation. Vividly put: first day in a new school. Someone did say to me it reads like a play – not necessarily a good thing in a short story.
I would die for the ability to do a vertiginous insight (wonderful phrase). I know what you mean, a terse paragraph out of left field, a bombshell of bleakness. Trouble is, I haven’t got the backstory. I’ve tried but always find myself in cliché-land.
They also say stories aren’t written, they’re re-written.
Thanks for your input, critting is hard work!
PS You’re not off-beam with “Lawrence’s transitory existence,”that’s how I see it too, but how to give it substance?


cherys at 08:53 on 21 July 2007  Report this post
'How to give it substance?'

I'd return to Becca's crit as a starting point: why does Lawrence keep getting chucked out of places? You'll find a bombshell of bleakness in there, I bet.

C

jamiem at 21:21 on 13 August 2007  Report this post
Hi Tim

The heart-beat rhythm reaches a peak of buoyancy
nice description
(A Peter Sellers quote he often uses.)
- a footnote

Lawrence says nothing. He starts goes through his pockets, finds a notebook, flicks through pages of scrawl to a blank page and rips it out. He pushes the page, and a pen, across the table.
Michael stares at him. “Well, I didn’t mean…..you know…..eventually…..when I’ve…”
this is a grrreat gesture

I think you're right not to clog things up with backstory early on. For example, I think Michael's sheer persistence in conversation demonstrates his friendship far better than say, an early statement of exactly what his relationship with Lawrence is. I get the impression that neither character is exactly sure of their relationship in the first place, and in fact this might be the point where the real friendship starts. I think the turning point is where Michael opens up and takes Lawrence's pen and paper gesture literally, rather than treating it as a stylish put-down.

There is definitely too much dialogue though. Though none of it is bad, much of it is saying the same thing. Lawrence's often monosyllabic and guarded replies can be suggested just as well by much more sparse dialogue punctuated by descriptions of the kind you have suggested adding already.

Lawrence smiles faintly.
- endearingly childlike.

The ending is the kind I'd like to be able to write myself - a resolution in the mind of Michael, rather than in the world. This seems to me a more believable result within the span of a short story than a perfect resolution of events. More suitable to the scale.

Jamie


ornum13 at 09:17 on 16 August 2007  Report this post
Hi Jamie
The complimentary things you say about backstory, the cafe scene, and especially, the ending, are heartening.
The dialogue: the consensus seems to be that much has to go.So be it.Hard to be objective about your own work, so thank you.
Tim


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