(@cassieoakman)

@cassieoakman

Writer, reader, teacher, eternal student. Dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg. Tá mé ag foghlaim Gaeilge. She/her. Ally.

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cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 13d

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingPrompts I've gone with incoherent, because that's the closest I've got. Do Jem and Tilda aspire to the same life?

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 14d

#WriteSky #WIPSnips #WritingCommunity Something is amiss in the Beltoise household.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 15d

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity Unexpectedly, Jem would like to accompany Tilda as she goes sleuthing.

When Tilda got to his van five minutes later, Jem was slouched in the passenger seat, one foot resting on the glove shelf, almost succeeding in appearing totally relaxed and unconcerned. But his smile didn’t reach his eyes, and his pretence of doffing an imaginary hat looked forced.
She stared at him, half in and half out of the driver’s seat, for some time. Then she got in and started the engine, and only then did Jem truly relax. “Just as well you’d left it unlocked,” she commented.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 17d

#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity

Didier sighed and shook his head. “So much sorrow! I am glad of your support and assistance, but I regret that I have brought such sadness into your short time together here in my home. I will leave you now, and perhaps I will ring Katherine, and tell her all you have discovered, and our thoughts on these sad events.”
His tread as he went down the stairs was slow and heavy, and Jem waited until he had left the building and they had seen him crossing the courtyard to his own front door before asking, “What did you see, Tilda? And why didn’t you want him to know?”
She hesitated. “There’s something … I don’t know. It might not mean anything. It’s only initials, and I wouldn’t have known what they meant, except … no, surely it couldn’t be.” She was silent for a while, her eyes darting back and forth between the photocopy in her hand and the map on the table, and then added, “Sorry, folks. I need to do some research before I talk about this.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 19d

#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 21d

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity No hint of a "cacophony" in my main WIP, so this is the start of an as-yet unedited short story, from the perspective of Dylan Eil Ton (a minor character in the Mabinogi), intended for a collection about refugees and exiles.

In the timeless void I floated and swam, lazily turning in the warm welcome nurturing of the Othersea.
If I had been aware of the passing of time, it would have taken a great deal of it for me to realise that I was waiting.
Waiting for what? Or for whom?
Waiting for my purpose.
Each of these thoughts would have been turned over in my mind for an eternity, were such a thing to exist.
And then, suddenly, it was upon me.
I felt myself snatched from my buoyant womb, and dropped through harsh, cold air to land on an unforgiving stone floor. Noise greeted my arrival: a cacophony of voices, tearing the fabric of the air; a chorus of gasps, each marking the cruel pain of breath invading soft bodies; and the slam of the door as a woman – my mother? – fled the room.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 22d

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity All is no longer well in Monique's world.

The ringing of the phone broke into her thoughts. She bustled towards the hall, but then stopped. Suppose it was Nicole, trying to catch her out by proving she was at home, or even just checking up on her? No, far safer not to answer it. She walked back to the kitchen.
“Are we still playing that game, Maman?” asked Didi.
“That’s right. It’s a good game, isn’t it? In fact, how about we go on playing it ‘til Papa gets home?”
“Not open the door at all?”
“That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Just us.”
“What about going to church? You said we’d be going every day.”
“Yes, we’ll still go to Mass.”
“And to play in the camp?” There was so much longing in his little face that she could not dash his hopes.
“Well … maybe. We could play there after Mass, if Catherine is still happy. But apart from that, let’s not go anywhere. And not let anybody in, if they come to the door.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 23d

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #MysteryStory Didier starts to confide something of the history of his family.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 26d

#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

Monique rushed downstairs, passing Nicole on her way up, and rang Père Martin. He promised to come at once, although she was unable to put what had happened into words; presumably he divined her great need for urgent comfort or succour.
He arrived at the same time as a stranger, who introduced himself as the judiciary doctor.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 27d

#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity From the very start of my WIP, where differing work commitments have kept Tilda and Jem apart for a short while.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’ve missed you so much!” Tilda dropped her rucksack, and threw herself into Jem’s arms.
“Me too! A whole week apart!” He picked up her bag, and led her out of the station to the car park. “Best you put this by your feet,” he suggested, unlocking his van, “The back’s rather full of timber. How’s your week been?”
“Fine – a few tours, but that side of things is definitely much quieter. I’d got to know the exhibits on display already, but now there’s time, I’m starting to go through the stuff in storage. We’re going to have a special exhibition on local writers next month, so I need to find out who they were! But I’m more interested in what you’re doing – have you started installing the new staircase yet?”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 28d

With a new baby as well as a young child, it's rare to complete a household chore in one go. #WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

It would be when she’d got her hands all floury, starting to make the pastry for their dinner, that Catherine began to cry.
She turned to rinse her hands, and somehow managed to knock the bag of flour off the table. It sprayed a fine dust over the chairs and the cooker as it fell, and burst when it landed on the floor, scattering flour everywhere.
She looked at the mess, sighed, and prioritised. “I need to go and pick Catherine up,” she told Didi. “How about we go in the sitting room? You can choose a book from the pile in there, and I’ll read it to you while I feed her.”
By the time Catherine had drunk her fill and was gazing solemnly up at her mother, they had finished the story and another book besides. Monique placed her baby in the newly-acquired secondhand bouncing chair, where she would be able to continue looking at her surroundings.
There was something, thought Monique, that she needed to do; something she had started before the feed.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· 29d

#WIPSnips #AmWriting #WriteSky Tilda gets a pleasant surprise

Tilda glanced into the dining room, and saw that the table was already laid with five places; were they, then, going to have to make polite conversation with some unknown guest of Didier’s?
But just then, she heard a light tread from the gallery above, and, glancing up, she saw Kat disappearing in the direction of the back stairs. Tilda rushed through to the kitchen, and hugged her friend at the bottom of the stairs. “Kat! I didn’t know you were coming!”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 12

#WIPSnips #WriteSky Tilda tracks down Nicole Fournier, who reminisces about Monique and Pierre.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 10

#WIPSnips #WriteSky

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 9

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #AmWriting

“Come, Didi! Look at Papa!” Monique beckoned her son, and he sidled slowly closer to the balustrade. “Look! He has fixed the last window. That’ll help to keep us warm.”
“It’s already warm, Maman.”
“It is, now, Didi. Because it’s spring. But do you not remember how cold it was here, only a month or so ago? When autumn comes again, and then winter, it will once more be very cold. Having windows that fit properly will help stop our heat escaping.” Didier frowned, and seeing that this was perhaps hard for him to imagine, his mother continued, “Let’s go down and hug Papa, to thank him for doing a good job for us.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 5

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity Tilda speaks to someone who knew Monique well.

“Was she in need of comfort, do you suppose?”
Céleste shrugged her shoulders. “Not in the sense you mean. I take it you are not a church-going Catholic?” Tilda shook her head, and the woman continued, “Then it will not be easy for you to understand. Being in God’s house was not, for Monique, a way to be consoled because you have many problems and a difficult life. It was the comfort of being somewhere you feel entirely at home, where you are surrounded by familiar things, and where the very ground and walls have absorbed love and peace from decades of prayer and worship and service. Is there not, for you, somewhere you can go and feel that, somewhere that nourishes you, whether all is right with your world or not?”
Tilda at once thought of the bench at the bottom of her grandparents’ garden, her very own thinking spot, which brought her the gift of peace when things were awry, and reminded her of all the times she had smiled quietly there when all was well. She nodded.
“With a church, there is also God’s presence,” stated the older woman simply.

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 4

Didi negotiating a play date with his parents. #WIPSnips #WriteSky #AmWriting

Didi tilted his head on one side. “Can I go and play with Jean-Marc again soon? I hardly see him any more, except at the maternelle. And he’s in the oldest group, so I don’t see him much there, either.”
Monique and Pierre exchanged a glance. “Maybe,” said Monique. “The thing is, Nicole – Madame Fournier – she used to have you round at her house most days, when we first moved here. Because this house wasn’t safe, and Maman and Papa needed to work on it. Now that our home is repaired and cleaned, we don’t need to ask Madame Fournier to look after you.”
“But I like playing with Jean-Marc.”
Monique looked across at Pierre, and saw that he, too, felt that this was not enough reason to spend some of the money that was going into their savings on a child-minder. “Perhaps,” she therefore said, “We could invite Jean-Marc to come here, one day after maternelle. On a day when he, too, only goes for the morning. He could have lunch with us, and you could play together afterwards.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 3

Today's #WIPSnips word is "out" Tilda has been reading Monique's diary as part of trying to work out what happened forty years ago, and is summarising the latest part of it for her father and boyfriend, who don't speak French well enough to read it themselves.

Michael turned to Tilda. “Does she give any more details about her beliefs? I’m not religious myself, nor have I ever been involved with a formal religion, so I’m just trying to work out how deeply it impacted her life.”
“It affects everything,” stated Tilda. “She has a simplistic sort of faith in a God that she needs to consult about pretty much everything. Pierre doesn’t share her belief system at all. He seems happy for her to go to Mass every Sunday, but my feeling is that he doesn’t know that she also pops into the church almost every day, on her way home from dropping Didi at nursery school. That’s what she’s doing at the time we’ve been reading about most recently, at least. Sometimes it’s to light a candle for her mother, other times she wants to thank God or Mary for some particular kindness she or they have received, or to ask for help.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 2

Today's #WIPSnips word is "knock" #WriteSky #WritingCommunity Monique has just picked her son Didi up from pre-school.

They set out for home slowly, and Didi explained, “There were some bits of wood by the gate, waiting for someone to take them out. Like the bits that Papa moved out to the barn.”
“Planks? From the broken staircase?”
“Yes, Maman – like that. But only very little ones. And Gérard asked Mademoiselle if we could play with them, and she said only if we were very careful, and she wouldn’t let us ‘til she’d checked them all carefully. In case of nails, she said. And Gérard took some over to the hedge – he said they wouldn’t get knocked down over there, because no-one plays there – and I took some, and Paul too, and we piled them up, and put leaves on top, and made a camp! Only it’s a very small camp – just for one person. So we took it in turns – we were very good.”
“Well done, Didi. That sounds like fun.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jul 1

Today's #WIPSnips word is "scarf" #WriteSky

As she moved out of the way of the next customer, placing her purchases in her shopping bags, a woman tapped her on the arm. “Excuse me, Mademoiselle,” she said, “You say that you are staying in the Beltoise house? Do you have news of the family?”
The woman was probably in her sixties. Her face looked older, for she had the worn, leathery face of someone who has worked outside in all kinds of weather, and many missing teeth. But her eyes were bright and alert, and there was a controlled energy in her posture and gestures. Her skirt and blouse were dark, and so was the cardigan she wore over the top. A navy headscarf covered her hair.
“I’m a guest of Monsieur Didier Beltoise at the moment,” Tilda said. “I was at university with his daughter Katherine.”
“Do you have time to come over there with me?” The woman gestured vaguely away from the food stalls. “My cousin is there, and she would love to know how little Didi turned out.”

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jun 19

Today's #WIPSnips word is "group" #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

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"So what do you think, mon petit? Will it not be a fine thing, to have a little brother or sister?" Monique smiled at their son, but he did not reciprocate.
"Gérard has a sister," he said, naming one of the children in his group at the maternelle. "He says she cries all the time."

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jun 18

Today's #WIPSnips word is "resume" #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

After a pause, Tilda took up the story again. "It's not quite true, that they shared everything, though, is it? That's the second thing that saddens Monique, and this is something that seems to become more of an issue with time. You see, she comes across as very devout. She mentions several times, with growing unhappiness, that Pierre hasn't yet resumed his studies with the priest. She even says, at one point, that she had hoped that he would one day be baptised, but that she now sees that this is unrealistic. Instead, she is desperate for Pierre to get to the point where they can have a second marriage, in the church."
Didier looked surprised at this. "I had assumed that they already had," he said. "Most people in those times, particularly simple, traditional people, did so straight after the first wedding."
"Two weddings?" asked Michael. "Why would a couple have two weddings?"

cassieoakman@cassieoakman· Jun 17

Today's #WIPSnips word is platform #WriteSky #WritingCommunity From a short story, set in Roman times, intended for a collection about people who have to make a life for themselves far from their native lands.