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Thursday, December 18th, Brook Lane, Chester, UK
Things at school were getting hectic, but this day stood apart — it lit a fire under me and paved the first stone of the path I would end up walking. My mother had grand plans for the holiday. I was finally going to be introduced to her side of the family, the ones that lived too far away to make regular contact with. And before that happened, I suppose it was time to introduce my parents properly.
My mother, Erin Price, was what anyone would call a proper Welsh woman. Her name was pronounced simply as written. Which was the last simple thing about her. It was better to begin with her good qualities, and the most memorable of them was her voice. Every word she spoke carried the beautiful weight of her strong Welsh accent. A sing-songy tune that lifted me up.
Not everyone shared my affection for Welsh accents. Even Cestrians — the people of Chester — weren't always as fond of it. But to explain that, I had to explain Chester itself and the culture around it. This whole thing was starting to feel like one of my revelations, one explanation always required another for understanding.
The beautiful River Dee cut between the cross-bearing Englishmen and the "unwashed Welsh peasants" across the water. Cross to the other side and the joke flipped on it's head — proud Welshmen thanked the river for washing away the stink of the English. Despite such banter, the two sides got along well enough. Chester was English, Saltney Welsh, only a couple of miles apart. People crossed back and forth constantly. Kinship was inevitable.
In my mother's case, she'd made such kinship in England when she met a lovely English chap — and my arrival was written in the stars as a result. She was kind and sweet, and I loved her more than simple words could do it justice. I'd need poetry, my voice and music to do feel equipped enough to describe my love for her.
My father was a mystery with as many layers as an onion. Only, I thought his secrets were as drab as an onion's. He was as English as they came — a true blood from Trafford, a borough of Manchester. Oliver was a wiry dark haired man with looks that belied his strength. He had a past he never spoke much about. Whatever issues he had with his own family, they seemed to run deep. After all, how many Englishmen took their wife's last name?
"Get onside now — we better get going!" Mum shouted down the hall.
That was a football term that had somehow become common lingo in England or maybe it was just my household.
"Coming!" I shouted back, scrambling into my coat.
We lived in a terraced home, much like any you'd see strewn all around England. Interestingly, my revelations offered almost no knowledge about such things. Architect, I was not. I loved my house because, while the front looked proper minging (ugly), we had a terrace (without a roof!) and a small backyard where Mum grew root vegetables and spices if the weather suited.
"Wilf, you'd better get down here!" Mum shouted again.
"Aye-aye!" I yelled back, yanking on my clothes. I'd put on double layers — typical English weather, couldn't trust it for a moment.
Happy that I had put on everything Mum commanded me to wear, I left my room and went downstairs. Despite being a two-storey house, everything in the house felt cramped due to its narrow width, but it cosy enough. Mum stood in the kitchen frying some eggs on the stove.
"I'm here!" I called as I skidded into the kitchen.
"There you are," she sang, sliding a plate toward me without even glancing. Egg, bread, and a stingy scoop of beans.
I devoured it quickly and drank my orange juice. My orange juice had more flavour than the butty (sandwich), but I still loved Mum for the love she'd added. My revelations revealed once that a child had more taste buds than an adult did, and so sweets were the only flavours we preferred. I understood, because I also had memories of eating butties, butties much better than this one — so don't think of my Mum as a bad cook. Revelations' memories were an odd thing, and in them I seemingly hated sweets. Only bad facts about them stood out.
"So, where are we off to?" I asked between bites.
"Manchester," Mum said brightly.
I never understood it — my Welsh grandparents lived in Manchester instead of somewhere like Cardiff or Wrexham as the rest of her family.
"Can I put Blue Peter on?" I pleaded.
"You can, love, but we're heading out the moment Oliver shows up."
I absentmindedly nodded as I turned on the old CRT TV. Blue Peter was a children's programme, and I enjoyed it like any other child would. It was a lovely show that parents could watch along without getting bored, so it had themes that I could appreciate. But my reason for enjoying the show was different from other children — it allowed me to learn new things by offering me revelations. The show ran barely thirty minutes an episode. I loved how the hosts and interviewers covered completely new topics each episode. Today's episode was on BBC2 because it was a rerun of yesterday's show that I'd missed.
It started with the host doing a silly challenge in a competition with a child before the screen dissolved into showing Konnie Huq, my newest crush. Though I'd not hit puberty yet, you could call it an longing for a kind and enthusiastic older sister. I was eight years old, and it was funny that I felt a kinship with Konnie for reasons I couldn't explain.
—✦—
[Scene: Konnie in a woollen top, speaking to the screen.]
"Children have imaginations that can't be matched by anyone, and I thought it would be brilliant to meet those who weave the books you end up reading. I found a woman who wrote a whole book in a café in Edinburgh. Her name is J.K. Rowling!" Konnie said.
Unknown to her, she had started a process for a boy in Chester. The boy had his head slumped, and spit dripped from the corner of his mouth.
Konnie continued brightly: "J.K. Rowling is actually called Joanne! And Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was her first book."
Konnie, sitting in a random castle in Edinburgh, sat down on a bench with Joanne and asked the burning question in everyone's mind.
Konnie:"Why put J.K. on the cover and not Joanne?"
Joanne: "That was the publisher's choice rather than mine. I think they thought J.K. Rowling was a more memorable name. But also because they thought it was a book that boys would enjoy. They might've wanted to hoodwink a few boys into thinking a man wrote it."
Konnie nodded in understanding but did not press the question further. She might have received something unique as unbeknown to her, Joanne was a huge feminist.
The author, Joanne then explained how she came up with Quidditch and crafted other names by observing her surroundings and collecting new words.
Joanne:"The headmaster of the school is called Dumbledore. That's an old English word for bumblebee because I imagine him humming to himself all the time — because he's fond of music."
Konnie: "Oh…"
The scene shifted to a shot of Nicolson's Café & Bar. Konnie sat with Joanne at the very table where the author had written her book.
Joanne:"It's very lonely sitting at home all day, on your own with a computer. If you come out and are surrounded by other people, then you feel like you've seen other human beings all day."
Konnie:"What was it like when you first saw your book in the shop?"
Joanne: "That was the best moment of all — better than anything that's come since. It was a real book! In a proper, real bookshop. It was wonderful!"
Konnie (narrating):Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stoneis the first of many books Joanne has planned.
Joanne:"There will be a second — I've finished number two, which will be published next summer. It's called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry finds out that he has a certain power that sets him apart from other wizards. It's got quite scary stuff in it as well! I'm writing three at the moment."
Konnie:"Have you got any advice then for budding authors out there, who want to write their first book?"
Joanne: "The way I arrived at writing a book was that I'd been writing for years and years since I was very young, in and outside of school. You need to practise and work out what worked and what didn't work. You have to keep going and start by writing about something you know about — your own feelings and subjects you know about."
[Scene ends.]
—✦—
I opened my mouth and closed it, my eyes fixed on the screen as J.K. Rowling spoke to my TV presenter crush/on-screen sister. It was brilliant — I received so much information in a moment that I felt my brain actually hurt! Brain hurting? That was impossible, except I'd just had it happen to me. It was as if a nail had been driven right into my cerebral cortex and was leaking the orange juice I'd drunk earlier. It made me feel funny with how it made me close my eyes like the sour orange did too.
My revelations had come in many different lengths — sometimes a tiny memory defining a single small thing, or otherwise a full-length movie that lasted several hours. This time, I had possibly hundreds of hours of memories, movies, books, audio-books, general knowledge, and more that I could hardly understand without thinking it over for the days to come. It was safe to say this lady being interviewed by Konnie Huq was perhaps the biggest literary sensation of all time. Her books would go on to become one of the biggest cultural phenomena in the world. It was hard to imagine how the crazy children and massive crowds waiting outside shops could even be real. But my eyes didn't lie, nor did my revelations — and I became more sure of myself as Joanne Rowling kept on speaking on the screen.
For the first time in my life, a revelation arrived without everything being played instantly in my mind. The packet was so big that my tiny head couldn't contain it all. I found that I could think about it and start to receive a portion of the knowledge if I focused on it. It hurt the more I tried to absorb but seemingly retreated if I kept it off. I was in shock — revelation could actually give me time to absorb knowledge over time instead of popping instantly into my head. Seemingly the only catch was that it had to be a massive revelation.
I started to cry ugly tears because it was a form of entertainment I wasn't about to be spoiled by in an instant. Revelation shown all at once in my head robbed me of new experiences and great twists. Those that didn't have such revelation were not good enough media for me to truly appropriate. I prayed that other new revelations wouldn't be immediately absorbed again. As I saw J.K. Rowling finish her interview and Konnie talk about the books being sold in stores, I couldn't help a massive smile appearing on my face.
"Mum! Mum! Let's go to Manchester now — we need to buy something!" I shouted, more excited than I'd ever been in my life.
I was given a swat as Mum covered her ear at my shout.
"Wilfred Price, watch your volume. I'm right next to you, bach… Why are you welling up?" She said, suddenly worried.
I laughed — an odd, hiccuppy laugh — which only made her frown deeper.
"I really like this book this lady wrote. She's just released it and I want to read it. Please, Mum, can you get it for me when we're in Manchester?"
Erin's eyes softened, but she had a surprised look — who could blame her? Her son had never expressed so much emotion or was motivated about anything before.
"Of course, cariad," she said gently. "Come on then, let's get ourselves ready— OLIVER?! WHERE ARE YA?" She started to shout.