Pageturners: A Castle in Canada Part 1
If she’d been a New Ager into tarot cards, chakras and crystal healing, I’d have run a mile. But a Barbie? Hey – I could be her Ken.
Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories. I’ll publish a chapter or a section per week, available for free here on Iconoblast. And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!
Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.
It was the strangest demonstration of the power of the Muse for which I have no ‘rational’ explanation. It goes far beyond the synchronicity and coincidences I’ve described previously. So I can only explain it as the Magic of the Muse.
Even more remarkable is the avatar of the Muse that conveyed her message.
No airy-fairy New Ager or ‘wise’ old git with a long white beard, both of which would have immediately put me on my guard. I would have despised both as probably fakes.
So maybe that’s why the Muse chose a real-life Barbie.
It seems particularly appropriate to recall it at this time with the release of the Barbie film, not to mention its rival at the box office, Oppenheimer.
It was 1994, Colchester, Essex, and I was single. My writing partner Tony Skinner and I would wander down the road to our local wine bar as it was such a comfortable place to write, with coffee and wine on tap. And that’s where I met Alora (not her real name) who was the manager.
Alora was a smart Essex Girl who liked to take the piss out of critics of Essex Girls by appearing to be more of an Essex Girl than even the most extreme stereotypes. The kind personified in pathetic and unrepeatable Essex Girl jokes.
Yet there is something different about Essex, hence the TV series The Only Way is Essex. There could never be The Only Way is Suffolk. Or The Only Way is Cornwall. So some Essex Girls, like Alora, rather than passively accepting being mocked in the tabloids, liked to hit back with extreme Essex Girl fashion-sense and attitudes, with sweet, tinkly voices to match. Presumably deriving a quiet enjoyment and inner satisfaction from watching the reaction of sneering snobs. How much was real and how much was a mask it’s hard to judge. My feeling is that Alora enjoyed wearing her mask so much she – sometimes at least – became the mask.
It wasn’t just the small things that could be explained away, like telling me she had heard of the Rolling Stones, but didn’t actually know what they did. Or, when I met her again some years later telling me, with a perfectly straight face, that she really hated horror films, but had just watched the Blair Witch Project by mistake. Because she thought it had something to do with Tony Blair. There’s a level of creativity there that I envy.
She lived and breathed the whole Essex Girl thing. So when she learnt I was a comic book writer, she asked if I would persuade some artists to draw her a cute little Smurf. I duly approached comic artists Duke Mighten and the late, great John Hicklenton. Duke was fine, but Johnny took considerable persuading, because he was the world’s premier horror comic artist. It nearly killed him.
‘They’re so sweet,’ she cooed, but, turning to John’s Smurf, ‘There’s something in its eyes that is a bit… disturbing.’ Any fan of John Hicklenton will know just what she meant.
She asked me to write a cute and innocent little Smurf story for her – but nothing nasty or unpleasant in it, she warned – and that nearly killed me, too.
And before you ask: yes, she collected Barbie and Ken dolls.
After some months, she told me that she’d been having dreams about me. That sounded rather promising.
‘No, not those kind of dreams,’ she replied coldly. ‘Bad dreams. Nightmares.’
Dreams about a Castle in Canada.
She saw the castle vividly and described it as a classic, medieval castle high in the mountains. But, of course, there are no such castles in Canada.
It didn’t sound like Barbie’s Dreamtopia castle either. After all, it was giving her nightmares.
It might seem sensible for her to give me a wide berth, as the source of her troubled slumber, but it had the opposite effect on her.
Obviously it was meant to be, our respective Muses had closed some private psychic deal on our fates and so we started dating.
If she’d been a New Ager into tarot cards, chakras and crystal healing, I’d have run a mile.
But a Barbie? Hey – I could be her Ken.
Our first date was a hint of the weirdness that would follow.
I’d chosen a fairly obscure but up-market restaurant several miles outside Colchester. I picked it because I wanted somewhere private so I wouldn’t be bumping into people I knew.
It turned out that it had been the venue for Alora’s wedding, a few years earlier. And something had gone hideously wrong, which she assumed I must have known all about. I had no idea what she was talking about. Apparently it had made The Sun newspaper. The sprinklers had come on and drenched everyone. I could just imagine The Sun headlines about ‘bridal shower’. Her marriage had gone equally badly wrong and was now kaput.
Despite this rocky start, we carried on dating. We watched a couple of new films out at the cinema. Miracle on 34th Street was her choice. I watched it stoically and I don’t think I fell asleep, but it was hard work to stay awake through it. My choice was next: Pulp Fiction. She was genuinely horrified when – like most of the audience – I laughed my head off at that scene where Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the face. I’ve just watched it again and I’m still laughing.
Meanwhile, I had arranged to fly to Montpellier to meet two great French comic artists: Eric Larnoy, who I wrote Shadowslayer for, and Olivier Ledroit, who I would later create Sha and Requiem Vampire Knight with. It was Alora’s birthday so I suggested she flew to Montpellier to meet me after my meeting. Then we could have a mini-holiday together and drive around that part of the South of France to celebrate her birthday.
For any sceptics trying to rationalise what follows, which I believe is impossible, remember I suggested the idea of the holiday break. And she was unfamiliar with that region of France.
All went according to plan, we met up and then we drove into the Pays Cathare - Cathar country – named after the medieval Cathar knights. At that time I had no idea who the Cathars were and I wasn’t even remotely interested in them. We stopped at a gite and then a shadow came over her. Something was troubling her. The magic between us had gone.
The nightmares had returned and she looked at me in a different way, like I was some kind of threat to her
Then I looked at the map and, through a tangled maze of detail and names, close to our final destination, suddenly one single name jumped right out at me… Montréal!
Could that be the Castle in Canada? Maybe the answers were there?
I had no idea that Barbie was about to go full Oppenheimer.
That's what Johnny said. It took all my persuasive powers to get him to do it!
Not so good, eh? French Canada always sounds glamorous to outsiders. Clearly there's another side