An impossible task
This novel was inspired by a real tragedy, the drowning of two girls, Hannah Black and Rochelle Cauvet, in Stainforth Beck on a school trip in October 2000. I have dedicated it in their memory.
I recognize the impossibility of bringing consolation to bereaved families, therefore this is a work of fantasy. Nevertheless, I do try to point towards a better world.
This novel is about transition. Tansy is a carefree and disruptive schoolgirl approaching sixteen and when her sister's friend Marie is drowned on a school trip, Tansy is convinced there must be some way to bring relief. She begins with Marie's parents but quickly realises that, as a result of her grandmother's death from a stone thrown into her garden, her grandfather is already a passenger - a passenger in the ferry boat, which it is her task to row to the other side. She subsequently finds others who need help and she keeps on trying to provde it, working on the principal that is better to do something than nothing. Amongst them is Evelyn Baldwin, a Lesbian who lost her partner in a skiing accident, whom Tansy meets following a gathering of the disassemblers, a cult of which Evelyn is a member. Evelyn falls in love with Tansy but more importantly insists she improve herself by learning to speak correctly. This is lost on her next passenger, Dermot Reeves, a criminal mastermind, who has selected Tansy to be his girl: thus she discovers him to be impotent. George Haythorne proves to be another - he is the man she meets at the beginning of the novel when she throws a stone and breaks his greenhouse. His wife was lost in the Herald of Free Enterprise and since then he has lost himself in his devotion to the cultivation of water-lilies. Tansy's most important passenger is Deidre Neville, the lady of Ockleston Hall. The relationship between Deidre and Tansy is central to the novel and is one that Deidre likens to a game of chess. She is the only one to whom Tansy declares herself, saying 'You will bear a child. I will see to it'.
In the background lies another transition - a cessation of childbirth that becomes global. I don't claim that Tansy's grandfather is responsible but he is the one who proposes it and he is the one who, as a result of tansy's actions, subsequently engenders the first child in the most unlikely of circumstances. Thus we have a new Marie, one who has much to do and much to achieve - and yes, there will be legends. I won't say how, but somehow, all her customers find fulfilment, so yes, Deirdre does bear a child (in fact twins), and in the process yet another transition has occurred - Tansy has grown up. She has a bright future ahead of her.