Writing in the Heat: Misha Herwin

 

In the ninety-nineties, Mike got a job in Jamaica and I came along as his “trailing spouse.”  This was a term for ex-pat wives who accompanied their husbands on a posting and who were not there to work, or pursue their own career but purely to be supportive. It might be a very old fashioned, pre-feminist position but I took it as an opportunity to take a break from teaching in a very challenging school and also as a chance to do some writing.

Working as a consultant for Grace Kennedy, the largest firm on the island, meant that we had to live in Kingston, a very different experience from the sand, sea and pina coladas that family and friends might have envisaged. Because of security issues our apartment was in a gated community with guards who kept an eye on anyone who came in or out. Going into town was discouraged, apart from to the supermarket and as for Down Town, or the local markets, no middle class Jamaican ever went there. No one walked anywhere either because it was deemed unsafe and of course it was hot, very, very hot.

Daily temperatures were in the thirties and the humidity was high. In the daytime it was like being wrapped in a hot wet towel. There was a permanent layer of moisture on my skin, which was great for the complexion and meant that for the two years I was there I used no moisturizer. It also explained why so many Jamaican women look decades younger than they are.

At night time it was marginally cooler, but the magic hour was about seven o’clock in the morning. The sun had just risen and the day had the feel of a British summer, cool and full of promise.

I soon learned that this was the time to write. My brain was most active and the spare bedroom, where I had my computer, was relatively cool. Wearing very little, I would sit at my desk and conjure up the world of “Dragonfire” my first children’s book. In an alternative London Polly Miller and her friends battle the system that sent them to St Savlons a care home for truly disruptive children, ie ones that had a special magical talent of interest to the sinister Lady Serena.

A good twenty plus years later I am back in a Gothic London, where malevolent crows perch on rooftops and bats circling the house are harbingers of evil. Pavements glitter with ice, storms lash the sky and lightning strikes an isolated mansion set deep in a hidden valley.

The story begins with Lauren sitting in her freezing cold attic room, trying to keep warm while completing a college assignment. Even thinking about her and the draughty house she and her single parent mum can’t afford to keep warm, helps to keep me cool. As does the dress I am wearing, one that dates from our time in Jamaica, and the fact that I try to work in the early morning before the heat settles in.   

As I discovered all those years ago tropical heat with a high humidity factor slows my thought processes. Whenever I came home to see family, the moment I stepped off the plane my synapses clicked back into gear and my energy levels, both creative and physical, rose.

Today, thanks to the foresight of my son-in-law, who insisted on air-conditioning in the annexe we built on to our house, relief is available at the click of an app.