[Read] Hot Desk Extract: N. J. Madden - Over the Tall Trees

As part of The Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk Fellowship program, N. J. Madden worked on a literary fiction novel titled Over by the Tall Trees. The novel follows a grief-stricken man, Cillian, as he goes on a cross-country train journey to visit his birth mother for her much-needed advice. Cillian spent his childhood believing his birth mother was his sister and only found out the truth on the cusp of his adolescence.

Before he leaves, Cillian spontaneously asks his new romantic partner, artist and activist Nadia, to join him, and the two discover a deep spiritual connection along the way.

The following extract is taken from the opening pages of the novel. 

 

^{Photo by Taisia Karaseva}

The December sky is almost clear, and the early sun gives the few grey clouds golden linings. Watching them through the windows, Cillian sits on the edge of the bed looking over his shoulder. He turns his attention to the fluttering moth, risen to the highest corner of the room and the sight of it bothers him. He always thought a moth’s lifespan was short, some only living a day, but this moth, if it’s the same one, had been out of reach and circling the ceiling since he moved in. He’s living in what was once a Catholic Church but had recently been converted into a set of town houses. It kept its exteriors and the original stained-glass windows and the large crucifix on the roof of the building. He wonders whether the moth and its seemingly long life is telling him something about this place he’s found himself in.

There are no blinds or curtains over the windows and the sun streams in freely on the Saturday morning. The opened windows are set deeply into the tilted roof. A breeze seeps into the humid, third-storey bedroom. The windows are framed by slatted timber planks marching upwards towards the rafters. The feature wall is made of red-brick which were laid one-hundred and ten years ago. The other walls of his bedroom are starkly white and tall without a single art piece to decorate them. There’s a framed painting in the corner of the room, facing the wall. It had been a gift from years ago, but he hadn’t worked out what to do with it yet.

In the opposite corner is his desk and beside his desk are stacks of books without shelves to house them. Buying the shelves and putting them together was one of the many things on his to-do list, but the important thing to him was the books were finally here, even if they were in piles up against the wall.

It’s December 23^rd and beside him, still sleeping in the bright morning, Nadia is comfortable in one of his over-sized t-shirts. Cillian looks again through the windows as more clouds streak into vision and Nadia begins to stir and rolls to her side, facing him. She gives a pointed groan and raises a hand to cover her eyes.

N: You need to fix this. Who’s the landlord?

C: I don’t know, I’ve never met him.

N: What time is it?

C: It’s early.

With a sigh she leaves the bed and goes to the bathroom, keeping the door open. She calls out to him, telling him about her dream, as she often did, and this one was about her and her sister being lost in an unsafe place, and no one would help them. He was always intrigued by the details in her dreams, and he would have shared his own if they had been his typical, inconsequential ones. More than at any other point in his life, he was dreaming of Lorraine, or Lorry as he’d always known her. In the past he’d never dreamed of her on her place up north, but the visions of Lorry on her farm were now frequent. This morning he’d woken from seeing her standing in a field. She was looking away from him and wouldn’t acknowledge his shouts. Raised at the edge of the field, where she seemed to be staring, was a dark box.

Returning to bed Nadia smiles at him. She looks to the corner of the room where the large art piece rests against the brick wall, and all she can see of it is its corked back. She’d asked him about it twice before and he thinks she’ll ask again, but she doesn’t say anything and instead looks to the windows. 

He gives them a silent moment, knowing he’ll have to break it soon. The night before he’d decided to ask her, realising the worst she could say was no, telling himself the stakes were not as high as he imagined they were. They hadn’t known each other for long, and the no, as logical, likely and reasonable a response as it would be, as much as he was expecting it, would confirm his suspicions he’s misjudged the nature of their time together. But a yes… he had no idea what that would mean, or what their understanding may develop into in the moment following this answer to his question.

He needs to ask it now.

He entwines his fingers in hers and she looks up at him and laughs. He feels his smile broaden and he relaxes.

C: I need to ask you something.

N: I can tell.

C: I’m going to visit Lorraine. Lorry. I’ve told you about her. After Christmas I’m going to her place up north. Would you come with me?

She pauses, and it feels as though her first response will be to ask if he’s sure, but she stops herself as she realises how carefully he’s thought about this. All her recent conversations with her sister about how cautious and how meticulous she had been for so many years, only for it all to come to nothing, appear rushing through her mind. How many times in the months leading up to now had she said she needed somewhere to go, to be in a place she knew nothing about with no schedule or itinerary just for once?

She gives herself a moment longer.

Then, slowly, she nods.

N: Yes.

C: Yes?

N: Yes, I’ll come with you.