It’s 2007 and Nell, stay-at-home mum to two teenagers, is still stuck in the 1980s with her shapeless Oxfam clothes and her CND pendant and her slightly other-worldly approach to material goods. Husband Trevor is rather more in tune with the times. When Nell inherits her mother’s house Trevor pushes for them to sell up and buy a place in the Home Counties which he proceeds to modernise and extend and to fill with all the 21st century gadgets that Nell has been happily living without.
Poor Nell is a fish out of water, suddenly thrown into a world of interior design, posh friends, sports clubs and casual adultery. Prodded by her new friends she upgrades her wardrobe, cuts her hippy waist length hair and develops a passionate interest in soft furnishings. She even finds herself wondering (and, dear reader, we are wondering too) if Trevor really deserves to be the only man in her life. Perhaps she could get closer to the sexy rich guy who so blatantly propositions her. Or should she stray with the bit of rough who is building her utility room and double garage. (Look, it’s 2007: utility rooms and double garages were still considered cool back then.)
Come the financial crash, the comfortable lifestyle of her new friends is threatened and their sexual peccadillos, alcoholism and eating disorders are suddenly exposed. Will Nell cope? Can she build a new life for herself? Will she find true love? Will she fly or fall?
This is far from your conventional love story. In fact, it’s barely a love story at all. It’s more like Jane Austen for the 21st century. Austen was a social commentator with a sharp and satirical eye, whose love stories conceal a lot of wicked little barbs on the state of the Regency world she lived in. (If you don’t believe me, read them again.) So Gilli Allan’s book is really about Home Counties life and the veneer of glossy success that is pasted over the misery of the relationships that struggle on behind those constantly titivated facades.
I generally hate books like this and at first I did sort of resent the time I was spending on it. Allan’s style, though, draws you in very quickly. Like Nell, I recognised the characters are superficial and unworthy of any emotional effort but, like her, I got sucked in. I had to know what happened. And you, dear reader, will find yourself desperate to know what happened too, so no spoilers. Enjoy the ride.
Highlights include the middle class house party from hell (probably my favourite bit of the book and a reminder that thanks to covid we’ve all been excused some ghastly evenings) and the detailed descriptions of décor. Each of the main characters lives in a very different kind of house. All of them are dripping with money but all are in a diverse style. Just reading about their furnishings immediately places the characters. “Oh yes,” says my beloved of one of them, “That’s the house I’d live in if I had the money.” She’s right of course: it belongs to the most sympathetic character in the book.
Strangely, although most of the characters are in many ways quite ghastly, all have at least some saving graces. Allan’s sharpness skewers but doesn’t then twist the skewer in the wound. The eating disorders, the alcoholism, the eternal lies from almost everybody – they are all the result of deep unhappiness and human weakness. It’s only because I had some sympathy for all of them that I was able to get to the end.
Will Nell navigate this mess with any of her principles intact? Will her marriage survive? Will the kids cope or will they go to the bad? And should she go for a modern fitted kitchen or a more eclectic vintage look? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
So here we are: The White Rajah is back on Amazon after a break while I did all the boring stuff that let me get the rights back and put it out again under my own ‘Big Red’ imprint.
It’s a big day. What can I say that I haven’t said already? Not a lot really.
It’s the first novel I ever wrote and it’s been tweaked a couple of times, though what I’m publishing here is the same as the version published by Endeavour.
When I first wrote it, it was turned down by several mainstream publishers as (according to my agent) “too difficult for a first book from an unknown author”. He told me I should write some more accessible mainstream historical fiction first. Hence the Burke books – all five of them so far and a sixth in progress.
Meanwhile The White Rajah was published by a one-woman publisher in the USA (JMS Books) who did an amazingly good job with it. The Burke books, though, weren’t a good fit for her company so they went to a small UK publisher and The White Rajah went too.
It was not the best of times for publishing. The White Rajah was eventually followed by two more books to make a trilogy, but the books remained “difficult” and though there were occasional promises of more aggressive marketing, sales languished.
With the change in the way books are sold, I decided to self-publish. I started by republishing the first three Burke books and the results showed conclusively that my books do better with the marketing love that self-published books get lavished on them. Two more Burke books and two contemporary fantasies followed and were successful enough for me to decide to add The White Rajah to the self-published list. (The two other books will follow.)
So here we are. The White Rajah is a more reflective novel than the Burke books. There are fights and dashing adventures. There is even a love story (though not a conventional one). But the book raises issues about colonialism and the Empire project. There are a lot of questions but ultimately no answers. Perhaps as we are all encouraged to look again at Britain’s 19th century history, this is a book whose time has come. Hollywood seems to think so: a film based on the life of James Brooke (the eponymous White Rajah) is due out next month.
I hope you read it and enjoy it. Let me know what you think. As life moves back to normal I hope I may be able to get out and talk about it if any of you want to ask me.
The prospect of life after death is not only the central theme of Things I Should Have Said and Done but also something that fascinates me. The way I see it, whoever or whatever made us wouldn’t have invested millions of years of evolution for us to just live out our three-score year and ten (or whatever the modern equivalent is.) There has to be something after this.
In the book, Ellen dies suddenly and hasn’t had time to prepare herself or put her affairs in order. There are things that she needs to do before she can put this world behind her and move onto the next and with George, her Greeter at her side, she sets about doing them.
This is total fantasy of course and I have as much an idea as the next person about happens when we die but I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I have felt the presence of someone who is no longer with us. Are they paying us a visit? Personally, I often smell cigar smoke and the only person I have ever known who smoked a cigar is my grandfather who died in 1970. I like smelling the cigar smoke because I have very few memories of him but the one’s I have involve him smoking his pipe. He always looked contented when he had his pipe so I get the feeling that wherever he is now he is happy.
Shortly after the book was originally published in 2016, I received an email from someone at Barnardo’s Head Office who had read the book and wanted to tell me what a profound effect it had had on them. They had recently lost their mother and the person said that after reading it, they tried to imagine their mother being happy with her parents and her sisters who were already dead. They said the book had given them hope.
I wish that I could quote the email directly but thanks to being furloughed (three times) and works network clearing all computers that aren’t used for five weeks I’ve lost it but I will always remember how good it made me feel that something I had written had helped me through a difficult time. However, this is a direct quote from one of the reviews Things I Should Have Said and Done received the first time around.
“I loved this book Collette ! After the loss of my husband Mark at 47 it helped me and made me laugh – not quite sure about Marks greeter tho ! – Who is she! What’s her name and is she thin ????”
I had a lot of fun writing this book because there were no rules for Ellen to conform to. Like I said before none of us know what it’s actually like to be dead. Maybe I have described it perfectly. Maybe there really is a Gerald making big decisions and an officious Arthur with his black hair and his white suit. Who knows?
I’d like to leave you with my late mother’s thoughts on death. “It can’t be bad because no-one ever comes back to complain.” The simple logic of a simple woman who, when her time came, was happy to die.
Colette McCormick
Colette was born and raised in Sheffield but now lives in North East England. She has had a wide range of jobs from ledger clerk to school dinner lady and lots of things in between but in 2001 she found her calling in the world of charity retail. After working for CR UK for 10 years she now works for Barnardo’s and while it’s a job that she loves, writing is her real passion. When she is not working or writing there is a good chance you will find Colette, baking, gardening or walking the dog in the beautiful countryside that Co Durham has to offer. She has been married almost forty years and has two grown up sons.
Just one week to go until the publication of The White Rajah It’s £6.99 in paperback or just £3.99 on Kindle (and if you have Kindle Unlimited you can read it for free).
So what do you get for your money?
The White Rajah is based on the life of James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak in the mid-19th century. He was a fascinating man: a merchant-adventurer who bought a ship, ostensibly to trade in the South China Seas but really in the hope of extending British influence in an area dominated by the Dutch. He extended British influence even more than he had planned, involving himself so thoroughly in the politics of the local Malay rulers that he ended up ruling his own country: Sarawak in Borneo.
It’s a tale of adventure with battles and plots and midnight raids, but it’s also a more serious story about colonialism and how, even when seeking to do the best for the natives he thought of as “his people” the sudden intervention of Europeans from an alien culture had some unhappy unintended consequences.
James Brooke did an enormous amount of good in Sarawak and even today some people look back on the time of the White Rajahs as a Golden Age. But when his rule was threatened he could be utterly ruthless.
Evil white colonialist or a good man who spent most of his life (and practically all of his fortune) building a peaceful and prosperous society where there had been little but poverty and war? Or is the truth (as truth so often is) somewhere in the middle?
James Brooke’s life will soon be in the news again because a new film based on his adventures is about to be released (straight to DVD sadly, because of covid). Having seen the trailer, I’m not expecting a lot of discussion of the rights and wrongs of colonialism or the moral underpinning of his rule but, like my book, I’m sure it will have pirates and hairsbreadth escapes and heroic deeds with Jonathan Rhys Myers buckling the odd swash (or maybe firing an authentically period pistol). I’m looking forward to it. I’m hoping it might generate some interest for my book, too. Other, non-fiction, books about James Brooke are also available but can honestly be quite hard work. (His diaries are brilliant, though.)
It’s been a while since I have posted anything about tango, but somebody has asked me to re-post something I wrote years ago about dancing in social settings. It’s not about the dance itself, but about the social rules, the código as the Argentinians call them. I’ll be taking a quick tour of tango around the world, so it may interest non-dancers. If you think it’s not for you, normal service will be resumed on Friday.
As the tango dancers I know are getting excited about venturing out and once again tangoing with friends, we all have to remember how we went about the whole social side of getting a dance. Perhaps that’s why this topic has suddenly become something we are talking about again.
I have danced in London, Buenos Aires, Reykjavik, Paris, Lisbon, Cluj (Romania) and Istanbul, which may seem like a lot of places to non-dancers, but makes me considerably less well-travelled than serious aficionados. Everything that I say is based on that limited experience. In the end, it’s just my opinion, but what you have to remember is that the same goes for everyone else. I do get irritated by people who say that they know the only ‘correct’ way to behave at a milonga (a social dance). The right way to behave is how most other people behave and, if in doubt, in the way that will give most people a pleasant evening. For example, I’ve seen film of milongas in Finland where electronic signs say that men should ask women for this dance and, a little later, that women should ask men. As far as I know, that system is unique to Finland, but if I ever dance in Helsinki, that’s the system I will use.
Let me transport you to Buenos Aires a few years ago. (Places change, so the clubs may no longer be as I describe them.) It’s afternoon in a great barn of a place called the Nuevo Salon. The largely elderly clientele are dancing a traditional tanda – four dances one after the other. The music ends and couples leave the floor, returning to their tables. As the music for the interval (the cortina) plays, men rise to their feet and cross to women who stand to meet them. The next tango starts and, apparently approving of the music, more men stand and, as if by magic, their chosen partners rise to greet them.
Confiteria Ideal: Buenos Aires
How, in this huge hall, have the hundreds of men and women managed to sort out who is going to dance with whom? That is the magic of the cabeceo.
The cabeceo is the look that a man casts towards a woman to show that he would like to dance with her. The woman returns the look and the man approaches her. As he does so, she rises to her feet, he extends his hand and the couple take to the floor. It’s exotic and romantic and Europeans often insist that it’s the only way to invite a woman to dance.
Unfortunately, this simple view of the cabeceo is wrong in almost every particular. For a start, men (wise men who know the rules) don’t randomly cabeceo any woman they would like to dance with. They look for women who appear interested in dancing and, in Buenos Aires at least, the woman will signify her interest with the mirada (literally ‘glance’). This is a meeting of eyes, brief enough to be plausibly denied but bold enough to make it clear that a cabeceo would be favourably received.
The mirada/cabeceo duet can be enormous fun. I’m standing there, running my eyes along the followers sat (or, in London, more often stood) beside the floor and I catch a tiny flash of interest from a stranger’s face. I stop and return my gaze to her. There is a half-smile, the faintest flicker of an eye-brow and I walk toward her, extend my hand and there we are, no words spoken, holding each other as we dance. It is one of the smoothest and sexiest of social exchanges that doesn’t involve actual sex. If that’s how you expect to get your dances in London, though, you’ll spend a lot of time standing around waiting to strike lucky, for few women in London even know what a mirada is, let alone use it routinely. This, on its own, makes the cabeceo far from ideally suited to the London tango scene.
Dancing by the Seine: Paris
Back in the Nuevo Salon the men are offering their cabeceos and, if they read the signs correctly, they are being accepted. Here’s the second problem. Remember that in London the woman accepted with some tiny acknowledgement of the offer. But when I tried this in one famous Buenos Aires venue I was met with blank looks. Eventually a kind lady explained the rules. In this venue women did not acknowledge the cabeceo with anything so forward as even the tiniest of smiles. Rather they would glance away and then return your glance to check that you were still looking at them. That was it. Otherwise they would just keep their expression neutral with a look uncomfortably similar to that you would get if a woman was “blanking” you in London.
Mirada noted, cabeceo delivered and invitation accepted, you might think nothing else could go wrong. You’d be mistaken. More than once I have walked towards the woman I have invited and, milliseconds before she gets to her feet, the woman sitting directly behind her stands up. I’ve met some good dancers that way, but dealing with the embarrassment of the moment can be more than a trifle awkward.
Based on my experience, those enthusiasts who say that the cabeceo is simple and avoids misunderstandings and embarrassment have either been very lucky or have spent their lives dancing in a limited number of venues with lots of partners they know well. Of course the cabeceo works smoothly if leader and follower know each other. My wife and I can catch the shortest of glances across a crowded room and know that we want to dance together. But the whole point of the cabeceo is that it should allow you to dance with strangers. As I said earlier, when this works, it works really well. In some venues, it is normal not to ask your partner’s name. You meet as strangers, dance as intimates and part as strangers. I love it when this happens, but life is seldom as simple as that.
Lisbon
The legend of the mystical Argentine cabeceo has given rise to all sorts of stories that I can tell you from my own experience are just rubbish. Argentine women will not actively solicit dances, they say: one woman used to look out for me and half rise from her chair, smiling at me as the cortina started. The legend says that Argentinians will never offer a verbal invitation: not only has my wife been invited by men simply asking her, but I remember a woman approaching us as we sat together and asking Tammy if she could borrow her husband. The way that people invite each other varies from milonga to milonga: there is no straightforwardly ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ approach.
In the most rigidly formal milongas, men and women are seated by a hostess on opposite sides of the room. Experienced dancers, known to the hostess, will be sat at the front, next to the floor. Visiting gringos are likely to be in the corner at the back. You know as soon as you are seated exactly where you are in the pecking order. (I was once given a bad seat by a hostess I didn’t know and I smiled sweetly and said I thought there’d been a mistake. I was promptly promoted.) You will stay in the same seat all night. If you are a regular, you will be given the same seat whenever you arrive. Thus everyone knows where you are and women know in which direction to make their miradas. Similarly, you know where the women you want to cabeceo are going to be sitting. It’s a system that works well if you are familiar with the club and the etiquette. If you are a stranger, sat on your own in a poor seat surrounded by people you don’t know, it can make for a really miserable experience. It’s worth trying it once, in a spirit of anthropological enquiry, but it’s not for everyone.
The system requires a seat for everybody at the dance. In Argentina, clubs will always sacrifice floor space to fit in more tables and seating. During the cortinas the floor clears, so men and women have an uninterrupted view of each other. The lighting is good so that people can easily see the expressions of those sitting across the room. In these conditions, with everyone knowing the rules, the cabeceo can work quite well. Contrast the situation in London. There aren’t enough seats, so people constantly move as they are forced to play musical chairs. Men and women are mixed together – fine for conversation, but tricky if you want to catch the eye of someone sat three seats to the side of you. Because there aren’t enough chairs, the floor never entirely clears, so you can’t see the people opposite you. The women don’t mirada and, because they think they look sexier without their glasses, many of them can’t see your cabeceo anyway. (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not.) Plus, in London, dim lighting is the norm, so even if you have got your glasses on, seeing anybody’s expression is tricky. Under these circumstances, relying exclusively on the cabeceo is really rather silly. That’s even before you look at the cultural differences.
Tango Terra: London
In Spanish South America women’s social behaviour was strictly curtailed. A woman could not simply enter into conversation with a strange man. The cabeceo allowed men and women to agree to dance (and only to dance – they return to their separate seats) without breaking social taboos on talking to strangers. Yes, things are different nowadays – but that’s where the cabeceo started. In England, though, the free mingling of the sexes has a longer social pedigree. If you want to ask someone to dance, you can do just that. It’s true that you risk rejection – but a cabeceo can be rejected too (and the rejection is just as public even if slightly subtler). But the rejection of a verbal invitation can be tempered. (I’m told that “I’m sorry, my feet are tired,” is the socially approved phrase.) Confusion is, in any case, much more easily avoided.
I’m not making a special case for the British here. My first evening in Reykjavik every cabeceo I offered was ignored. I had just decided that the women were seriously unfriendly when an Icelander explained that Icelandic women will only respond to verbal invitations. “Go over and ask them,” she said. “They want to dance and are wondering why you are ignoring them.” So I braced myself, walked across the floor and asked a total stranger to dance. And she said, “Yes,” and she was lovely and I was able to enjoy the rest of my time on the Iceland tango scene.
So what does my experience tell me? It tells me that the rules are different in different places. They vary from club to club and city to city. Watch what others do and try to follow them. If you are new to a place and people offer advice, take it. Beyond that, do what works. Look for eye contact and, if you get any, then respond positively. Smile a lot. (I don’t speak Spanish, Icelandic or Turkish. I really smile a lot.) If you can’t make eye contact, talk to people. If there’s a language barrier, smile more. If you think you are embarrassing people, back off. Otherwise, do whatever works. You have come to dance. They have come to dance.
“You dancin’?”
“You asking?”
Game on.
A tango fantasy
During the past year opportunities to dance tango have been (to put it mildly) limited. I spent some of the time I should have been dancing writing a fantasy novel with a lot of tango in it. Most of my books are historical fiction, so a story about vampires in London was something different. My vampires are not your usual creatures of the night: they are (mostly) sophisticated and urbane and they are very, very fond of tango.
Something Wicked has been described as “a cleverly-conceived, well-written and excellently plotted novel about murder, policing, vampires, and Tango”. It was certainly fun to write and I hope you find it fun to read. You can buy it on Amazon in paperback (£5.99) or on Kindle (£2.99).
London readers may recognise Alexandra Wood and Guillermo Torrens on the cover.
More tango on my blog
If you are new to tango and have enjoyed this, you might like to read this post about why I spend so much of my time dancing – and why you should too: https://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk/tango/
