Read Dying to Write for Free Online Page B

confidence and authority. But one or two of the older students fell unambiguously asleep, and I could not restrain my yawns. Neither, in the end, could Matt himself.
    â€˜That’s it, folks,’ he said. ‘Sorry. And if you’ve any questions we’ll save them till after coffee.’
    Despite the second mug, I still felt somnolent, and had only a hazy idea of the discussion.
    â€˜But what is truth?’ someone was asking.
    Somehow they must have got on to the perennial discussion about the relationship between fact and fiction. Kate was arguing stoutly on the side of the writer’s creativity. Gimson insisted that fiction was only a regurgitation of what had happened in reality. Toad supported him, with more enthusiasm than intellectual rigour.
    â€˜Take Lawrence, for instance,’ Gimson said. ‘He seems to have a following among you – er, Brummies, is that the term? Local boy made good, I suppose.’
    â€˜He’s from Nottingham, not Birmingham,’ I said, but was ignored.
    â€˜He calls
Sons and Lovers
a novel, but it’s pure autobiography.’
    I couldn’t be bothered to argue.
    Then Nyree surprised me. ‘Look at that Brontë woman,’ she said. ‘The one that Japanese man was talking about. Didn’t she write that book of hers because of one of her neighbours? Married the governess while he’d still got a wife?’
    Where could she have picked that up? And why had she cared enough to remember it? Tomorrow I would fight my way through the barricade of sex and personal dislike to find out more. But tonight I wanted more than anything to sleep.

Chapter Four
    I fought my way up. I knew I wasn’t really drowning, that I must be having a nightmare. But I couldn’t explain why I was being shoved and buffeted by the otherwise calm water. Except, of course, it was a dream, and silly things happen in dreams. And then it wasn’t a dream. The buffeting was someone shaking my shoulder. Someone who was yelling at me to wake up.
    I made a final heave and came up shaking my head. It was Shazia, and she was calling my name, over and over. I pulled myself up on an elbow and blinked at her, fighting for breath. So I hadn’t been drowning. Just fighting asthma. A couple of puffs of my inhaler and I’d live.
    But I still couldn’t make sense of it all. And then I could. Shazia was crying and pointing wildly. She thrust my dressing gown at me and ran out. I followed.
    The door to the nice end room was open. Nyree’s room. Shazia was calling me from inside.
    A wave of alcohol hit me as I went in. I stepped back, it was so powerful. And then there was another smell. Vomit. My stomach rocked in sympathy. One curtain was half open. I pulled it back fully and opened the other, too. When I turned to the bed, I wished I hadn’t. Nyree wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see her like this. Not that at first sight there was much wrong. She might have been asleep. Her limbs lay apparently relaxed, and her eyes were closed. But her face was puffy, the fine bones almost hidden, and her skin was a reddish blue. And from the far corner of her mouth, slack and open, came a trickle of vomit.
    â€˜What shall we do?’ Shazia was yelling.
    â€˜Get Gimson. And dial 999,’ I said, knowing neither would help but not having any other ideas. And I retreated to the door: I couldn’t stay closer to Nyree, but I couldn’t leave her on her own.
    Gimson came running; and he was alert and cool. He touched Nyree’s neck, and then seemed nonplussed. He fumbled with the duvet.
    â€˜There’s no sheet,’ he said tersely, and pushed past me into the corridor.
    At last I realised what he’d wanted to do.
    â€˜We’ll use a clean towel,’ I said, and covered Nyree’s face.
    The ambulance drove off. Someone switched off the flashing blue light. There was no need for haste, after all.
    We stood there, sober in the grey