Like most writers, I spend a lot of time at home. This was fine when my children were growing up. I live in the city, so when they were young, there was always the school run bookending the day, where I’d walk the mile or so up and down the hill with other parents. When they became teenagers, I was kept busy and engaged by levering them out of bed and onto the bus, and then feeding them and their hordes of friends when they came home in the afternoon.
But now they have all grown up and gone and, since – lockdown excepting – my actor husband is away a lot, I run the risk of becoming something of a hermit, spending my days with my imaginary worlds and characters.
Keeping me from this fate are my helpers. First of all I had Keith and Sandra, our two cats, who like to spend most of the working day with me in my cosy garden office. Keith, a neutered tom, is more hands on: his favourite place to rest is on my mouse mat, so that my hand is close for the many strokes and ear scratches that he needs to see him through the day (hand shown here with splint for arthritic thumbs, an occupational hazard).
Other times he gets more involved, sometimes even producing what he may consider to be words, by getting close and personal with the keyboard.
Keith also helps me read, particularly when it is chilly. Here he is last winter helping me with a proof of Erin Kelly’s marvellous ballet thriller Watch Her Fall.
His sister, Sandra – they were from the same litter – is a little more haughty. When I swopped being a graphic designer to become a novelist, I sold my large plan chest and bought a day bed where I imagined I might spend my days dreaming of plots and characters. Unfortunately, Sandy sees it as her exclusive domain, and any attempt on my part to claim what is rightfully mine is met with the contempt it probably deserves.
Sometimes, the two cats like to hang out together, though, a sort of sense of solidarity while she’s getting on with her damn typing.
Keith, Sandy and I had been sharing my workspace very happily for ten years, but then Minnie, my sister-in-law’s Lagotto Romagnolo, produced eight gorgeous puppies. After an early visit in February, my husband, who had formerly maintained that if I got a dog he would be off, presented me with a hide chew for a Valentine’s gift. A few weeks later, we returned to Minnie’s litter to take home our pup, who we have called Uncle.
Uncle is a girl. Well, we live in Brighton, UK (think a chilly, pebbly, British Fire Island), and gender is just, after all, a social construct.
We are smitten by her and love the long walks and new doggy friends we are making, both canine – Brenda the terrier, and Bridget Jones the Lab pup are her favourites – and their human owners.
Initially, Keith and Sandra were outraged. Their whole world had been turned upside down. When not safely lying on my keyboard, Keith mostly hid upstairs in our bedroom. Sandra, who is considerably more feisty, would jump on Uncle whenever she saw her, hissing and whacking out with her paws.
Time is a great healer, though. And that, along with a stairgate to retain the upper floors of the house as exclusively cat territory, a move of the cats’ food bowls to a higher position, and a deal of careful, treat-based fussing on all animal fronts have meant that, after a few edgy moments….
a détente has been reached…
And now, far from being alone at my work, I have barely enough room in my studio for myself!
Julia Crouch started off as a theatre director and playwright. While her children were growing up, she swerved into graphic design. After writing and illustrating two children’s books for an MA, she discovered that her great love was writing prose. The picture books were deemed too dark for publication, so, to save the children, she turned instead to writing for adults. Her first book, Cuckoo, was published in 2011, and she has been writing what she calls her Domestic Noir novels ever since. She also writes for TV and teaches on the Crime Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. She has three grown up children and lives in Brighton with her husband and two cats, Keith and Sandra.
