Authors Interviewing Characters: Linda Hartley

ANGEL WING

It’s 1955. Ellen is driving to Belfast to search for the mother she has never known, and had thought long dead, when she has an accident. As her life hangs in the balance, flashbacks of her loveless childhood and memories of her experience as a teenage evacuee during WW2 unfold. ANGEL WING is the prequel to THE BROKEN LINE – together the two novels tell the story of three generations of women in one family, their maternal line ripped apart by lies, secrets and betrayal. Like her daughter and mother, Ellen suffers from transgenerational trauma – all three have, for different reasons, had to grow up unmothered. They each suffered in similar ways as they found and tragically lost their first love. Alone and vulnerable during the war, Ellen’s need for safety and love draws her into risk and danger as she befriends a wounded German pilot.

Character Interview: Linda Hartley author of Angel Wing interviews Ellen Rose, her main protagonist. 

As a trained psychotherapist as well as author, I thought it would be interesting to imagine a therapy session with Ellen: In this scenario, we have been meeting weekly for nearly six months and have developed some trust in our relationship. She first came to see me a few months after her second child was born. Ellen said her struggles were because of the ‘madness in my brain’. I diagnosed post-natal depression, with underlying developmental trauma. 

Halfway through this session we fall into an uncomfortable silence – not a reflective pause in the conversation but a paralysis for both of us.

Me: (feeling dizzy, light-headed as I empathise with my client) I wonder what is happening for you, Ellen? Are there any thoughts, feelings, sensations that you’re aware of?

Ellen: (looks down and shakes her head)

Me: Is this the ‘Big Freeze’? (a state we have identified in previous sessions)

Ellen: (nods and seems to hold her breath. She looks pale, her eyes empty of any expression)

Me: Can you feel your breath, your feet on the floor? Take the time you need, Ellen. Now see if you can begin to turn your head from side to side, as slowly or quickly as you need to. What do you see in the room? Is there anything that interests you?

Ellen: (she slowly turns her head for a while, then looks at me) I see you. You’re not Esther.

Me: No, I’m not Esther. We are two adults, you and I, sitting together in this room.

Ellen: I think it was something you did, the way you brushed your hair from your forehead. A simple little thing. And I’m back in Esther’s kitchen, sitting on the floor playing, banging a wooden spoon – she falls over and there’s blood on her forehead. It was my fault. I was in the way. I was always in the way! (she clenches her fists) Then she’s towering over me, her face red with fury and she’s shouting something at me that I don’t understand. I become silent. 

Me: You couldn’t speak up. You couldn’t stand up for yourself then, because you were too small and powerless.

Ellen: Yes. I think that’s when I stopped speaking to her. ‘Selective mutism’ the doctor called it (she gives a short laugh). I used my silence as a weapon, a kind of revenge. It drove her mad when I wouldn’t speak or answer her questions. She thought there was ‘something wrong with me’.

Me: And what do you think?

Ellen: I think, yes, there was something wrong with me – I was hurt and angry and felt very cold and alone in the place that was called my ‘home’. She was supposed to be my mother, for Christ’s sake! She was supposed to love and take care of me (Ellen thumps her fists down on the couch).

Me: You can do that some more if you need to (I place a cushion next to her right fist). Take as much time as you need (I wait while she pummels the cushion, her energy returning as she does this).

Ellen: That feels better! (colour returning to her face and a glint of anger in her eyes)

Me: (my own energy is returning as I resonate with hers) Yes, well done Ellen! I think you needed to do that.

Ellen: I don’t want Esther controlling my life anymore, even though she has long gone away – America doesn’t seem far enough – she still comes into my dreams sometimes. Especially at this moment when … when … (she breaks down and sobs, her body shuddering as she releases each breath and painful cry)

Me: (I wait until she is done, pass the box of tissues to her and draw my chair a little closer) You’re doing really well, Ellen. You have held those tears in a long time and they needed to come out.

Ellen: (nods and looks at me through red-rimmed eyes) I feel I could cry forever.

Me: (after a pause) Can you say what came up for you there?

Ellen: Seeing so clearly that I can’t give Anita the love and care she needs because I never received it myself when I was a baby and small child. How can I give her what I haven’t had myself? When she cries, I have to turn away, I can’t face her pain. It reminds me too much of my own pain, when I was very small (she cries again, but gentler tears this time).

Me: (I reach over to touch her hand) Ellen, you’re much more than just the daughter of Esther. You’re a young woman now, with a husband and two young children. You are strong and you have your future ahead of you. We can’t change what happened in the past but together we can change this pattern, so it doesn’t keep repeating. 

Ellen: Thank you. Yes, I can change the pattern. I do love Anita, you know. She’s a beautiful red-headed bundle of joy – when she’s not crying, that is (we both laugh).

Me: I know you love her. That’s why you’re here doing all this work to unravel your past – you’re doing it for Anita as well as for yourself.

Ellen: Right now, I feel I can do it, I can change things and love my daughter in the way I truly want to.

Me: That’s so good to hear. 

Ellen: (she stretches her arms over her head and smiles a full, warm smile. Her face looks radiant now)

Me: It’s nearly time to end the session. What do you plan to do for the rest of the afternoon Ellen?

Ellen: I’ll run home then take Anita and Martin out to the park. I’ll sit with her on the swing and tell her I’m sorry for how it’s been between us.

Me: Beautiful! Even though she doesn’t have words yet, she will feel your communication and it will help her.

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ANGEL WING is published as a paperback and e-book, and can be bought on Amazon here: Angel Wing Also available from other online booksellers, or bookshops by order.

See Linda’s website for information about her eight books and other work: www.lindahartley.co.uk 

You can follow her writings on ‘EarthBody Conversations’ and ‘Literary Threads’ on Substack

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Linda Hartley, Author, Somatic Movement Educator, Psychotherapist, and Authentic Movement Retreat Leader, wrote her first poem at ten years old, and has been scribbling ever since. Following a teenage ambition to be a writer, life led her on a different path: her studies in Dance and Creative Writing at Dartington College of Arts, UK, evolved into a long career in somatic movement and psychotherapy. She developed a professional training programme that has run in the UK, Germany, Lithuania and Russia (www.ibmt.co.uk). Writing has woven through all of this – she has published six non-fiction books that have grown out of her work as educator and therapist in embodied practices. Her two linked novels, The Broken Line and Angel Wing, are deeply informed by her five decades of work in these fields.

 

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Category: On Writing