The strange power of the pen

Every year, when I take a summer holiday, the first items to go into my suitcase are always the same. I pack my notebook, a spare notebook, my pens, spare ink, a few pencils – my writing tools and accoutrements.

And that’s where they stay – in the suitcase.

I always think that when I’m away from the daily routine, when I have spare time in abundance, I’ll get lots of writing done.

Actually, I don’t get lots of writing done. I don’t get any done.

But that wasn’t quite true this summer. I did sit down for ten whole minutes in August to make a few notes about a woman called Dora.

Dora owned the house we were renting on the island of Brac, Croatia. She came by one day to drop off some clean sheets and we got chatting.

She told me how she’d bought the place as a ruin ten years ago. Originally it was a mill. Her husband renovated it as a hobby. His day job is teaching maths.

She’d lived in this village – Bol – all her life. Her husband came from Murvica, a hamlet along the coast that only recently became accessible by road.

I decided to ask Dora about something that had been puzzling me.

The five-minute walk from our holiday house to the sea goes past a derelict modernist hotel. It looked to me like a prime piece of property, ideal for investment. (And Bol is a classy beach town that’s had plenty of money spent on it since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.)

How had the hotel got into such a mess, and why had nobody fixed it up?

Dora’s English faltered at this point.

The problem had something to do with a dispute between the Catholic Church and the state, she explained in a vague way.

One of them owned the land – I couldn’t quite understand which – and the other was blocking its redevelopment.

“Before they were ok, now they are like this,” she said, punching one fist with the other.

I asked why, but she changed the subject.

I had the feeling that our conversation about pool maintenance and how many towels I might need had strayed into territory she found uncomfortable. It’s easy to forget; 20 years ago the people hereabouts were shooting their neighbours.

It interests me that I scribbled down some notes about our chat. I’d say that I pressed Dora to talk about something she was reluctant to discuss because I’m naturally curious. (Although my wife says I’m just nosey)

But I wonder, was I subconsciously driven by all those unfilled notebook pages? Even when the pen stays in the suitcase, does it still exert a strange power?

Not the best place in town

Even worse inside