This week is the final episode of this series of The Prompt on RTÉ Radio 1, where presenter Zoë Comyns is joined by a well-known Irish writer, and listeners hear the guest writer's selection of new writing as prompted by a weekly theme.
Wendy Erskine’s prompt The Dark Horse sees out the season.
Wendy says: "I chose it [The Dark Horse] because as an idea it appeals to me. The unexpected. The individual people didn't rate or the individual people didn't notice. I like the idea of the person who keeps their skill or capabilities under wraps. But then, couldn't The Dark Horse be the name of a bar? Maybe for you it conjures up an actual dark horse, in a race, in a field."
The submissions for this prompt were so varied, taking on the prompt is surprising ways - the following writers were shortlisted, and Wendy chose three pieces blind from the list:
S Hamilton - Back in a Minute
J Horgan - A Dark Horse
C Crummey - Part of the Service
F Murphy - What Stands Between the Stars
M T. Robinson - The Dark Horse Hotel
D Hayden - Dark Horse
A Caro - Gum
A O’Leary - Background
In the episode, presenter Zoë Comyns and Wendy discuss writing routines. 'You can’t hang around and wait around for the muse to seize you," says Wendy, "if you’ve got half an hour, if you’ve got an hour, you just have to get on with things the best you can’.
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Listen to last week's episode of The Prompt above
In writer Sorcha Hamilton’s Back in a Minute, a young girl is left in a car whilst her mother does errands:
'She was gone and there was no telling where to. The only thing to do now, was wait.
The girl tapped her foot, once, twice, three times against the back of the seat. She turned her head to the left, and right, then slowly pulled out the band from her ponytail and slipped it around her wrist. Her thick brown hair was stiff from being tied so tightly all day and she pulled it gently down, towards her shoulders. Then she pushed all of it forward, smoothing it down over her face like a curtain and sat back, looking around through this new and darker half-vision.'
Sorcha says the prompt "suggests the unexpected – and perhaps a bit of menace too, which I’m fond of. It also dangled a question mark over the narrative – what will this girl get up to? The way someone behaves while they are alone – waiting or getting bored – can tell us so much about a character, and we get a little flash of the girl’s true nature here".
Of Back in a Minute, Wendy says this "really striking, pivotal moment of the 'new and darker half-vision' was beautifully done and with so little fuss."
In Anne O’Leary’s Background, we spend time with a gallery attendant:
'I’ve been here for years, longer than some of the artworks. In those early days, I would imagine my own canvases someday hanging on the walls, visitors stopping to admire. Drawing closer to inspect a particular detail, and then stepping back to appreciate the entirety. But it never came about. Instead, I have to avert my eyes as I dash through the New rooms, the ones that house what passes for art these days – cubes and splodges and bits of rags glued together. Things that look as if they’ve been scraped up off of art room floors.
Can you blame me for wanting to improve, here and there? A perfectly formed daisy, a leaf that breaks your heart?'
Wendy says the attendant in Background is "calm, mischievous, unapologetic - in many ways you could say this is a story about self worth. It’s a great set-up."
The final piece by Conor Crummey, Part of the Service is set in a bar called The Dark Horse - Wendy says even though there’s a bar in Belfast of the same name, she was transported to the bar in this story as entirely its own place and " found Frank such an interesting character - obviously he’s named Frank, and I just wondered how frank he is about himself."
'The punters at the bar had turned ninety degrees so they could wedge sideways into any crevice, gluing an elbow to the bar, trying to signal Frank with a finger.
Frank gave a flick of the eyebrows to each finger’s owner, with you in a second mate; just acknowledging their existence - that’s all people want really, isn’t it? - while he finished pouring a pint for someone, taking change from someone else, back to take money from the pint lad, back to take another order. There was an art to all this that Belfast barmen had. He was over in London once and it’d shock you - pouring one pint at a time, taking the money, giving the change - a total disgrace. Handling multiple punters at once was the name of the game. They should make you do an exam for it. He tried to tell the younger staff this. A barman should look like an octopus on a night like this.
He felt like an octopus.
Slippery with sweat, surrounded by echo-y, underwater noise'.
You can listen to the full stories on Sunday, July 13th at 7.30pm on RTÉ Radio 1.
Wendy Erskine is the prize-winning author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move. She also edited the art-themed anthology well I just kind of like it. She is a frequent broadcaster and interviewer, and works as a secondary school teacher in Belfast. The Benefactors is her debut novel.
Over the past 8 weeks listeners,have heard 24 new pieces of writing submitted for 8 different prompts by guest writers Mike McCormack, Belinda McKeon, Sinéad Moriarty, Dave Rudden, Caoilinn Hughes, Edel Coffey, Wendy Erskine and Lucy Caldwell.
You can listen back to The Prompt via the RTÉ radio player, and wherever you get your podcasts.
