Writing Friendship

~ Margaret McCaffrey

Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) says that ‘life only makes sense in retrospect’.

My story ‘For Jane’ began some years ago when I wanted to write about the endurance – or otherwise – of friendships. Author JG Ballard maintains that friends only become so when they have a secondary experience in common. We six friends shared our Melbourne convent days together, later taking a deep dive into the buzz of early seventies’ London. (The 70s are close to the swinging 60s, aren’t they?) As adults we consolidated our friendship.

Jane and her then boyfriend came to share my rented flat in Fulham and I got to know her better – and differently.

Only when we five girls received a letter from Jane’s husband during a uniquely Australian lockdown inviting us to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death, did I realise I had not properly mourned her. It came to me that she was the through-line for my story about friends. I’d suppressed memories of her when she was ill and I’d reneged on a promise to drive her to visit her ailing mother. Nor had I sat by her bedside during the last weeks of her life. The truth was I was afraid – afraid of her death, and of my own.

The editor of The Human Writers, where ‘For Jane’ was first published, liked the story well enough to invite me to record it. Reading the piece over and over out loud helped me farewell my vibrant, funny, fashionista friend. I agree with Chuck Palahniuk’s dictum that writing helps make sense of the chaos – because life can be chaotic. Or, as sculptor Louise Bourgeois says, ‘We either die of the past or we become an artist.’ In remembering things about her, I see how the artistry of Jane’s personality has lent me a kind of freedom. Maybe even generously lent the others too.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Margaret McCaffrey

Margaret is a Melbourne/Naarm-based writer currently writing about the relationship she had with her father, a veteran of World War II, who was injured in Greece and a prisoner of war in Germany for four years. Excerpts from her manuscript can be found in American Writers Review, Jewels of San Fedele and Clairitage Press. Margaret was awarded a scholarship to the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in the US to develop her memoir. In 2015, she received her MA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University, PA. She writes non-fiction, memoir and the occasional short story.

12 thoughts on “ Writing Friendship”

  4. How special that in revisiting your memories of Jane it has enabled you to attain a kind of freedom, so long after she died. It’s interesting that a person’s impact can take a lifetime to be acknowledged or felt. Thank you for sharing this unique perspective on friendship – and what it teaches us about ourselves.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  10. Pingback: Margaret muses on writing friendship – Elwood Writers

Leave a comment