Pen

Today, could have turned out very, very badly.

About sixteen years ago, I was a published writer of short fiction and making a hit and miss income out of it. My first book - which had been read to, and loved by, the children - had just been accepted, but Tony and I had decided not to tell the kids about that until everything was signed and sealed.

For about two weeks before Christmas LOS, who was newly a teenager, had been saying to me 'you're going to love what I've got you for Christmas'. He couldn't resist telling me, always with a big grin on his face. Of course, I resolved that whatever he gave me, even if it was a tea towel or a fluorescent green fluffy balaclava I would be overcome with joy.

As it was, I didn't have to act. I was genuinely thrilled and touched. He gave me a pen, a simple silver rollerball one. In those days I was always buying cheap biros which seemed to be eaten by something under the floorboards, so I could never find a pen when I wanted one. This, he said, was so that I'd always have a special pen of my own. There and then I told him I would write my next book with that pen.

I did. I've written nearly all my books with that pen, including the Mistmantle Chronicles - with the exception that I don't use it when I'm away from home. It never leaves the house. It would be too easy to lose it. I never give it to anyone to sign anything or jot things down, and the family know better than to touch it. It must have gone through hundreds of refills and about a year ago it lost its clip, but it still works.

Today - cold and frosty again - I was writing furiously and getting cold, so, with THE pen still in my hand, I went to turn up the gas fire. Somehow I lost hold of the pen and it slipped down the back of the fire surround.

At the back of my mind was a voice saying that I had lost it forever, but I chose to disregard that. Nearer the front of my mind was that THE PEN was coming out even if I had to pay for an engineer to come and dismantle the whole fireplace and put it together again, but instinct and determination overrode the mind altogether, because I had to get it out. I fished around with a ruler without results, then saw a silver point just poking out of the side of the framework. A little careful persuasion, a bit of a tug, and my pen was back in my hands where it belonged.

The outcome could have been very different. I still write notes, letters and so on with whatever battered old cheapie pen comes to hand. One day when I'm old and dignified (well, old), I might have a posh one. But for all my life this will be THE pen, and I will go on writing books with it until it drops from my gnarled and shaking hand.