The staircase is one of the central motifs of The Assumption. Although we only see it once (or do we? This is a work in progress) it is very important to the narrator, Laurie Oakes as they progress from prison to their destination location and emotional state.
This is a very early draft. This came out as I walking Hobart the dog in the woods. I made a voice note as I was making my way through the mud. Voice notes are incredibly important in my writing process. As are notebooks scattered all over the place. Fortunately my wife is an academic historian and also favours notebooks and handwritten snatches of ideas to follow up on.
So, the nascent staircase.
The staircase was wide enough for both of us to stand side-by-side, hand in hand while we descended down steps that became less and less steep as we progressed. The slightly green chalk walls were lined with framed paintings and photographs from all sorts of places and ages. There were landscapes, street views, portraits and still lives. The more we walked, the more I noticed that no animals or men were depicted.
Honestly, it was a walk I hoped to remember fondly but later as I gathered pace, the frames thinned out and were replaced by symbols and faces painted directly onto the walls and the ceiling. Every so often there would be a colour photograph tacked up over my head. Not the same photograph, sometimes it was the face of a woman, sometimes it was a landscape of soft, low hills, sometimes it was a photograph of a church or a cathedral, sometimes a tight-eyed child or a lamb gambolling.
Whatever the subject, the palette was always the same: pale greens, yellows and blues sliding between the thick black lines that looked as if the artist or artists had just sunk their arms into the paint before applying it in jags and throws.