Rhona on the phona

Q&A with Rhona Cameron.

I've been meaning to post this for ages. I interviewed Rhona last year and she was ace...


Can you tell our readers what your debut novel, The Naked Drinking Club, is about?

'Kerry, 24, has gone through life relying on her grandiosity to survive. She hasn’t had a good relationship with her adoptive parents and is deeply hurt about her lack of connection with people. She drinks a lot and her life plan is loosely based on fate – a flimsy way to get on. She leaves Scotland for Australia where she meets a group of transients in their twenties and thirties who make a living selling paintings door-to-door. Kerry has a string of dangerous, violent, loving, and sexually disconnected encounters along the way, and later plays detective, seeking her birth mother.'

How is this book different to your previous book, 1979?

'1979 was a deeply personal and honest story of a year in my life the year my father died. The Naked Drinking Club is a work of fiction, from my imagination.'

But didn’t you sell paintings door-to-door in Australia too? And it’s no secret you’re adopted… Are you sure it’s not autobiographical?

'I think it’s normal for people who have lived full lives to carve bits off of them and use them in fiction. It’s important to have felt and smelt what you’re writing about. I wanted to let Kerry enjoy being young, free and beautiful in her twenties – something I wish I had done differently. Life should be like that then.'

Tell us about a character you based on someone real…

'Joyce Cane, the psychic carpet mogul… I saw this woman on a carpet advert and started wondering what she’d be like – about her story…'

So one day, the real Joyce Cane might recognise herself in your novel?

'She might, because I didn’t bother to disguise her name very well.'

When I finished the book I thought there might be room for a sequel – what Kerry did next. Any plans?

'Ha – you mean where she returns and keeps drinking lots and becomes a stand-up comedian and continues drinking lots and writes a sitcom for a bit, drinks lots, does I’m a Celebrity and writes a book about her life and then gives up drinking…'

You’ve given up?

'It’s been four years. I was ready to give up. I’d probably already had enough at 25… Where I come from, up North, back then, it’s what people did. All there was to do was drink. You’ve got more opportunities now.'

But like Kerry, there’s a hedonist in you…

'Yes, and everything I do, I do to excess. Here’s a difference between Kerry and me…. She went in search of her mother but back then I went to Australia for love. When we returned we couldn’t stay in Edinburgh because we’d die. So we relocated to London, where there was a community of people from Edinburgh. Which wasn’t much better…'

Then what happened? How did you eventually get into stand-up?

'I was shown a tape of Jo Brand and told ‘here, this is what you should do.’ And I thought, yeah man, that looks easy – that’s what I’ll do. I’ve always been good at talking. So I started gigging.'

Do you believe in fate like Kerry does?

'I’m aware of how powerful our subconscious drive is to make things happen. You might consciously think you want to live a certain way but if your subconscious doesn’t, it’ll prevail. If people were more aware of the subconscious, everyone would get on better. It isn’t easy getting on in a world where most people haven’t done therapy.'

What do you think of tattoos?

'People I’ve slept with have often been surprised I don’t have any. I like proper old guys who have tattoos of when they were in the marines… Names of loved ones and people that have died – things mapped on the body that tell stories. Like a friend on my football team has her grandmother’s name on a bed of roses…'

Oh yeah – you play football every week. What makes football such a great game?

'I think it’s the most skilled of all the ball games and I love it for the range of people involved, regardless of class, sexual orientation etc. It’s a leveller – keeps you grounded and unites people. But I hate the capitalism and hate the violence. These working class people who might fight each other at a Celtic-Rangers game are misdirecting the anger they really feel about being kept down and oppressed by society.'

Would you choose writing or stand-up?

'Writing is very good for me right now. I hit rock bottom when writing my first book – had to be injected in my hotel room because of dehydration from throwing up. And I decided I really wanted to do it – I had to turn things around. Now my favourite place to write is in the box room at my mum’s in Musselburgh, wearing my pyjamas. Writing is more permanent; stand-up is transient and suited the old lifestyle. But you know, I may do a set at Edinburgh this year…'

Tell us something we don’t know about you…

'Despite what people think, I’m actually an optimist. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given up drinking…'

Vilma

The Story of Vilma Tuuli

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Vilma Tuuli. She lived in the middle of a forest and ate smoked rainbow trout and berries. Her favourite dish was wild strawberries threaded on hay in a bowl of yogurt. Her grandmother lived to a hundred from eating yogurt for lunch.

When her Grandmother turned one-hundred-and-one-day, she died over the ironing board. Even though they lived in a dark forest the Grandmother liked to keep her clothes neat.

Vilma Tuuli found the lifeless Grandmother and placed her in a rowing boat.

Yks, kaks, kolme,
istu isän polvel'
äiti sano älä istu,
isä sano istu vaan-

And with that, Vilma set the boat off down the lake.

Soon the old lady found company with the thousands of logs travelling south.
“I'm dead,” said the Grandmother to the biggest log.
“So are we,” replied the log.
Grandmother looked the log over and decided he would do.
“In that case I suspect we will be great friends,” she said.
The logs amused her for the rest of the journey by making formations in the water like aeroplanes.

Meanwhile in the forest, Vilma was alone for the first time in her life. Pleased, she turned the radio up full blast and danced the Merengue around the wooden hut. Little did she know a troll peered in through the window, with a salivating tongue and troublesome stomach. Pessi had found no smoked rainbow trout or berries, surviving instead on pinecones and moss. What a happy girl, thought Pessi. Happy dinner always tastes better than sad dinner.
“Let's Party!” sung Vilma. Juhlitaan!
Pessi unfolded one leg through the window, and then the other. His head thudded against the ceiling as he stood up, but Vilma didn't hear. She was too engrossed with her jig.
“How pleased I am!” she exclaimed. Onpas hauskaa!
The troll crept over to the little girl and scooped her up.
“Terve, little girl,” growled Pessi.
“What the...?” shrieked Vilma.
With Vilma neatly tucked under his armpit he took one long stride over to the radio and switched it over to Soumi Pop Fm. The troll swung his hips to Abba.
“Well, little girl, I am going to gobble you up for dinner and take your house for my own,” he replied.
Vilma was most angry.
“You're bloody well not!” she retorted. “I might be small but I'm fearless and savvy!” She kicked and punched the air for a while but the troll was strong. It was hopeless.
I wish I'd remembered to put my Swiss army knife back in my bloomers after skinning that snake this morning, thought Vilma.
Then she had a plan.
I know – I'll play dead, and when he puts me down to gather the wood to light a fire to cook me on, I'll break his face with my clogs!
Vilma's body suddenly drooped in the troll's arms. She became as limp as a rubber chicken.
Pessi had never held a dead girl before. She became a miserable weight on his hip bone. He suddenly felt barren and wretched.
“Whatever have I done?” he asked himself. He let out a sob, which Vilma mistook for a satisfied grunt.

Now, if you know Finnish folklore, you might remember that if a sick being is fed through a rare loop in the trunk of an enchanted birch, he or she will magically recover to full health. Pessi had one such Birch growing near his cave.
I'll take the little girl there at once, he decided, sticking her down his shirt for safekeeping.
What Pessi didn't realise was that Vilma was actually (thanks to all the yogurt) very healthy indeed. Had he have known that, he would never have shoved her through the loop in the trunk of the enchanted birch tree. If playing dead, the creature will have all the life sucked out of it, down through the roots of the silvery tree and dispersed into the forest's soil.
Which is exactly what happened to poor little Vilma Tuuli.

To console himself, the troll ate her anyway.