For us, together, every place will be home.
This kingdom, too, is ours, and in our blood
Its passionate tideways run . . .
and the wild flood
Of winter haunts our ears with spells that bind
Sea, sky and earth in one.
From ‘Orkney’, Robert Rendall
Author’s Note
The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm, Orkney, is a real place, built by Italian prisoners during the Second World War. While I used this genuine (and wonderful) work of art as an inspiration for the novel, this story is very much a work of fiction, as are the events and people in it.
The people of Orkney, many of whom were incredibly helpful and generous with their time and advice, will be quick to spot that I have fictionalized both the historical timing of certain events and the geography of the islands – the bombing of the Royal Oak (rather than the Royal Elm) took place in October 1939 and the construction of the barriers took place between 1940 and 1944, originally starting with Irish workers. However, I wanted the love affair between my characters to be constrained by time and intensified by the precipitous and perilous nature of war, so I took many liberties with timings and action. This was a very conscious decision: I’m painfully aware of the difficulties in fictionalizing real historical events and people and selling them as ‘fact’, especially when this involves taking on the voices of ‘real’ people: I was very certain that I didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to write about war, memory and art. There are so many war monuments to the dead, so many battlegrounds memorialized, so many landscapes that have been utterly changed by conflict. But the Italian Chapel seems, to me, to be something different: it is an object of hope, made during a time of war and darkness; it was conceived and crafted by men who were prisoners in a foreign country and had no way of knowing when they would return home. It is a creation born of expectation and love. It still stands today and has been beautifully maintained – I’d encourage everyone to go and see it.
The metal heart is also a real object: it was created by an Italian metal worker, Giuseppe Palumbi, as a symbol of his love for an Orcadian woman. He had a wife and family in Italy, so left his heart behind in Orkney. While I used this as inspiration for Cesare’s story, I didn’t base my character upon any single prisoner, and his fate in the novel is very different from that of the Italian prisoners, who returned to their families. I have changed many other details too: the painter of the real chapel was called Domenico Chiocchetti and he did not have an affair with an Orcadian woman. The commander of the camp on Lamb Holm was called Major Buckland, and historical sources show him to have been kindly and intensely human, encouraging the prisoners to build a chapel, as well as a small theatre and even a concrete billiard table. Although the influx of hundreds of prisoners must have been a huge challenge for the people of Orkney, sources from the time say that they were both welcoming and kind to the foreign men: the brutal character of Angus MacLeod is entirely fictional. I have also made Selkie Holm much bigger than Lamb Holm, where the real chapel stands, and have changed other details for the purposes of fiction: Catholic Mass would not have been taken with both bread and wine until the mid-1960s and I’ve added the words ‘Body and Blood of Christ.’
While researching The Metal Heart, I came across a story of a man who, in response to feeling increasingly trapped in his father’s business, failed to go to work one day, then found himself in New York, with no memory of who he was or why he was there. This led me to explore the idea of a dissociative fugue, where, in response to stress or an injury, an individual loses all knowledge of their identity and often wanders far from home, sometimes having formed a new or different personality. These genuine cases have intrigued psychologists for years and are distinct from instances where, in attempting to escape the consequences of a crime, an individual may feign memory loss. Arguably, both responses are the brain’s way of coping with trauma. I’m fascinated by the idea of how we respond to crisis and how very clever our own brains are at concealing information and hiding memories. I wonder, too, if this is something at which the brain becomes increasingly adept: a well-worn pathway of concealment. In the same way as I cannot recall large chunks of stressful times during my childhood, even now, after having an argument, I can rarely remember what was said afterwards.
Like many writers, I find that my characters reveal themselves to me slowly, and over a number of drafts. Gradually, I grow to learn their likes and dislikes, their desires and motivations and, as part of this process, a voice develops. This novel was different, in that the character’s ‘voices’ made themselves clear very early on, as did their longings and animosities. But, as I wrote, I discovered that most of my characters were hiding things, even from me. I’m aware that this sounds irrational, but it led to a writing process full of surprises, and of the same theme of concealment and discovery occurring in different characters, as well as the idea of pairs, doubling and repetition. This wasn’t something I’d intended but I was pleased to
