Going east to meet Brian McWilliam, I was no longer impersonating Gregory Keays, the middle-class novelist with a great future behind him, the suburban scribbler getting by on the chilly outer fringes of the literary scene. I was the writer as man of action, a hoodlum of prose, a fast-track fictioneer whose life was as near the dangerous edge of things as it was possible to be without toppling off. The division between life and work? There was no division. Suddenly I was my own material.
In a spirit of doomed optimism, many of the pubs in this area had been redecorated with lights and cheap ersatz sophistication, renamed with fake wit, the Prince of Wales becoming the Rat and Carrot, the White Hart being transformed into the Gargling Weasel. There were big windows, TV screens, computer games, brightly coloured carpets, unchanging ‘menus of the day’ offering steak and mushroom pie, chicken niblets, scampi and French fries, ham ‘n’ cheese quiche. Only the clientèle had not been upgraded. Instead of laughing, attractive young folk bundling in and out, chatting and flirting over margaritas and spritzers, the men and women here sat slumped at tables nursing their pints, ashtrays brimming with butt-ends and discarded chewing-gum. They looked as if they had been there for a decade, as if the pub had been changed around them without their noticing, as if nothing – no exciting new techno-entertainment, louder music or bigger TV screen – could shake them from their grim, defeated self-absorption.
The Queen Bess had resisted the trend towards modernization. It was not just free of music and noise and colour and youth; it was pretty much free of customers. By the time I arrived at around ten, the drinking rush hour seemed to have passed the place by. A couple of ancients sat at the bar, looking as if they had been there so long that they had become part of the fixtures and fittings. A middle-aged man and a younger woman – on some grim little adulterous tryst, to judge by the way they both glanced up as I entered the bar – were in the darkest corner. At a table in the middle of the room, McWilliam sat in the company of a thin Asian girl who at first glance seemed like a child wearing the tight dress and make-up of an adult woman for a primary school play. Wearing pressed designer jeans, a black silk shirt and double-breasted jacket, McWilliam looked like a successful retired footballer or bookmaker.
‘Greg, the writer.’ He extended a hand across the table. ‘The very man.’
‘Good to see you, again.’
‘Mine’s a large Scotch, dash of water.’
I looked at the girl, awaiting an introduction. ‘Can I get your friend something?’ I asked eventually.
McWilliam glanced over at her as if he had momentarily forgotten she was there. ‘Get her a coke, Greg,’ he said. ‘Otherwise she might get a bit out of hand.’ He squeezed her thin, bare leg and, briefly, the girl seemed to shrink from him. ‘Coca?’ he said loudly.
‘Coca,’ she mumbled.
I returned with the drinks. McWilliam had folded his camelhair coat over the chair next to his and seemed disinclined to move it. ‘How’s the book going?’ I asked, pulling up another chair.
‘Search me.’ McWilliam looked around the pub, suddenly bored. ‘I’ve done my thing. It’s down to the publishers. I’m on my new project these days.’ He frowned stagily. ‘Come to think of it, Greg, you might be the very fellow I’m looking for.’
‘I’m a bit committed at the moment, time-wise.’
‘It’s not a fucking writing gig. I’ve got a writer, haven’t I. It was more in the nature of a consultancy.’
Frankly, the last thing I needed was to be pulled into some iffy scheme being developed by a small-time media lowlife but, for any freelance, there’s something strangely attractive about the word ‘consultancy’.
Smiling, as if he could read my mind, he pulled his chair in and lowered his voice. ‘Ever worked in the film business, Greg?’ he asked.
‘There was talk of an option in Forever Young.’
‘None of that bollocks.’ McWilliam’s hand had returned to the girl’s leg and he was absent-mindedly caressing her inner thigh under her skimpy dress. I noticed the adulterers staring at him with undisguised disapproval. ‘This is a low-budget, fast turnaround money product. All you’d have to do is turn up for a few meets and come up with some titles. It’ll be a cash-in-hand job.’
‘Titles?’
‘Me and a few business associates are interested in funding a series of remakes of classics. Women in Love, Hard Times, Tender Is the Night.’
I smiled with relief. ‘So you’ve really caught the literature bug.’
‘Yeah, right, whatever. The thing is these films would basically be your average naughty pictures – graphic but tasteful. We’d have all these fancy titles from books and that – give them a bit of respectability and wit. So instead of your regular bestiality number – Debby Does Donkeys or whatever – you’d call it Animal Farm.’
I laughed at what I assumed was a joke. ‘But Animal Farm is a political satire about totalitarianism.’
‘Not any more it ain’t. There’s no copyright in titles. This way we get a bit of credibility with a touch of the old irony. Porn’s really big now as long as you dress it up as something a bit more respectable. Trouble is, we don’t know the book stuff. We got Black Beauty and Lady with a Lapdog. One of the lads came up with The Iron Man by Longfellow.’
‘Hughes.’
‘Hughes?’ McWilliam thought for a moment. ‘Nah, Longfellow’s better.’ He turned to the Asian girl. ‘Ku here’s one of our stars.’ He winked at me. ‘Little Women.’
The girl smiled uncertainly.
‘Have you acted before?’ I asked.
‘She doesn’t speak English.’ McWilliam smiled. ‘We communicate in other ways. You’re a very good fuck, aren’t you, Ku?’
The girl looked confused.
‘Isn’t she a bit –?’ I hesitated. ‘I mean, she looks as if she should be at school.’
‘Nah. They all look like this, Koreans. Then one day, whoomph, they’ve gone. They’re good for nothing after nineteen.’
‘I’ll think about this proposal,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘But I need a bit of unofficial advice on a personal job. I need a consultant, too.’
More defensive now, McWilliam swigged at his whisky. ‘What kind of advice would that be then?’
I lowered my voice. ‘By personal, I mean … wet.’
‘Wet?’ He laughed. ‘What the fuck you on about, Greg?’
‘A wet job.’
‘A woman? You’re hitting on me for a woman? What is this?’
‘Harm. I’m looking for a bit of harm. To a third person.’
‘Like, a smack? Someone to be slapped around? Greg, it’s really not something I –’
‘I can pay.’
‘Wet job.’ McWilliam shook his head, then drained his drink. ‘You’ve been watching too many American movies, my son.’ He stood up, reaching for his overcoat which he slipped on with a comically business-like, shrugging movement. ‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ he said.
We made our way out of the pub, followed uncertainly by Ku. Outside, McWilliam turned to her, as if suddenly remembering she was there. ‘Home.’
‘Hom?’ Disconcertingly, her voice was that of a little girl.
‘Home. Mummy. Daddy. Telly. Fuck off.’
A look of disappointment crossed Ku’s face. Then she walked off, disconsolately.
‘Sweet girl.’ McWilliam winked. ‘But none too bright, between you and me.’
He turned and began to walk briskly towards the Green, his hands sunk deep into his pockets.
‘I hope I didn’t do you out of a date,’ I said, catching him up after a few strides.
‘No, problem. Greg.’ McWilliam spoke without turning towards me. ‘I’ll call in later. Ku’s open all hours, if you know what I mean.’
‘Ah.’
We walked in silence for a while. ‘How’s the family, Greg?’ McWilliam asked suddenly in a tone that suggested that he had more than small talk on his mind.
‘Good.’
�
��That nipper of yours all right, is he?’
Had I mentioned Doug when we had met in Gloucester? It seemed unlikely. McWilliam glanced across at me, his eyes catching the street lights.
‘Teenagers,’ I said. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Tell me about it.’ The lights changed and he swung into Ladbroke Grove.
‘Wife working, is she?’
‘Yeah. An interior designer. Feng shui.’ I realized, with a pinch of conscience, that I had spoken the words with a sneery oriental authenticity. Fung Sheway. I was relieved when McWilliam didn’t laugh.
‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘She should have a go at my gaff. It’s a fucking tip. One of my girlfriends told me it was because my feng shui was all to bollocks.’
‘She’s a bit booked up, but I could mention it.’
He looked across. ‘You’re talking shit. I warned you about that.’
I smiled, irritated at having been wrong-footed once more.
‘You’re like me,’ he said. ‘You like to compartmentalize things. Relationships. Sex. Business. Fun. We’ve got tidy minds, you and me. They’re all in little boxes, aren’t they? We only feel safe if we can keep them apart. That’s how we keep control of our lives, how we avoid confusion and mess.’
It had not in fact occurred to me that a media criminal with a history of violence and deception was, in any sense, ‘like’ a professional writer and family man, but, at this moment, it seemed wise to play along. ‘Maybe,’ I said.
‘Yeah. Right. Fucking maybe is right.’
We turned into a dark street behind the Green, then into an alleyway. After a few yards, we stopped by a heavy, panelled door with a small brass plate bearing the legend ‘Jesters’. It was a club whose name I vaguely recalled. It was said to be a favourite hang-out for dope-peddlers, footballers, tabloid models and the new breed of lad-novelists. While I had no objection to frequenting the dive du jour – being seen in the company of Brian McWilliam, indeed, would do my image nothing but good – this was an occasion when publicity would be something of a complication.
He stood by the door, rang a bell and nodded imperiously in the direction of a camera lens. He pushed his way in.
At the end of a narrow corridor, we found ourselves in a small, dark room, with battered furniture. The only source of light came from behind the bar where a man in his sixties, with the thinning, slicked-back hair of an ageing Ted and an aggressive paunch, glanced in our direction and raised his eyebrows in weary welcome, before returning his attention to a TV screen in the corner on which a football game was being played. There were two other men in the room, also gazing at the screen but without particular interest. No exotic black men, no young girls with their legs on, no media types on the slum. If this was the Notting Hill high life, they could keep it.
‘My usual, please, Greg.’ McWilliam spoke without looking at me, made his way to the darkest corner and slumped into a leather armchair.
I ordered two double whiskies from the barman and went over to join him.
‘Cosy place,’ I said.
‘Fucking fleapit, but it does. They only have one membership rule here. No fucking journos.’
I winced facetiously.
‘All right then, so it’s not about the book, you don’t want drugs, and it’s personal. Tell me what you want from me, Greg the writer.’
I glanced over my shoulder to ensure that the fat barman was out of earshot.
‘I was wondering if you could advise me about removing someone from the scene, keeping them quiet for a while.’
‘What, cause them a bit of grief, discourage them.’
‘Grief, yes. Harm.’
‘And you’d pay.’
‘I’d pay.’
‘I told you in Gloucester. I don’t do things. I can point you in the right direction, maybe make a couple of calls. I’m a delegater – in the supervising business.’
‘Of course.’
‘Who is it then. Some bastard author who got up your nose? A dodgy critic?’
I took out the photograph and handed it to him.
‘Oh Gregory, behave.’ He looked up, a vulpine smile on his lips. ‘You serious?’
‘Bit of discouragement,’ I said. ‘A bit of quiet.’
‘What – a holiday ticket abroad, is it? Do my friend a favour and make yourself scarce for a few months, darling?’
‘No. A bit more … definitive than that.’ Seeing that McWilliam was having difficulty catching my drift, I searched in my mind for a useful term from one of my fictional manuals. ‘I need closure,’ I said.
He looked down at the photograph again, and ran a well-manicured thumb over Mary’s smiling face.
‘For this, Greg, me old son, I might just come out of retirement.
* * *
Five Great Authors Who Worked When Young
1. Maxim Gorky was a scullery boy at eight.
2. Charles Dickens labelled bottles in a shoe-black factory at eleven.
3. Walt Whitman became an office boy at eleven.
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau worked for an engraver at thirteen.
5. H. G. Wells became a draper’s apprentice at thirteen.
* * *
27
Something strange and unusual happened that night. I fucked my wife. I had been out in the real world, arranging, supervising, sorting out problems. I had been a man, and now I came home to do the manly thing.
I returned to the house after midnight. There was no sound from Doug’s bedroom, a single light shone in the hall. I climbed the stairs, weary but purposeful, like a good citizen returning from a long day’s work. I went to my study, as is my custom, with a view to jotting down some notes for tomorrow’s writing, but suddenly the world of invention seemed too insubstantial to detain me. I undressed, went to the bathroom, washed my face, and entered the bedroom.
Over the past two years, Buddha had been stealthily colonizing this room. First there was a small picture on Marigold’s dressing-table. Then a prayer hung on the wall where a perfectly harmless watercolour had once been. Now the place was a shrine: harmony chimes hung over the bed (Buddha is a stranger to irony), a scented candle glowed on a bedside table; at the foot of the bed sat a model of the plump godhead himself, with the bowl of fresh rice which my wife, murmuring devotional gobbledegook, would replenish when she returned from work.
It was a still, warm night and, under the eyes of the fat boy, my wife lay, naked, on her side. These days she slept well – as if, after years of being alert to the slightest sound coming from Doug’s bedroom, she was now capable of sleeping through anything. I settled on my side of the bed in my usual position, on the edge, facing away from her. I felt wakeful and, after a few moments, turned to look at her as she slept. For maybe five minutes, I stared at her back, the heavy dark hair on the pillow; there was an air of peace around her at night which was rarely evident during the daytime. Unlike most of her contemporaries, whom motherhood had gently transformed into a sweet, comfortable and shapeless middle age, Marigold had kept her figure; indeed she seemed to have become more compact, more herself, over the years. It was not just that she had taken to working out at the gym, but that something within her would not succumb to the ageing process. Oddly, she seemed more single now than she had been, over two decades ago, when we had met during her years as a striving artist.
I stretched out my right arm, hesitated, briefly fearful of her reaction, then laid my hand lightly on her shoulder. She muttered sleepily but the shoulder, which once would have shrugged me off with practised ease, remained still. I ran my index finger down the valley between her shoulder and collarbone, down her backbone before holding her right buttock, easily, like a ten-pin bowler.
She stirred. ‘Gregory?’ she said and, briefly, I was reminded that I was not the only one with the right to touch her up in the middle of the night.
I chose to ignore the note of soft admonition in her voice, slightly increasing the pressure of my hand. She said, more loudly, ‘No, please.�
� I took my hand away, then placed it with gentle firmness over her mouth. She tensed and seemed about to speak but I held her still, my fingers tingling with her disapproval. To my astonishment, she relaxed. After a few moments of lying like this, an erotic parody of coercion, my hand meandered downwards, lingering over her right breast, across her stomach, before finally coming to rest between her legs.
She twisted her head. ‘It’s too late,’ she said.
‘Not that late.’ My left arm sidled under her body, pulling her more closely to me.
‘I don’t mean the time. Life. It’s too late in life. It’s gone.’
But it was not gone. ‘Oh, shit,’ she whispered, turning over to face me. Her eyes were closed and she was frowning, irritated.
At any other time, I would have taken what was on offer, stolen, like a thief, in and out, before the alarm was raised. But right now, that was not what I wanted.
I crouched over her and, briefly, found myself staring into her eyes, which were wide with surprise or anger or maybe even alarm. I stared back. I was like him, McWilliam had said. I was not going to cower or flinch before that infuriated gaze. I placed my hand on her forehead and, like a policeman at the scene of a murder, stroked her eyes shut. Her own hands were clasped together frumpily on her stomach. I took her wrists, one in each hand, and held them down against the bed close to her hips. Then I headed south.
Kill Your Darlings Page 21