The Pretender

by David Belbin

  Magneta looked vaguely insulted. ‘Believe it or not, there’s a certain amount of talent involved. You have to be able to tell a story, get inside the head of the sort of people who read these things... and write good sex, of course.’

  ‘Who reads them?’ I wanted to know. ‘Housewives?’

  ‘Theoretically. The publishers did some audience research showing that almost as many men read them as women.’

  At random, I opened Love on the Line. The opening chapter was a description of a woman rubbing up against a man on the underground. He isn’t sure if it’s deliberate. Then she reaches inside his raincoat and unzips his fly.

  ‘Take one if you want,’ Magneta interrupted my reading.

  ‘No thanks.’ I didn’t want to read anything that reminded me of my lack of a sex life. But I was beginning to get an inkling of an idea for a short story.

  Magneta told me how she’d got into writing the novels through a friend of Tony’s.

  ‘When I’m doing my own writing, a three thousand word short story takes me forever. A novel seems like an impossible dream. But with this crap I manage forty thousand words in a month. A fortnight, if I really need to.’

  ‘Think you could do it?’ Tim asked me.

  I shook my head. Maybe I could write formula fiction, if I had to, but I doubted I could write about sex convincingly. In the Greene forgery, I’d been careful not to describe the narrator’s sessions with the prostitute.

  ‘You?’ I asked Tim.

  ‘I’d try anything, as long as it involved writing. I may have to, soon. We need another place and rents are going through the roof.’

  ‘We don’t have to live in London,’ Magneta said. ‘It might be better for both of us to live somewhere quieter, cheaper for a while.’

  ‘I don’t fancy an unheated stone cottage in Andalusia in winter, ’Tim said. ‘That was Magneta’s last suggestion.’

  ‘How about an end terrace in Lancashire?’ I said.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Magneta asked.

  I explained how I came to have a small house going to waste in Leam. I said that, if the two of them looked after the place and took care of the bills while they were there, then they could have the house for as long as they wanted.

  Magneta was enthusiastic. Tim was unsure. ‘You’re being too generous, Mark. You’re a student.We’d be exploiting you.’

  ‘The house has been empty since the September before last,’ I pointed out.

  Tim and Magneta discussed whether being out of London would hurt their literary careers, coming to the conclusion that neither of them had enough of a career for it to make any difference. Then Magneta asked what I was doing for Christmas.

  ‘Not much,’ I said, remembering the previous, bleak Christmas I’d spent alone in a student house.

  ‘Then why don’t we spend it together, in your house? You can show us what we need to know about the house and the area. If we all agree that it’s a good idea when we’re sober, then we’ll get everything sorted out then.’

  This decided, we celebrated with another drink. My opinion of Magneta had changed totally. She was my new, second-best friend. At the door, she gave me a sloppy kiss.

  ‘Where exactly is Lancashire?’ she asked.

  I walked home, drunk on wine and friendship. When I got back to my tiny, cold flat above the office, I kept my coat buttoned up, switched on my computer and the single bar electric fire and, more confident than I’d ever been before, began to bash out a story.

  Twenty-four

  It had come to me as I was looking at Magneta’s erotic novel. Why would Roald Dahl write a story for the Little Review, then put it aside after Tony’s rejection? It had to be because he thought better of it. Not because he’d written a bad story, but because there was something suspect about it, something the world wasn’t ready for. 1950 was long before the Lady Chatterley trial. An author couldn’t use the ‘f ’ word. Overtly sexual material was beyond the pale.

  I might not have the experience to write about sex, but I could imagine a story about somebody writing sex under a pseudonym, like Magneta. Dahl would have written the story, sent it off to Tony, then, when it was rejected, thought better of publishing it. The story could anticipate the sour, sexual subject matter of the Switch Bitch stories, written in late middle age.The 1950 Dahl would have worried that readers would think he was writing about himself. By late middle age, if Tony was anything to go by, Dahl wouldn’t give a damn.

  Dahl didn’t have a particularly idiosyncratic style. He sometimes talked to the reader at the beginning of a story, setting the piece up. That was the hardest note to achieve, but it wasn’t an essential element. When writing as Dahl, I could rush on with the plot. There was no need for detailed description, but my period in Paris came in useful for the setting. Characterisation wasn’t crucial. Narrative was everything. I worked in my knowledge of Jack Kahane’s Obelisk, who published To Beg, I Am Ashamed and the racy Cecil Barr novels. Dahl might well have read one of Barr’s novels, made something of it in his fiction.

  When I read the pages back, there was a problem. They didn’t sound like Dahl, not for a minute. How could I, who had convincingly forged Hemingway and Greene, have trouble imitating a much lesser author? Even the weakest writer must have a signature style. I wasn’t trying to parody Dahl, drawing attention to his weakest elements. And there was more. Although he was educated in England, Dahl wasn’t English. Both of his parents were Norwegian. He was an inside outsider, capable of viewing the vagaries of British character with a cold, often cruel eye, which made his voice harder to capture than that of Hemingway or Greene.

  There was one possible way around the problem. I could imitate Dahl’s first person style. I often found the single viewpoint to be a weakness in first person novels, limiting the action and removing opportunities for suspense. The reader can easily tire of the same voice, finding it monotonous, hectoring, unwelcoming, even smug. But Dahl used it often, so I decided to give this voice a try, pretending to be a Norwegian writing in English. I found a copy of Dahl’s first collection, Someone Like You.This had several stories written in the first person. They were written in the right period, too.These early stories seemed to have more energy about them than the later work. I began again, starting the story in the middle, rather than at the beginning, and my words began to ring true.

  My character introduces himself as Edward Timms, a war veteran with a minor shrapnel injury that causes him to limp. He is wealthy, though at first the source of his wealth isn’t clear. Friends assume his money is inherited. Timms has written two novels. They earned him the respect of his peers but didn’t sell in great quantities. Timms tells the reader about Lawrence Hamden. Hamden is the author of the French Maid series of erotic novels. Many of Timms’ friends secretly enjoy his work. Now and then one of those friends asks Edwards what he thinks of Hamden. Edward pretends not to have read him.

  By now, most readers will have guessed the secret that my narrator is about to reveal. Timms is not independently wealthy. His money comes from writing erotica under the pseudonym Lawrence Hamden. His publisher, Maurice Cranstone, is a middle-aged Mancunian, partially modelled on Jack Kahane. I described the Hamden stories without having read any erotica of the period, but with a working knowledge of the British bedroom farce, which I felt sure Dahl would be familiar with. As I told it, the Hamden novels were awash with mistaken identity, lust crazed lovers, ridiculous impersonations, the sudden return of spouses and adulterers hiding in unlikely places. The running joke of the series was the sexual sophistication of the French as compared to the English. Men were grateful for the smallest favours of the French maid. On occasion, Hamden’s English heroes rescued her from the clutches of the shady con men (usually French) she kept falling for. They were handsomely rewarded, in kind.

  Timms finds writing erotica much easier than he does the literary fiction he publishes under his own name. As Hamden’s success builds, the impulse to write more serious fiction deserts Tim
ms. Cranstone suggests that he take on a second nom de plume. Timms comes up with Veronica Bendix (using the first and last names of two movie stars of the era). Under that name, he writes a series of ‘memoirs’ about an amoral female spy in the war just finished. The Bendix books become an even bigger success than the Hamden ones. Veronica Bendix, indeed, becomes the talk of London. Everybody in society wants to know who she is.

  At this point of the story I got stuck. I knew that I had to deal with Edward Timms’ love life. What sort of relationships did a man who wrote erotic fiction have? If Magneta was anything to go by, perfectly normal ones. I had given Edward a bum leg, like Jake in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. So he might have trouble finding a girlfriend. Or women might find his injury romantic. I could hint that he was impotent. That would get me out of having to describe his sexual conquests.

  I was out of my depth. I kept writing, hoping a solution would present itself. I wrote a cameo appearance for Maurice Cranstone, using what little I knew of Jack Kahane, throwing in a few of Tony’s characteristics. But I didn’t have a plot, only a situation. I created a woman, Valerie, whom the writer wanted to impress. I based her on Helen Mercer. Valerie was a manipulative, frigid bitch like many women in Dahl’s work. She ignored Edward at first, but, as he became wealthier and wealthier, began to attend his flash parties, even accepted his lavish gifts. Still, despite his entreaties, she would not sleep with him.

  One night I had the writer, frustrated to the end of his wits, break into her house. He means to seduce her, or, if that fails, to take her by force. When he gets to her bedroom, however, he finds the object of his desire naked, only partially covered by sheets. I hinted that, with one hand out of sight, Valerie was playing with herself.

  Yes, that was the taboo twist I needed: masturbation. Even now, decades after Portnoy’s Complaint, many writers wouldn’t discuss it. In 1950, it would have offended most readers. Also, masturbation was the only kind of sex I had any experience of, and could write about convincingly. Would Dahl have written something so explicit? Why not? He liked to shock. No mainstream magazine would have taken the story. Hence he sent it to the Little Review, a small subscription literary journal that published risk-taking fiction.

  I wrote furiously, ignoring my dry throat and the late hour. Edward interrupts Valerie. He begins a forceful speech. If she will not submit to him, he will have no choice but to take her by force. Then he sees what she’s reading and stumbles over his words. It’s one of Veronica Bendix’s ‘memoirs’. He blurts out his authorship, proving his tale by telling her what happens next. Valerie, to his surprise, is not shocked. She tells Edward that if he’s half as good a lover as the men he writes about, she’ll give him a try.

  What would my character do in such circumstances? Run, or risk the humiliation of sexual failure? How would Dahl end the story? I would decide tomorrow. As dawn broke over Soho, I drank a pint of water, which made me feel drunk again, and went to bed. Later, I would have to work out how to forge a convincing manuscript.

  The next day was a Friday. After my exertions of the night before, I didn’t get up until Tony had left the office. He never came back after lunch on a Friday. He’d left his newspaper open at the obituaries page. At the bottom right, in small print, were the details of Roald Dahl’s funeral. I noticed that it was to take place the next day, in Great Missenden, the village where Dahl lived. Which meant, in all likelihood, that his house would be empty.

  I was thinking like a burglar. The house would be locked, doubtless well secured. But what about the hut, where, according to the obituary, Dahl did all his writing, sitting in an old armchair? How secure could a hut be? According to the obituary, Dahl wrote his first drafts in pencil on yellow foolscap. Even so, he must type them up afterwards. His typewriter, in all likelihood, would still be there. I would never have a better chance to convincingly forge a Roald Dahl story.

  Twenty-five

  The train from Marylebone was late, allowing me little room for error. On the forty minute journey, I thought of all sorts of problems that might interfere with my plan. Even supposing I got into the writing hut, and the typewriter was still there, it would take me a good hour and a half to type out the four thousand word story. My best typing speed was fifty words a minute. I had to get used to an old typewriter and avoid making mistakes. Also, I had barely enough old paper to type the story onto. If I botched a couple of pages and had to start over, I might run out.

  The easiest solution would be to steal the typewriter. But there were problems with that. I might get caught, which would make me a common criminal. There’d be publicity, which could destroy my future and reflect badly on the Little Review. Even if I wasn’t caught, the typewriter’s theft would alert Dahl’s executors to the possibility of forgery. I’d never get away with placing my story in the LR. If I was caught typing in the hut, however, what could anyone do? I’d be taken for a nutter, pretending to be Dahl, my childhood hero. I wasn’t stealing anything. I’d be an embarrassment, spoiling the day of the funeral. But nobody would want to get the police involved. The family would throw me out on my ear, no doubt, and they would have every right to.

  The Aylesbury train took me all the way to Great Missenden, I hurried down the High Street then along the lane that led to Gypsy House. It stood alone in five acres of land on the far side of the train line. The funeral was about to start. Surely there’d be no-one home. I walked around the house’s perimeter, looking for a way in.

  A thick hedge surrounded the back garden. I peered through it, trying to make out the hut. When I failed I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to allow for the risk of being spotted by servants, or guard dogs. It would be suspicious for me to walk around the boundary again. I wore a heavy denim jacket and jeans. My paper was in a sturdy folder. I zipped it inside my jacket and looked down the lane. Nobody in sight. I tucked my bare hands into the sleeves of my jacket and charged into the hedge.

  It hurt far more than I’d expected. Worse, I almost got stuck in the middle. My left knee banged against solid branch. Sharp twigs scratched my face. I half twisted my right ankle as I crashed through the other side, falling onto wet grass where I landed awkwardly on my rump. Slowly, I stood up. At least no guard dog had launched itself at me. I ached all over. My face was bleeding. Bits of hedge stuck to me. But I was through. And there, at the edge of an orchard, was the brick hut, with its white walls and yellow door.

  The door opened on the left.There was no key in the lock. I might be able to kick it in, but I wasn’t a vandal, and, anyway, to do so would make my presence obvious. I tried the handle, expecting to find the door firmly locked. It wasn’t. I pushed open the door.

  The hut was dark. There was a small entrance area, then another shadowy doorway. To my right, there were filing cabinets. The large window was covered by a plastic sheet encrusted with grime. There was barely enough light for me to see clearly. On my left, there was a wing-backed armchair with a green felt writing board leaning on it. To the left of that was a small table with an old-fashioned angle poise type lamp, an ashtray and a fairly modern phone. Where was the typewriter? I turned on the lamp. There was no room for a typewriter on the desk to the right of the armchair. This was covered with objects including model aeroplanes, fossils, a cup containing several Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, a little ball of silver foil, a ceramic beetle, a round stone, antique knives and a sword. There were pictures everywhere, but no typewriter.

  I stood in the gloom, taking in the atmosphere of the space where a real writer had worked. All his money, yet he had chosen to work in a hut, without basic comforts. I should be able to learn from that.

  I was about to go when I saw it. There, on top of one of the black filing cabinets, was an old canvas cover. I reached up. Beneath the cover was a typewriter. I lifted it onto the table by Dahl’s armchair, making room by moving the phone. I removed the cover and switched on the lamp, then squatted awkwardly in order to type. I tested my luck with a new sheet of paper. The quick brown fox ju
mped over the lazy dog. I typed this a handful of times until my fingers were sure of the keys. Then I put the piece of paper aside. If I were to be caught, this was the sheet I wanted my captors to see. Now I placed a sheet of 1950’s paper from the LR archive under the roller. I had memorised the layout Dahl used, and was careful to reproduce it. There were no common errors for me to imitate, as there had been with Hemingway. All I had to aim for was accuracy.

  It was cold for early December. But that didn’t matter .As I typed, scrunched up awkwardly, barely visible through the large window, I picked up speed and became confident of my chances. I made small embellishments to my original. After a while I began to add new sentences and dialogue. It was as if Dahl was there, in me.

  I lost all sense of time. While I was, in a sense, copy typing, I was also thinking ahead. The ending I’d come up with the day before wasn’t good enough. What I’d written in Soho didn’t feel like Dahl. Masturbation was too tacky a denouement and the twist wasn’t clever enough. Still I typed, improving as I went, while a newly discovered part of my brain schemed. As I got to the middle of the story, something happened. A woman appears at the club, accompanied by Timms’ friend, Barker. The new character I wrote was still based on Helen, but a decade or so older and only moderately vampish. Timms is immediately taken with her, and wonders how Barker has snagged her. Then his friend introduces the pair. Her name, he says, is Veronica Bendix.

  I had my twist. Timms can’t call the woman’s bluff without revealing that he himself is Bendix. Anyway, he’s intrigued as to why this woman, an adventurer if ever there was one, is pretending to be his pseudonym. He wants to be with her. So he contrives to get rid of Barker and invites ‘Veronica’ to dinner. She agrees enthusiastically.

  The next night, they meet. ‘Veronica’, it transpires, is a great fan of Edward’s literary work, dismissing her ‘own’ novels as insignificant twaddle. Timms quizzes her about whether her wartime memoirs have any basis in reality. She asks him whether it would bother him if they weren’t true. He admits that it would bother him more if they were.