by M J Johnson
'Everything would be great,' he thought, 'But for that bastard Chilvers.'
28
Approx 1.05 pm - Thanks for leaving me your computer already booted-up. A nudge of the mouse and I had your morning's work on screen.
The world of illustration can't be very challenging, judging by all the awards that adorn your office. There are several photographs of you with the ridiculously named Blatt.
I have done my research meticulously. Whilst watching your house, I read every one of the titles you illustrated for Blatt. I wish I could claim the experience was enjoyable!
I loathe the unrealistic pap dished up as children's literature. I particularly hate the way things turn out well or for the best. Let's face it, how often is goodness rewarded in real life? If that were so, then all those bankers, commodities dealers and all the others who earn fat cat salaries, paid for by the toil and misery of the world's poorest, must be the finest people alive? Veritable saints!
Hardly surprising there are so many fantasists about if they get raised on the diet of utter tripe you and Blatt churn out, is it? Grown-ups seem to think that telling lies to children is somehow part of childhood, eg "Santa lives at the North Pole and if you're good, he'll come down the chimney on Christmas Eve and bring you toys."
Let's face it, any old man who broke into a child's bedroom at night wouldn't be there to give them toys!
By the time I was no more than five or six, I'd already worked out that Christmas must be nonsense. How could a senile old fool get around the world on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer in one night and deliver presents to everybody?
It's all a bit like believing in Jesus, whose Father, God, let him die so that everyone else could be saved. Some Father, don't you think? And saved from what? Talk about dysfunctional families – an unmarried mother and an absent father who allows his own child to be betrayed to the cops of the day! But in the end it was alright because Jesus rose again and made a few guest appearances to his friends. After this he went off to be happy forevermore in heaven with his Dad.
Eventually of course every child learns that Father Christmas is a fairy story, (sob, sob)
"And the Easter Bunny, too?"
"Yes son, that too."
"And Jesus, Daddy? Did you and Mummy make up Jesus?"
"What the hell are you talking about? I'm surprised you could even think such a thing! In fact if you don't believe Jesus was born of a Virgin, and died on the cross because all Jews are evil, you'll die and fry in hell."
Even as a child I wanted to know the facts, not the racist twaddle adults tried to instil in me.
However, I digress:
Approx 1.05 - 1.30 pm - I anticipated you'd have a computer. Bit surprised to find a PC. I thought an illustrator would probably work on a Mac. I don't care. I brought in my rucksack of many tricks a 500 gigabyte external hard drive. I had considered bringing something bigger but I knew that even 50 gigabytes of data would take far too long to download within my time limitations. You have about thirty gb of files and images. It should be possible. Isn't external data storage a wonderful thing!
I connect to a USB port and set it up to copy everything: the writing on screen, your online accounts, address book (very helpful).
Once the download gets underway, I search your desk. In the top drawer you keep several sets of keys. Thoughtfully labelled in clear block capitals FRONT DOOR, CONSERVATORY, GARAGE, SPARE CAR KEYS. I borrow the front door keys (a dead-lock and rim-lock) for copying.
In the drawer below is another cache of gold – a little black book that contains just about every other key to your life. I can't quite believe it. I want to let out a yell but don't of course! You have listed in this skinny A5 book every computer password you use. I am holding the means of accessing: your email, ISP server, the social networking sites you belong to, your website admin, even (I am almost speechless!) the passwords for your online banking. I take a raw jpeg of each of the four relevant pages with my digital camera. See, everything I think of.
I look through the other areas of your office. There is a stack of portfolios containing your art work, some I recognise from the books. No interest to me!
Your unlocked filing cabinets prove more worthwhile. In a file marked IMPORTANT PERSONAL DOCUMENTS, I come across your paper driver's licence along with your birth, marriage certificates etc. I may be required to produce some proof of identity when I get the keys copied, so I take your Driving Licence and Birth Certificate.
Approx 1.32 pm - Your assistant, the woman with the MG, has an office next door. She has established the space as her own, woolly cardigan on hanger on back of door, pictures of grandchildren (I presume) on the wall by her desk, mug with the words 'To Gran'. I scan her computer files, but everything I really want is on yours.
Approx 1.40 pm - I do quick tour. Your bedroom is at the back, nice room, nice view, bed unmade, dog hairs on the duvet - disgusting. The other bedrooms have no regular occupants. You've chosen simple but elegant furniture, Arts and Crafts period, nothing self-assembly. Children's books must pay!
There is a flight of stairs up to the attic but this door is locked. The key is most probably in the desk drawer. I'll return if time but I want to see downstairs more. As I might've expected the furnishings downstairs display a similar simple taste, block-wood floors, more Arts and Crafts furniture. There is a grandfather clock ticking in the hall.
I perform whistle-stop tour of remaining rooms; a room with bookshelves, library of sorts; dining room, oak table, six chairs, elegant sideboard; sitting room, television, magazines and newspapers in a rack, two sofas, nice lighting, logs sitting ready to light in the fireplace, on the mantelpiece are two dark wood candlesticks and between them a signed photograph of a woman (mid-twenties) in a silver frame. Dead wife? There is a small corridor leading off the hallway, straight ahead is the kitchen and to the left is a small cloakroom and toilet (where I'd considered making my break-in).
I glance around the kitchen and conservatory; much evidence of the pooch - bowls, cushions for its hairy backside.
Approx 1.44 pm - I return to your office. The copying has finished. One thing has eluded me. A folder that requires a password before I can open it. I wonder why someone who lives as openly as you do keeps a protected file? Have you got secrets to hide, details so personal you'd curl up and die if they leaked out? I hope so!
I try everything – nothing in the A5 book – I try every stupid title of every inane book you ever worked on with Felix Blatt - Bladderghast, Brian Franglestein, Hollowpimples, Penelope's Perfect Pizzas, The Annoying Bumblewart, Harlow's Flying Hamsters. I go through the whole dreary list and not one of them works! Access denied.
I want to hurl your computer through a window!
1.49 pm - I must leave. I experience a powerful urge to violate your home. I know this isn't rational. I compromise. I defecate in your en-suite bathroom. My bowels appreciate the gesture after all the excitement. After flushing I check the bowl for marks.
Nothing remains but my stench.
29
Tuesday 13 January
Your mail is so boring and inane.
'dear gil harper, i am riting this letter to yew from hosbitle as i am ill and haven't been very wel either. i like your drawins, theyr funni. and i still like you even though it hurts me when i laff. i miss being at home with mumy and dady and my dog 'poo-sniffer'. do you have a dog?'
And you always reply personally.
"Yes, little Johnny. I too have a leg-shagger. His name is Spike."
You're too good to be true!
Adults get Megan Hollingsworth, Mr Harper's Personal Assistant (Midget-rider sounds better).
7.44 am - Newspaper boy.
9.16 am - Postman Prat.
9.26 am - Megan arrives.
12.48 pm - Megan leaves.
12.59 pm - Gil and Spike go walkies. I move car, park in next road.
1.07 pm - Enter via front door. If you'd set the alarm I still could have got in! You must
have a rotten head for figures. The four digit security code for your burglar alarm is kept in a computer file cryptically labelled (sarcasm) "Home Security". You should have heard me whooping last night when I discovered it!
First jobs: return the keys I borrowed from your desk (I have my own set now); I put back your birth certificate too but I've held on to your driving licence (I have a plan formulating). If you go looking for it, I daresay you'll only think you've misplaced it.
I hardly slept last night, going through your files, planning my next moves.
I gave a lot of thought to the password for that secure file. I became even more excited about getting into it after discovering just how cavalier you'd been with your security codes. It must be awfully personal.
I compiled a list of seventeen words that crop up regularly in 'Pete's Pirates' (rubbish story by the way!). You like inventing names, so I'm convinced it's a name – numbers you tend to write down.
Within minutes of entering your office I'm testing my list.
(Incidentally, I checked the patio doors. Locked! I am such a lucky opportunist!)
Approx 1.20 pm - V angry. None of my words work. I experience almost uncontrollable urge to destroy everything you own.
Look around downstairs to ease my tension.
I wonder if the library might hold the key?
Your books are organised in sections: autobiography, smallest; biography, slightly larger; history, yes, interested in history; art books and fiction vie for most space.
Approx 1.27 pm - Fiction is in two sections, Children and Adult. Do you have a favourite illustrator, a role model? I look along the alphabetical names, Ahlberg, Bestall, Blake, Briggs. There must be two hundred names. This is impossible, it could be anything, an artist, a writer, or nothing whatever to do with art or literature, a place name perhaps, even his dog!
Dog! SPIKE. Of course, the dog! You talk about the pooch incessantly in your letters to children.
I rush up to the office.
PASSWORD REQUIRED
Here goes, I say.
I type the name in lower case letters.
s p i k e
ACCESS DENIED
I'm sweating. It has to be. I try again.
S p i k e
ACCESS DENIED
Don't lose it now, I tell myself, stay focused. Try block capitals.
S P I K E
ACCESS DENIED
It was a good thing nobody arrived back early from lunch at that moment or I would have torn them limb from limb.
Approx 1.35 pm - I go downstairs again. I'm running out of time.
I go into the sitting room - to calm down more than anything. I sit on the sofa directly opposite the fireplace. I feel despondent. So utterly crestfallen I find it hard to raise my head from looking down at the floor. I feel it's personal. Gil has deliberately affronted me! Then I notice the mantelpiece, the wooden candlesticks, the photograph of the young woman in its elegant frame. It reminds me of a shrine. Then I see it. Yes!
An affectionate message with signature at the edge of the portrait: "To Gil, All my love forever, Jules."
I take the stairs a dozen at a time (exaggeration). I type the name.
J u l e s
And I'm in!
And what a find! Your diary! A record of everything you've done from age fifteen. It's pure, unadulterated, twenty-four carat gold. I'm ecstatic!
Approx 1.43 pm - All this excitement has left me with certain biological needs. I relieve myself in various ways in your private bathroom.
Approx 1.49 pm - I exit same way I arrived.
30
The week passed quietly. Sally and Gil communicated by telephone each evening and sent short, affectionate text messages to each other throughout the day. As for his book, Gil began to feel he was finally taking ownership of it. The words were beginning to flow easily, and at times even seemed to materialise of their own volition. He found he could actually return to a passage written previously and make any necessary corrections, without giving in to the impulse to pick the whole thing to bits.
Felix was pleased Gil was finding his feet. They spoke on the phone most days, "You're learning the business of writing, Harp. Sometimes a passage appears as if by magic, but mostly it requires sheer graft. This can, of course, be rewarding too. One seemingly inconsequential word can miraculously balance a hitherto wayward sentence and what was formerly base is gold. Alchemy has taken place!"
Gil had heard him say much the same on book tours when asked about the processes of writing. It struck him that Felix's words had sunk in at last.
31
Wednesday 14 January
I'm working through your diary. What an egocentric bore you are. Your diary makes worse reading than your indulgent flight of fantasy for children, 'Pete's Pirates', which at best might amuse a child with Special Educational Needs!
The diary is however, detailed, frank and unguardedly honest. The first fifteen years were written in longhand. It was most considerate, scanning it into your computer so I could conveniently download it. Thanks.
In the early years you were scared your mother, who you had little respect for (tut, tut) and considered a snoop, might discover it. There are childishly inane codes for the un-appetising practices you constantly indulged in at fifteen, eg: March 3, '85:
'I think Mum has been snooping again. When I got in from school I noticed my stuff had been moved. You'd think the sign on the door, PRIVATE KEEP OUT, might've got the message across!
'Don't think she found this though, or my horde of X rated nubiles. You remain perfect my lovelies, my angels of deliciousness, in my secret harem beneath the floorboards! … flayed the beast four times tonight while I should have been revising history.'
There are passages and passages of teenage angst. You record for almost a year, the number of times a day the beast got flayed, monkey got spanked, salami got slapped, gherkin was jerked, bishop got beaten or you took a J Arthur – I had to look that one up!
There are coy accounts of attempted seductions, fumblings with panty-hose and bra straps in the back rooms of youth clubs or rear seats of cars, agonised meditations on the delicate matter of premature ejaculation.
Although a torture to read, I will have a clear picture of you, your deepest most anxious thoughts, innermost concerns and more importantly, your weaknesses.
Remarkable, one little word opened the door to your life - J u l e s - I suppose you weren't to know how dangerous a name could be.
32
During the second half of the week the prospect of being re-united with Sally brought a distinct spring to Gil's step.
"You're looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed," commented Megan as she delivered the coffee and mail on Thursday morning. Gil was whistling to himself whilst perched on top of some kitchen steps. He was hanging a canvas, about five-foot square, on the wall alongside the French windows. It explained the banging she had heard downstairs. "Ooh, I like that, reminiscent of Klee." Megan possessed a broad knowledge of twentieth-century artists.
"Yes, I was going through a Klee-love-fest when I did it."
"You painted it?" she asked, not meaning to sound so surprised.
Gil chuckled at her response. "When I was at the Slade. Before I met Felix and gave up being a penniless painter to become a well-paid illustrator."
"It's really good."
"Thanks."
"Where was it hiding?"
"Up in the attic."
"Any more?"
"Dozens."
"May I see?"
Gil led her out of the office and up the flight of stairs leading to the attic. The key was kept on a cup-hook screwed to the side of the door frame, not immediately visible.
"I'm impressed," she said, after touring the fifty or so abstract canvases stacked against the gable-end walls. Her eyes were inevitably drawn to an easel set up in the middle of the space which held a painting covered by a dust-sheet. "Is that something you're working on?"
"I have
n't painted for some time," he replied with some diffidence, "it's the last piece I completed."
Megan hesitated; somehow she knew it was this final work that she had been brought here for. "May I?" she asked, tentatively extending a hand towards the dust-sheet.
He gave a little nod to affirm it was okay.
Megan was aware that Gil was reading her face as she removed the cover. He was watching keenly as her eyes roved across the painting, absorbing every nuance, examining the brush-strokes, appreciating how skilfully colour had been employed to bring life and depth to the face of his late wife.
After what seemed to Gil an interminably long time, she looked across at him; tears had formed in her eyes, she nodded and smiled in speechless approval.
She spoke softly, almost in a whisper, "It's beautiful, Gil. You captured the dear girl in every detail. Was it painted after ..."
"Before," he interjected. "I completed it about two weeks before."
"She was so lovely."
"Never lovelier, to me at least ... so full of life."
33
Thursday 15 January
You won a scholarship to the Slade. Should I be impressed?
During this time you met Julia. Shortly afterwards you start referring to her as Jules. I detect a hint of social inadequacy. She grew up in a middle-class home in Sevenoaks and went to a posh school. You struggled through the state system, and grew up in a home that only aspired to be middle-class.
Your parents were, as described in your tiresome adolescent words:
'Snobbish bores … they worship at the altar of consumerism and pray only to Gods with a recognisable brand name. Their idea of heaven has a fitted kitchen and a Georgian style conservatory in brilliant white UPVC.'
What agony you suffered taking Jules home to meet your appalling parents.