by Charlie Hill
‘I see,’ said Lauren. ‘That’s very observant of you. And it’s good you did the right thing.’
‘I thought that,’ said Richard. ‘But anyway. Where were we? Have I changed? And how? It’s difficult to say, isn’t it? Only time will tell, I guess.’
He reached over and kissed her then, quickly and on the side of her mouth. It felt natural and Lauren wondered whether she should kiss him back and then it was too late and she hadn’t.
Interview with a writer
‘Hello? Yes, this is Gary Sayles. Hermione Bevan-Jones? OK. Yes, I’ve asked for the interview to be brought forward because I had what you might call a bit of a revelation the other day and I thought I’d strike while the iron was hot. Well, in a way it’s to do with the People’s Literature Tour. You got the press release about that, then? Good. I insisted on writing some of that myself this time around. Just to make sure my side of the story got heard. “You won’t know whether to laugh or cry”? That was mine. But there’s more to what I’ve got to say than that, much more. First things first. How is The Magazine set up for this thing? Do I have the cover? Good, good. I’ll sort you out with a few portraits and some for this interview as well. No, no, not at all. I insist. As I said, I’m taking a more active interest in my publicity. It’s all about authors being more hands-on now, or hadn’t you heard? Yes, that’s right. It’s because of the internet. Anyway, I’ve got more than enough shots to cover any angle. Just let me know what you’ll need. I’ve got funny, approachable, serious. Or all three. Maybe approachable on the cover, funny in the index and serious in the inter – OK. Do you think so? Are you sure? OK, I’ll leave you to it. By the way, I spoke to Alistair there the other day. On the books desk. He was saying he was having a bit of difficulty finding a reviewer for the novel. Something to do with his writers saying that they didn’t think that they could do it justice in print. Do you know if he’s managed to sort it yet? Because it should really run in the same edition as the interview. Right. Oh, I see. He found someone but he’s got a bit of work to do on the review? Yes. Yes. Tone it down a bit. I daresay. I understand. I suppose for a lot of freelancers getting that quote on the cover is as close as they’re going to get to the real thing, isn’t it? I mean, you have to get noticed somehow and I suppose a bit of harmless exaggeration usually does the trick. But you do work quite closely with Alistair, you can keep me posted? Good. OK. I’m sorry? He’s your what? Your father? Oh, I see. I might have guessed. No, no, nothing like that. I mean, yes, I used to have a problem with that. A bit of a chip on my shoulder, you might say. In the past – yes, I admit it – I’ve had a go at the literary excesses of the so-called elite. I hated their fancy cliques and fancy new words, y’know, I really resented their snobbery. Do you know the trouble my agent had in getting the so-called “serious” press interested in what I was doing? Even after the public’s response to Cutting the Cake? But I understand things a little bit better now, about writing and what it means to be a writer. Which is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today. So, before we start, do you have any questions? Oh yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. What is my relationship with my family? And how does it “colour” my fiction. Hmmm. No, yes, no, that’s interesting. Well, I’m only going to tell you this off the record, OK? Let’s see. You could certainly say that the relationship has affected me. I was adopted as a small child, you see, never knew my real parents. No, no, it wasn’t like that. I mean, they did their best. But it’s not the same, is it? This is a theme I’m exploring at the moment in my memoirs. How the anonymousness of your parents drives you on. I’m going to call it Sayles Patter – An Author Rings Your Bell. Or maybe Gary Sayles: An Extraordinary Joe. It’s all going to be in there. And that’s back on the record by the way. So where were we? Right. Yes, as I said, I’ve got lots else I want to say. You’ll thank me for it as well. It’s a cut above the usual answering questions thing. It will be a real eye-opener for people who want to know what being a writer is all about. Because – no disrespect here – anyone who doesn’t write can never hope to understand. I’m sorry? Oh, you are? I see. I didn’t realise. Yes, that’s good. Got an agent yet? Uh-huh. A friend of your father’s. Of course. So what is it about, then? A ‘tale of a young journalist who loses her job’? Life Outside the Loop? Sounds promising. And they’ve said what… ‘Readable’? And ‘High profile’? You’re on the way, Miss Jones, you’re on the way. That’s exactly the sort of thing you’ll need all right, that and scoops like the one I’m about to give you. Speaking of… once I get started I get on a roll and it’s difficult to stop. So I just need to check. Are you ready for this? Are you sitting comfortably? OK. Then I’ll begin. Do you remember that, by the way? Jackanory? I used to love that. Memory is such an important part of who we are, isn’t it? Memory is like a taxi ride to your infant school… after dark. That’s a phrase I’m working on at the moment. Yes, I’m experimenting with pauses. Do you remember The Clang – I’m sorry? Oh. Oh, OK. Well then, it happened one day as I was standing outside a bookshop. It was after one of my impromptu signing sessions, when I just pop in unannounced to see if my books are being displayed prominently enough, if they’ve got enough in stock, that sort of thing. There were lots of people milling about on the street. It was very busy, you know, a typical busy shopping day. And as I was standing there getting my bearings and looking at the cars and the shops and the people on the pavement, everything suddenly seemed to shrink. Everything seemed smaller, just like I was looking at them from a long way away, as though they were not real, just like they were toys. It’s difficult to explain but I also seemed to have more time than anybody else, more time and more space to turn and look around. Everything was slower and less chaotic, like special effects, like really high-quality slow-motion special effects. And if that wasn’t freaky enough, as I was standing there taking all of this in, I saw a bus drive past, with me on the side, a twelve-foot image of me, Gary Sayles, with my eyes looking at the street below, looking down from the side of the bus almost as if they were looking down from the sky. And then suddenly, suddenly, BANG! It all belonged to me. Everything. Just like that. Everything I could see, the shops and the cars and the people and even the stuff I couldn’t see, even space and time itself – they were all mine. Every last little thing. And do you know why? It came to me then, in that moment. It’s because I’m a writer, Hermione, and writers own words, and when you own words, you own everything. Everything, everything is yours, yours to be rearranged and put in place, yours to protect, yours to insure against anything harmful, yours to do anything that you want with. And so everything I could see was a toy, quite literally. Can you imagine? Can you picture the scene? A revelation like that on a street corner? And this revelation, I tell you it was like something special had been shown to me. Stop me if I’m getting too psychological for you here, Hermione, but I suddenly realised that all my life I’d been trying to belong. I’d been writing to say “look at me, I am one of you. I’m ordinary”, when in actual fact I’m not. I’ve been living a lie. Kidding myself that I could be like other people. Because Gary Sayles is not and never has been an ordinary person. Gary Sayles is a writer. My first magazine piece was published when I was nineteen, my first novel when I was twenty-four. I was born a writer. And like it or not, writers are different from ordinary people, I see that now. They see more than ordinary people do. They have to. They have to balance more responsibilities than ordinary people. First to their readers. You’ve got to be aware of your public. Writers need readers as much as readers need writers, that’s a motto of mine. But then there’s yourself, you’ve got to do yourself justice, because it’s not just about now and the relationship you have with your readers, it’s not just about being accepted when you are alive, it’s about later. I want to be remembered. I mean, ordinary people want to be remembered too but for a writer it’s more important. That’s the whole point of it, after all. And so now I realise that the People’s Literature Tour is not just about carving out a niche for my work at the same time as saying thank
you to my readers, it’s also about saying thank you and goodbye, drawing a line under what’s gone, moving on. I used to think I knew my limitations – now I realise I haven’t got any. Suddenly I’ve got a whole new creative lease of life, suddenly I’ve got ambition, suddenly there’s nothing I can’t do, nowhere my fiction can’t go. Who knows where this might lead? I don’t. I can’t imagine. Why not challenge myself? Maybe I’ll set a novel outside of Greater London. Give my lead character different jobs. He doesn’t have to be a music journalist or a lecturer in journalism: I know people in advertising as well, you know, and PR. Maybe I’ll write about a man who’s perfectly content to see a grey hair growing out of his nostril. Instead of writing about a man’s anxiety about his masculinity, maybe I’ll write from a woman’s perspective, about female problems. I’m sorry? No, no, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re getting the point, I mean I could do horror. Do you see, Hermione, I can do anything. I’m Gary Sayles, a writer, I own words. I’m not ordinary, I’m extraordinary and when I look down at my toys I see I can do extraordinary things. I’m Gary Sayles, after all, and Gary Sayles can do anything, I tell you, anything at all…’
An author gets to know his readership
He texts her and they agree to meet at the Comfort Inn, Hyde Park. It is early in the afternoon. He is wearing a pair of Aviator shades.
As they book in he tips the receptionist a fiver and asks her ‘Do you know who I am?’ She says ‘No,’ and he says, ‘I like your style, good, good,’ and winks and nods his head.
In the room he sits on the bed, she paces. In her bag, the camera rolls.
‘Mr Sayles. I don’t know what to say. I was so nervous when I was writing that note, I had no idea whether you’d call. After all, who am I to suppose that you would want anything to do with me? You must think I’m just a giddy little star-struck fan, no better than a schoolgirl. And I suppose I am. Even so, there’s something I want to ask you before we, you know, start. You’ve said in the past that marriage is sacred. In Man, Woman, Baby you described – now what was his name again? – Jake – as “a nasty piece of work” because he slept with Tiffany – the “flirty thirtysomething” – when he’d just got back from his honeymoon. I thought then that you had a low opinion of infidelity?’
‘What can I say? I am a writer and writers are not bound by the same rules as normal people.’
‘But your wife?’
‘My wife is not like you, she does not appreciate what I am,’ said Gary, and then in a voice that was pitched just a little bit higher, ‘Speaking of that, no offence but do you mind if we get a bit of a wriggle on? I’ve got a shoot with the cable TV channel Dave this afternoon. Can’t you just put your bag down and come over here? Now? Sarah?’
‘Susan.’
‘Whatever.’ And then lower again. ‘My precious.’ And Pippa hesitates, just for a moment. And then she thinks about her art…
‘Be gentle, Mr Sayles.’
‘I will, my child, I will. Er, hang on a minute. Susan? What on earth is that? Susan? Ah. Oo. Oh. Aa-aah.’
An agent gets a shock
Later that afternoon, Gary rang Norwenna, bringing up her contact details on his mobile phone so quickly that he nearly dropped the slimline device in his excitement.
‘Norwenna? I’ve got some big news! I’m going commando!’ he shouted.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I mean it! Like Brett Maverick! From the eponymous film! Or Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2! Not as violent as that obviously, but still! I’m going out on a limb!’
‘Ri-ght,’ said Norwenna. ‘Are you OK?’
Gary, if he hadn’t been on such a theme park ride of so many ecstatic twists and unexpected turns, would have spotted in her reply a certain type of hesitancy. As it was he was past caring and as his agent listened he explained to her his latest brainwave in words that flowed like a fast-flowing stream.
He told her he’d just met a fan who’d made a suggestion that would lead to the biggest revolution in publishing since the printing press or the internet. She’d told him that the great artists of days of yore had their work produced by other people. That there were internet rumours surrounding New York Times bestselling author James Patterson. She’d said that he, Gary Sayles, could do the same thing and hand over the writing of the rest of his London Novels (the title for the series was her idea) to other people too. Then Gary would be able to branch out into new fields and avenues of fictional endeavour. Even better, these new writers didn’t have to be professionals. They could be ordinary fans, chosen by a popular vote. There was a market for that sort of thing. And as his readers they’d know for sure what his readers would want to read.
It would be a win–win situation, a perfect mix of the popular Midas touch he’d made his own and the sort of business sense common only to writers who knew how to reinvent themselves, like Madonna or Lady Gaga. And even as Norwenna told him that her phone was mysteriously losing its connection, his thoughts carried on like an avalanche of excitement and he carried on shouting into a dead mouthpiece – Norwenna? Norwenna? – as he continued to plot the course between reclusive enigma and man of the people, between literary mogul and beacon of hope…
In which Richard considers one of the most difficult questions of the whole affair
The following morning, Richard was sitting at the till behind a pile of the collected works of one of his favourite short story writers. A handwritten sign announced ‘A Tower of Babel’.
Richard was planning for London and looking again at the press release for The Grass is Greener. He read that ‘Gary Sayles is a man who shares the values of his readers. He understands the way they feel and he isn’t afraid to stand up for what they know to be right. With The Grass is Greener, he has once more delivered what his fans want to read: a feel-good morality tale.’ And then he made a discovery.
He recognised the woman in the family portrait. The woman in the family portrait hadn’t always been Mrs Gary Sayles. Her name had once been Nikki and she had worked at the Pussy Palace Sauna and Grill.
Now Richard lived for epiphanies such as this, the unexpected providing him with revelatory insights into what he was doing and why. His involvement with SNAPS had been a series of just such evolutionary lurches. But this was subtly different. This discovery drifted into his consciousness like the hit of skunkweed on an otherwise averagely destructive Saturday night, full of promise yet frightening too. As the probable architect of the syndrome – not to mention a bloody awful writer – Gary Sayles had to be stopped. Burning his books was a good idea. It would attract the attention and capture the imagination of the liberal establishment; it might even shock the culture into accepting it had a problem. Hopefully it would also open up a discourse, and Richard knew that in any discourse, he’d have Sayles and his apologists by the theoreticals. But there was a problem with relying solely on this course of action.
Since his knock-back from the Correspondent, it was becoming apparent that the process would be a slow one. Not least because the medical evidence was still sketchy. So an alternative tactic – something more likely to have an immediate effect – was necessary too.
Recognising ‘Nikki’ suggested to Richard what this alternative might involve; the juxtaposition of ‘The Author at Home with Wife Amy and Son Garfield’ and the phrase ‘morality tale’ confirmed his instinct was on the bingo.
Sayles’ Manichaean moralising was a particularly rancid element of his shtick. Richard had only just recovered from a hectoring passage on prostitution in Cutting the Cake. While on a stag weekend in Prague, a friend of the hero had been robbed by a sex worker he’d met in a hotel bar. The authorial tone had been revealing, the sentiment obvious: the man got a comeuppance, of sorts – in the form of a protracted argument with his ‘plain’ wife – but he was portrayed as an innocent abroad. The woman, by contrast, was unsympathetic and damned, arrested and sent to jail.
This, then, was the obvious course of action. Richard would contact the gut
ter press. The censorious and reactionary, online and in print. Hello! and OK! and the glossy lifestyle rags too; anyone, in fact, who’d consider Sayles newsworthy. He would give them a splash. An exposé of the lifestyle of a celebrity author. He would tell them that Sayles wasn’t the man he made himself out to be. That even as he was planning a career out of denouncing women who worked in brothels, his wife was working in a brothel.
Richard had no doubt the tactic would work. Sayles’ readers were a morally unadventurous bunch. If his outing as a hypocrite didn’t faze them, mere mention of his association with the apparently black-and-white issue of prostitution surely would. The resulting outrage would put the kibosh on any post-launch sales surge of The Grass is Greener, and this would buy Richard and Lauren the time they needed to properly spread the word.
And yet. And yet. As obvious as this was, it was desperately thin stuff. Two-faced too. Richard lived to spike the non-thinking morality of the mainstream, to provoke the conservative into a more considered and progressive response to the world. In digging up a woman’s past to feed their prejudices, he would instead be complicit in their vile reactionary anti-humanity. How could he justify that? To himself? To Lauren? Just what – in the name of all things dangly – was he going to do?
Richard looked again at the cover of the book. Reread the blurb, shuddered, sighed. Realised the decision had been made for him.
When the time was right, Richard would do whatever he had to do. If that involved resorting to a last resort, then so be it. He could explain his actions later. After all, nobody ever claimed that doing good by being bad was easy. For now, anything that might limit the impact of SNAPS was worth a pop. Because lives were at stake. And the time had come to shit or get off the pot…