by Thomas Brown
Right.
He chose the seat nearest a chipped coffee table, upon which lay a crumpled copy of The Lady. For want of something to do besides dwelling on his recent redundancy from Woolworth’s, and his prat of a brother wanting him out of his flat by Friday, he picked it up and flicked through page after page of perfect recipes for this and that; perfect homes, jobs for nannies and a short story about a missing cat.
Great.
He was about to return the magazine to the table when something on page 15 caught his eye:
WANT TO WRITE A BEST SELLER?
Spend Easter at Heron House in Carmarthenshire’s beautiful Upper Towy Valley, and be inspired by top fiction writer Monty Flynn. All modern comforts. Cordon bleu cooking and internet access. Young writers particularly welcome. Reasonable rates. Regret no wheelchair access.
There was a phone number but no website. He checked around the walls for CCTV surveillance, and seeing none, tore out the page and stuffed it in his jeans’ back pocket. He’d never heard of Monty Flynn, nor ever been to Wales. And as for a computer, forget it. However, something had lit up in his head. A quivering little flame, but a flame nevertheless, so that when the tannoy over the door announced that Dr. Chatterji would see him now, he barely heard it.
***
“Citalopram, once a day, Mr Robbins. That’ll help pick you up. And I’ll see you again this time next month in case you experience any unpleasant side effects.”
“What side effects?”
An impatient sigh followed as the perfectly groomed Indian doctor snatched the prescription from his printer, obviously keen to be off home. “Look, just try and take yourself away somewhere pleasant. Consider a new challenge. Make new contacts…” The rest of his advice was lost in the grind of rush-hour traffic just beyond his window; and Jason, still unhappy at the lack of a reply, hadn’t felt it right to mention grieving.
He collected his pills at a nearby pharmacy and popped one in his mouth, letting its strange taste spread over his tongue as punishment for having let his life end up this way. For not having been there to save his best mate from being blown to bits by a roadside bomb in Basra. Yet as he stepped into the cool dark of the Gay Pheasant pub on his way back to his brother’s flat, he could almost hear Archie egging him on. Not to waste what life he had left.
“Half a shandy,” he said to the barman who looked like a younger version of his dead dad. The Doc had wagged a brown finger, saying no booze, but half a shandy wasn’t exactly booze, was it? “And a packet of pork scratchings.”
While the noisy world passed by, Jason studied the torn-out notice once again and, the longer he looked, an idea for a book bloomed into his mind. Gangland, that was it. London gangland. His brother, a financial adviser, had stories to tell about money launderers, fraudsters, the crap police who left the big fish untouched. Who’d even been known to join their ranks. He could sense the main characters already nudging their way into his consciousness, almost demanding he tell their story. But hey, get real, he told himself, finishing his drink and ordering another, what had his English teacher at the local grammar school said at the time?
Come on, remember...
“Too much imagination, Jason, and not enough skill. Writing’s a craft you can’t simply wave away as if it doesn’t matter.”
So, skill-less, with ambition crushed out of him by a man who’d probably only put words together for school reports, he’d holed up at the Job Centre for whatever paid work there was. Filling pies with slurry he wouldn’t give to a dog, planting bulbs for the Council, until a sick leave cover at Woolworth’s came up. But no good dwelling on it now. He’d soon have enough redundancy pay to bribe his brother for ideas and to let him stay on at least until the 8th April. The day before the writing course was due to start.
“You look chipper,” remarked the barman. “Got some skirt lined up for tonight, eh?”
I wish.
But that wasn’t quite true. For his new project, he’d need space, a clear head.
“Yeah.” He watched the shandy’s foam slide back down inside his empty glass. He felt light-headed. Odd. “Time I shifted my butt.”
***
The library was still open and, under the gaze of the middle-aged woman at the desk, whose breasts almost reached her waist, Jason filled in the registration form.
“What kind of books do you like reading?” she asked. “Dectective? Self-help?”
“Crime. Thrillers. The more gory the better.”
She handed him a small laminated card covered by a bar code and pointed to a set of shelves next to where a line of nerds were bent over their computers. Here, the air smelt worse than in the doctor’s, a mix of fart and feet, and for a moment he hesitated until the name Monty Flynn came to mind. He scoured the various spines whose authors’ surnames ranged from D to H in perfect alphabetical order – but no Flynn. Perhaps he was so popular, his books were out on loan. Perhaps they’d been put back in a hurry and lay elsewhere. Just as he was about to give up, a black and grey book spine caught his attention:
Evil Eyes by Max Byers.
Having withdrawn the plastic-covered novel from the crowded shelf, he examined the hype on the back; the photograph of a spreading blob of blood on the front. And as for the author photo, half in shadow...
I like it.
A glance at the fly paper’s busy withdrawal sheet was encouraging while a skim of the first page made him realise why. It wasn’t until the librarian called out that the library was due to close, that he finally plonked the book down in front of her. “Do you have anything by a Monty Flynn?” he gave her his best smile. “I’ve been looking, but so far, no joy.”
She tutted as she stamped the return date for Evil Eyes in two weeks’ time.
“Please,” he urged. “It’s important.”
She tapped out his request on her keypad, then shook her tightly permed head. “Not that I can see. But then this machine only goes back four years. We’ve been promised an upgrade when this recession’s over but I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“He may write under a different name,” Jason suggested. That seemed the most likely explanation.
“Many authors do. Especially women trying to appeal to male readers.”
Jason knew that even hot-off-the-press books weren’t in bookshops for long. That trying to get hold of Sheridan le Fanu when he’d been a horror fan, had been a pain in the arse. So the fact that this ‘top fiction author’ wasn’t in Hounslow Library was probably no big deal.
Outside the building’s cloying warmth, he paused to read some more, aware of his pulse on the run as a Russian thug called Gregor tipped his adversary over the side of a houseboat moored on the Thames at Deptford. Great stuff. On his way back to the shared flat in Gardiner Street, Jason stopped to savour more of the tight dialogue, the cool descriptions of the waterfront, and felt as if the main character – the unnamed narrator – was real enough to be walking alongside him.
***
He still had his own key, although only last night Colin had threatened to take it away. An over-the-top reaction to a carton of chicken tikka left on the new granite worktop and an empty loo roll in the cloakroom. At least the silver Merc wasn’t yet parked nearby. Something to be grateful for.
Jason brewed up and popped another pill. He liked the buzz, the what-the-heck attitude he was feeling. And if his older bro was to turn up with more crap for him to listen to, he’d tell him where to stuff his flat. Italian-style wet room or not.
He took his mug of tea to the hall phone. That way he could see any arrivals through the patterned glass panel in the front door. He smoothed out the magazine cutting and, with Gregor’s icy words haunting his brain, dialled Heron House’s number. It seemed to ring for ever.
Come on...
He was about to replace the receiver when a woman’s voice answered. Her Welsh accent so strong he could barely understand her.
“Jason Robbins here,” he began. “I’m calling from London
about the Write a Best Seller course...”
“I never heard of no course. You got the right number?”
“Yes. It’s in the latest issue of The Lady. Underneath the advert.”
An ominous pause followed.
“You’re not gay, are you? We couldn’t be doing with that round here.”
Jason held the receiver away from his ear, tempted again to replace it. What had his old school motto been? Persevere. Archie would say the same.
“To whom am I speaking?”
“Mrs Davies. I clean up after everyone. Don’t live here, mind.”
That sounded like a boast.
“Who’s your boss? Who’s running this course?”
“Like I said, I don’t know about no course, but Mr Flynn owns Heron House. Bought it last year. An Irishman if you please.” She tutted. “Leave me your number and I’ll get him to call you back. He’s down the Fox and Feathers at the moment.”
“Cheers.”
Afterwards, feeling slightly unsettled, Jason drained his mug in one go, gathered up the cutting and took the white-carpeted stairs two at a time up to his box room overlooking the street. He sat in front of what had once been their mother’s dressing table, and reopened Evil Eyes at page 10. So engrossed was he in the drowning man’s efforts to save himself, that he didn’t hear the silver saloon draw up outside, nor see the couple eating each other’s faces while snaking their way up the steps towards the front door.
2.
Tuesday 31st March 2009 – 5.45 p.m.
Russian mafia villain, Gregor Vasilich, was delivering the coup de grâce to his drowning victim’s head, when Jason heard the thud of Colin’s front door closing. He tensed up. Was his bro back already, or had some yob mugged him and got his key?
Since losing his job, Jason’s new one was to guard the flat while the money man was out. How demeaning was that? As if he’d nothing else going on. Clearly nothing as important as what went on in that swanky Clerkenwell office. The recession hadn’t affected Colin at all. If anything, he was busier and richer than ever. But in the past month alone, there’d been a stabbing and two burglaries in Gardiner Street and Jason couldn’t risk another. Then, not for the first time, it hit him like a wrecking ball that unless a bribe worked, he’d be out on that very street in three days’ time.
Sod him.
Before he had time to peer between the vertical blinds to check if the new silver Merc was in its reserved parking slot, an all-too familiar voice rose up the stairwell. A mix of his own and his dad’s. Less Estuary, more Sloane as the years had gone by.
“Jason? You up there again?”
A woman giggled. The Girlfriend, he thought, unable to actually use her name. Then the hall phone started ringing. He slapped down his library book to hover by the landing’s banisters.
“Monty Flynn, you say? From Wales?” queried his brother in an incredulous tone.
“Sheepshagger,” mocked Colin, whose grey work suit was way too tight. “They’re all the bloody same.”
“About a writing course?” Colin was speaking again. “No, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake...”
“No, they haven’t!” Jason had reached the hallway in two seconds, but Colin clung to the receiver. A sick smile twitching his lips.
“You mean, this call’s for you?”
“So?” Jason felt his skin begin to burn. He blushed as easily as a tomato in the sun. “It’s my business.”
“Hey, I’m wetting myself,” sneered The Girlfriend. “Jason, writing? Pull the other one.”
He’d not been a warehouse operative for nothing. Colin’s grasp on the receiver soon gave way to his, and the disgruntled couple backed towards the kitchen door while he tried to compose himself. The receiver felt hot in Jason’s hand. Its perforations almost clogged up with sweat. He wished now he’d topped up his mobile and used that instead. “Thanks for calling me back,” he began once the caller had introduced himself as Monty Flynn. “Bit tricky here at the moment.”
“Sounds like it. Why you need what we’ve got on offer.”
“Your Mrs Davies didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.”
A pause.
“She wouldn’t.”
Jason coughed to fill another small pause. “I’ve just started reading Evil Eyes…”
“Max Byers, eh? I’m impressed.”
“That’s exactly how I want to write.” Jason scowled at his eavesdroppers with such intensity, they finally retreated into the chrome and granite Heaven newly fitted last month. “Bringing real hard bastards to life. Having them slug it out. Plenty of action, death and blood. Yeah, death and blood.”
“Mr Robbins – may I call you Jason?” The Irishman continued.“This is what’s flying off the shelves right now. Fast, gripping, pacy. So fast in fact the poor helpless reader needs something to grip on to. And remember, publishers do like a series.”
Jason felt as if his heart would explode with all the possibilities. The sense of exhilaration beat running any day. And he was no mean runner.
“D’you take a good photo?” came out of the blue.
“My mum always said I did.” That sounded pathetic, but the questions kept coming.
“You fit and active?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Describe the pic of Max Byers.”
“No trouble. Half in shadow. His eyes kind of glaring up at you. Evil eyes…”
“Exactly. You got good bones like him?”
Jason wondered where this was leading. “Sure.”
Another pause. This time he could hear a young female voice in the background.
“Helen says to get yourself over here. I agree. I think we’d work well together. What say you?”
“Who’s Helen?”
“Our cook. Prue Leith trained. Her rook pies are to die for.”
Jason wasn’t sure whether to laugh or register his disgust. The gloomy afternoon had become an early dusk. He shivered.
“Are you serious?”
“I am. It’ll soon be rook-culling time up here. Mr Davies, my groundsman, is a right good shot. He bagged twenty in one hour yesterday.”
Twenty?
“Send me the kind of mug shot we could use on a cover mock-up,” Flynn went on. “Plus any personal details to make you stand out from the crowd.”
Filling pies, filling shelves. I don’t think so.
“What about my writing?” Jason ventured.
“OK. Get a title, first chapter and outline to me by the weekend. You on email? We’ll get you a selling package going. Blurb, shout line, the works. You could be the next George Pelecanos.”
“George who?”
“Never mind. But he’s tops. One of the writers for The Wire.”
“Cool.”
Yes, the gritty serial had tempted him to watch, but his late shifts had clashed with every episode except one, and Colin hadn’t let him use his TV’s recording facility. “What about the actual words to choose when you’re writing?” he ventured again. “Never mind getting them in the right order?”
A short, hearty laugh. “Son, I’m telling you, that’s the easy bit.”
“So when do I pay?”
“Twenty percent now, the balance on your last day. We take cheques but no credit cards. Sorry.”
Odd, thought Jason, then dismissed it. “How many others have enrolled?”
“Three so far. One from Mull. The other two from Redditch. Thing is, people leave things until the last minute. Our maximum’s eight, so everyone gets a good crack of the whip.”
Jason tugged his chequebook out of his jeans’ pocket. This was a momentous decision. He could feel it in every pore, every nerve ending. But his questions weren’t over yet. “What sort of books do you write, Mr Flynn, and are they under your own name?”
A hesitation. A raspy intake of breath. “Let’s just say I’m not exactly bosom pals with the Freemasonry right now. Both my books based on their rituals were withdrawn PDQ once I’d lifted the lid. Fi
ctionally, of course, but my work was still seen as a threat to the status quo. My lawyer scooped enough damages from the publishers for me to buy this place. So some good came out of it all.”
Jason felt as if a sudden shadow had engulfed him. A dense, cold shadow. His chequebook had just three cheques left. The Girlfriend was giggling, accompanied by clattering saucepans. Colin probably had his hand between her legs.
“I can tell you’ve a big drive, big talent, Jason,” said Flynn suddenly. “Get over here and use it.”
And with that, came Jason’s promise of payment to be sent off first thing in the morning. All the while, imagined associations with that far-off place, began spinning faster and faster in his mind.
3.
Wednesday 1st April 2009 – 12.10 p.m.
In Heron House’s gloomy kitchen, twenty-two-year-old Helen Myfanwy Jenkins used the heel of her hand to press down the pile of corned beef sandwiches that she’d just made, and immediately her mind hurtled back to her days and nights in Stanley Terrace, below Aberystwyth University’s colonnaded presence. Seat of her dreams for three years where no money, and a lurking, unpaid loan, limited her diet to whatever she could place between two slices of cheap white sliced bread.
Then, such restrictions hadn’t mattered. Art was her life; part of her soul, so as long as her pulse kept going, she wasn’t that fussed about what ended up on her plate. Her friends, especially Heffy (Hefina) Morris existed on Marlboro Lights and Cadbury’s Flakes. Others, on pot, bought and sold at the Vulcan Arms every Friday night. There’d only been one crack-head in her year and he’d drowned after leaping from the pier the day the Degree shows opened. “My exhibition,” Rhys Maddox had written on a note left on his bedsit’s pillow. “Worth a Distinction, eh?”