More Tomorrow: And Other Stories

by Michael Marshall Smith

  I dithered, wondering whether I should try to explain this or if it would just get me deeper into trouble.

  ‘Always meant to stop,’ Price mused, no offence taken. ‘Never got round to it. Just as well. Last time I tried was when I was thirty-five. Do you have any idea how galling it would have been to suspect I could have spent the last fifty years smoking? Margaret used to say there were smokers and non-smokers, and everyone should work out which they were and be willing to pay the price.’

  I knew who Margaret was, of course—and Price had just used her name as if I had a right to know. I was just sober enough to realise it meant nothing, which he obviously just used her name instead of saying ‘my wife’, but I still felt dangerously excited.

  Nonchalantly: ‘She’s not coming this weekend?’

  ‘No. She left me nearly ten years ago.’

  Aghast, I tried to apologise. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Price smiled. ‘It’s okay. So was she. It was cancer she left me for. Came and swept her off her feet, charmed her away from me. Now she doesn’t even write. Still, that’s ex-wives for you.’

  He was quiet for a moment, and then continued. ‘We were together from the age of twenty. She smoked then, she smoked all her life. She made her choice. There are three types of decisions you can make in life. Good, bad and unavoidable. In the latter reason plays no part, no matter how much you think it does. Emotion or circumstance or pure that’s-the-way-it’s-got-to-be makes the choice, and it’s those decisions that shape your life and build the house you live in. All the good or bad decisions ever do is change the colour of the walls.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘Neither do I. Just thought I’d try it out. Came across that little observation in a notebook of mine from back when I was fifty. Obviously meant something to me then. Sounds like complete gibberish now.’

  ‘I really enjoyed your panel this afternoon,’ I blurted.

  He looked at me levelly. ‘You’re not going to ask me about my work, are you?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, immediately shelving my first question, and the fifteen subsequent ones.

  ‘Never used to talk about my work,’ he said, looking out across the dark river. ‘None of us did. Now it’s all anyone ever wants to hear about. What did I mean in this story, what was I saying in that one. Who cares? Chances are what I was saying was just what it occurred to me to write, on that particular morning, with a hangover and a deadline. You want meaning, ask a tree. Work’s just what you do to pay for your life.’

  ‘It must mean more than that,’ I ventured.

  ‘Sure. I can go into my study, look at the books on the shelves, know I’m not going to leave this place entirely unmarked. We didn’t have any kids. We had books instead. Plus I liked some of the characters in them. They were just imaginary, but then so is everybody else these days.’

  We sat in silence for a few moments. I sipped my beer slowly. I didn’t want to finish it too quickly, because then I’d need to order another—which would involve going over to the bar and dealing with a barman—and Price might take that as a signal to leave.

  ‘What time is your book signing tomorrow?’ I asked, eventually. Weak, but the best I could do.

  ‘Eleven,’ he said.

  So much for that gambit. ‘I don’t know anything about the new one. Does it have any of the old characters in it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t find them,’ he said. ‘Went away, no forwarding address. Maybe even died.’

  Then, for no reason I could see, he raised his right arm. Jean the barman appeared from nowhere. ‘Yes, Mr. Price?’

  ‘I’m going to have one more scotch,’ Price said. ‘And for my friend here…’

  Jean accepted my order, inclined his head, and then turned on his heel and scooted off.

  ‘How the hell did you do that?’ I asked Price delightedly.

  ‘It’s a knack,’ he said. ‘Spend the rest of your life in hotel bars, chances are you’ll pick it up. What is your name, anyhow?’ I told him, and he nodded. ‘Sorry to abandon you after this one,’ he said, round the end of another cigarette, ‘But I’ve got to be in reasonable shape for tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Why? What’s happening then?’

  ‘I’m getting an award.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that.’

  He winked. ‘I’m not supposed to know either. Actually, nobody’s said that I am. But I’m getting it, sure as hell.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Lifetime achievement. What else?’

  ‘Well, congratulations in advance,’ I said. ‘That’s quite something.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ he said, looking away. ‘You ever hear of a guy called Jack Stratten?’

  ‘He was your best friend, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and appeared pleased. ‘That’s exactly what he was. If I asked most people here what I just asked you, they’d most likely know the name. They’d’ve read a book of his, or heard of one, at least watched one of the dumb movies they made from them. Seen his name somewhere, or heard about that time he punched his editor out in Chicago.

  But that’s not what Jack was. Nor Geoff McGann, though yes, he did write a lot of good books and made a sight more money than me or even Jack. Nor Nancy Grey, though she was my editor. They were my friends. I liked them and they liked me and we had some good times. That was my life achievement, not the fucking books.’

  I waited, feeling a little cold.

  ‘And so tomorrow morning I’ll get up and put on a suit and go write my name in some more hardcovers. Jo from the publishers will be there, and she’ll make sure I’m okay, and I’ll sign books for a bunch of strangers who probably weren’t even born the last time I did a line of coke. Then in the afternoon I’ll sit in the banquet and people will be polite to me and I’ll probably get this award. I’m pretty sure I will. They were awfully keen I came, and most people don’t get too excited about me any more. So I’ll get a statuette with my name on it, which is supposed to be a big thing, and it is, except it’s too late. Who’s going to hold my hand when I get back to the table? Who’s going to see it on my shelf except me?’

  He stared at me, his eyes bright. ‘I don’t want an award. What I want, for just one afternoon, is to have them all back. Margaret, my friends. The people who knew me when I had a life, instead of a bibliography. Who’d seen me walk fast, deal with hangovers, throw up…make people laugh because I’d been funny, rather than just out of respect. People who’d always be surprised to see me with grey hair or walking with a limp. Someone who’d tell me to stop fucking smoking.’

  He stopped, and I swallowed, not knowing how to react.

  Jean appeared, and politely placed our drinks in front of us. I noticed that Price’s hand shook quite badly as he signed the room service slip, and racked my brains for something to say.

  Price watched Jean walk away across the lobby. ‘It’s like breaking in a horse,’ he said. ‘Trick is to get their respect, and then tip big. Works every time.’

  I laughed and realised I didn’t have to say anything.

  ‘So,’ he sighed, sitting back in his chair. ‘Ask me your questions about what I wrote.’

  ‘I don’t have any,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, you do. Ask them. I’ll do my best to come up with some answers.’

  So I did, and he did. After he left I had one small nightcap, then slowly walked up the stairs to bed.

  I met Sheryl for coffee at ten o’clock the next morning. This went well enough that we toured the book dealers’ room together afterwards, and it was only when I found a very battered copy of Nicholas Price’s first novel that I realised I’d missed his launch.

  I checked my watch. I was definitely too late. ‘Expected somewhere?’ Sheryl asked, suddenly appearing at my shoulder.

  ‘No,’ I said, keeping the disappointment out of my voice. It was the truth anyway. Price wouldn’t be looking out for me. I st
ill wanted to get the new novel signed, but at the launch I’d have been just another stranger in a queue.

  ‘Good,’ she said, and linked her arm through mine.

  I saw him twice more before the end of the convention. The first time was at the banquet. Sheryl and I were sitting at opposite ends of the room, the seating plan having been put in place before we’d met. I was on a table with the people I knew, and had fun, though I felt strangely anxious throughout the dinner.

  When the speeches started I realised I was nervous for Price, though I had no right to be. He was sitting at the top table, and seemed to be having a reasonable time, nodding when the people either side asked him questions or told him things. He started smoking before the dinner was over, but nobody seemed to ask him to put it out.

  After the speeches came the awards ceremony, which took half an hour. Best short, best novella, best novel; best this, best that, best the other. And at the end, Life Achievement. Best life, I guess.

  The Chairman got up, and before he was two sentences into his speech I knew Price had been right. The applause which greeted the eventual revelation was tumultuous, and our table was one of the first to stand. Price got to his feet, wincing slightly, helped by those on each side. He made his way to the lectern where the presentation was to be made, watched carefully by the organisers. He was given the statuette, several people shook his hand, and then pointed him to the microphone. Everybody else sat down.

  Price stood at the lectern, and looked slowly around the room. ‘What a pleasant surprise,’ he said, eventually, and someone at the back of the hall cheered.

  ‘Thank you very much for this award,’ he continued, ‘and for treating me so well. Thank you also to my publishers, and to Jo, my publicist.’ He smiled at her, and she blushed.

  Then he turned and stared ahead, at the far wall or at nothing at all. ‘Most of all I’d like to thank four people, without whom none of it would have been possible. Jack, Geoff, Nancy. And especially Margaret. Thank you all.’

  I could see several people craning their heads, trying to see the people whom Price had been referring to. Nobody realised they were all imaginary now.

  After the ceremony there was a drinks reception in one of the other rooms. I latched up with Sheryl and we stood by one of the walls, slowly working our way, in a roundabout fashion, to suggesting to each other that we hang out together for the evening. At last it got said, and agreed, and we relaxed: sipping complimentary white wine and nibbling on small slices of free pizza.

  After about an hour I saw Price on the other side of the room, and told Sheryl I’d be back. I gently pushed my way through the throng, getting gradually closer. The bookroom was shut, and I didn’t expect Price to be carrying a few copies of The Days on his person just in case the need arose. I’d found a piece of blank paper, and was going to ask him to sign that instead. I was only a few yards away from him when I saw something.

  Price was standing alone, Jo-from-the-publishers momentarily in conversation with one of the convention organisers. The head of Price’s award statuette was sticking out of his jacket pocket, and he was slowly panning his eyes around the room, listening to the noise of two hundred voices, watching the groups of people.

  He saw something which made him smile—a cute couple maybe, or someone on the way to being spectacularly drunk—and turned to one side to say something. But he turned the opposite way to where Jo stood, and tilted his head very slightly down—as if to speak to a woman a little less tall than himself. He framed the first word, and then he remembered, and his mouth shut.

  I froze in place.

  Price raised his head and took a sip of his wine, as if nothing had happened, but his eyes looked flat. After a few moments his publicist extricated herself from her conversation, and turned back to face him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said warmly, as if greeting the grandfather she secretly preferred. ‘You must be ready for another glass of wine by now.’ This was said sweetly, a nod in the direction of the reputation she must have known he’d had. I realised that Jo was maybe better at her job than might at first appear.

  ‘No thank you, my dear,’ Price said quietly. His voice sounded very old, and unsure of itself. He put his glass on the table and looked up at her. ‘I’m tired,’ he said, ‘I’ve had enough pizza, and I think I’d like to go home.’

  When I checked out of the Hotel the next morning, I was puzzled to find a parcel waiting for me at the registration desk. God knows how something left by one guest for another, with the name spelt correctly and everything, had actually made it to that guest—but it had. I would have though it getting lost was a mere formality. Someone in the hotel was obviously slipping up.

  I paid my bill, haggling briefly over a small cache of entirely fictitious charges hidden on the second page, and went to sit and wait for Sheryl. She wasn’t flying home for two days, and I was going to show her some parts of London. Including, I’d been given reason to suspect, the inside of my flat.

  As I waited I opened the package. Two things were inside.

  The first was a copy of The Days. It was signed to me, with best wishes. I read it soon afterwards and it’s a good book, but it’s not classic Price.

  The second object stands on the shelf above my computer, where I can see it as I write.

  A small statuette, a monument to an ex-life, given to me by a man I once had a drink with.

  Afterword

  On Not Writing

  It is Saturday, the 26th of July, 2003. It is raining a little outside my window. I am sitting in my study in London, wondering what I’m going to do for this Afterword. A friend suggested last night that I write down what I know about the craft of writing. I replied that, if I was honest, I wasn’t sure I knew anything about it.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘There you go. That’s your start.’

  And so there it is, above this paragraph, that start. This is very often the way stories begin for me, in fact. A line, an idea, a character suddenly appears and does something, inviting me to discover or create the place he or she is going. Sometimes they arrive with that destination already in mind—a point or twist or final line. Equally often they just turn up at the door, full of themselves and convinced I should pay attention, but with nothing but shrugs to contribute when it comes to explaining what I’m actually supposed to do with them. So I just pull the keyboard closer and see where it takes me.

  Like I’m doing now.

  There’s a famous story about Coleridge, which you may already know. Apparently he was just hanging out one day, not-writing (which is many writers’ favourite form of relaxation, and certainly one of mine) and he fell asleep. Some say restricted substances were implicated, but I’m not one to cast aspersions on long-dead poets. Snoozing is a very popular activity amongst those who ply the scrivener’s trade. You don’t need drugs to bring it on. I find deadlines do it just as well. Anyway, Coleridge woke a couple of hours later having had this great dream about a fabulous pleasure palace. A huge poem about it popped right into his head, and so he got up and immediately started writing it down. He was barely underway with this great work, however, when a man from a town called Porlock arrived at the door. This jerk distracted Coleridge just long enough that, when he finally went away, the poet found the rest of the poem had gone, faded like the dream that inspired it. All we have of the intended masterwork is the part he got down before the interruption.

  Now I don’t know whether this story is true, or if this alleged ‘man from Porlock’ was actually Coleridge’s dope dealer, and the poet thought he’d better be convivial and split a pipe with the guy, or what: but short story ideas are often rather like an inverted form of this interruption. Here I am, not-writing, and there’s a knock on the mental door. I open it, warily. I’m enjoying not-writing. I don’t necessarily want a creative visitor, not today—not least because I’m generally not-writing something in particular, and the last thing I need is something else to not-write. It can really stack up, the not-writing. You�
��ve got to be careful not to let it get on top of you. Then suddenly the visitor is standing right there. I realise that the idea has opened the door by itself, from the outside, and that I never had any control over whether it came into my life.

  ‘Hey,’ it says. ‘Here I am. Now tell me: where do I go?’

  A short story has arrived. That’s the truthful answer to where ideas come from: the bastards come and interrupt you when you’re busy trying to not-write.

  Hmm. This is often how it happens too. You get that first chunk, the kick-off. And then your fingers stop moving, and the spell wavers, and you reach for your cup of cooling tea; you glance out of the window, or wonder whether you’ve got any new email or if that site with all the cool icons on it has updated or if your favourite online typographer has come up with some new face. That initial burst of speed fades, and you don’t know how to proceed. You turn to your visitor, that intrusive idea, to check if it has any suggestions, but see it has settled down in a chair in the back of your study, flicking through an old magazine, and realise it’s going to be no help at all.

  ‘Hey,’ you say. ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘Beats me,’ he mutters. ‘You’re the writer.’

  So you push sturdily forward into this second part, the section awkwardly called ‘Okay, I’ve typed some words and saved them to disk with a name and everything, so this is officially a new story, but what’s it actually about?’ This is the place where it can all fall apart. This is when you can suddenly decide the idea isn’t worth writing (rightly or wrongly), or when you can most easily be derailed by a phone call, some other commitment, or just plain laziness. That first chunk may go in a virtual drawer at this point, and never be seen again. Or you may come back to it weeks or months later, idly, and make it a little longer—before putting it away once more.