Written Off Read online

  Chapman crammed a fourth sandwich into his mouth as he contemplated his own genius. ‘Yes, Suze. Get the creative team on that. Along the lines of, “without Listerine you’ll have halitosis for the rest of your life” or something. How many are signed up so far, anyway?’

  Despite the booking window not yet being officially open, The Write Stuff took ‘privilege’ bookings the month following each annual conference where delegates could ‘sign up for next year at this year’s prices’. It was a gift from a cashflow point of view.

  Suzie consulted the yellow folder. ‘Seventy-five to date – a record.’

  ‘Good. Excellent,’ Chapman said. ‘So we have 225 to go.’ This year’s target of 300 delegates would be a record for his writer support community. ‘So, who do we have signed up so far on the experts side?’ Chapman knew that to maintain the conference’s appeal he needed to secure the attendance of topline names from the literary agency and publishing worlds. These names would persuade his ugly ducklings to commit to a weekend holed up in the cramped confines of the Lancaster university campus, dropping whatever they were doing to traverse the country to touch the hems of the professionals who could transform them into the next Ian Rankin, Sebastian Faulks or Gillian Flynn.

  Suzie, this time referencing the blue folder, began to reel off the names of the agents and editors who had agreed to excrete their pheromones on her boss’s behalf this coming September. Chapman, now on his sixth sandwich, held up his hand to stop her. ‘No offence, Suze, but this is the same as last year’s list. We need fresh blood; we need some big hitters. We need to stick some top writers in there as well. This lot are Championship level and we need Premier League if we’re going to kick on.’

  Suzie made another note on her pad, adding ‘bigger hitters’ below ‘fear’.

  Chapman shifted his bulk on his high back swivel chair, pleased they were making progress. Now he had another pressing question for his forbearing PA. ‘Do you want that last sandwich, Suze?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alyson Hummer glanced at the bedside clock as she manoeuvred on to all fours. She had thirty minutes before she had to pick up the children from school. As her companion energetically thrust away behind her she made a mental note to remember three key details. One – his extraordinary bodily hair once he’d stripped off. Two – the raucous grunting that accompanied his lovemaking. Three – that he came fully equipped with his own impressive banana.

  Alyson didn’t know the name of the Simian seducer grinding away behind her – she had only met him an hour before and no names were to be exchanged during their short liaison. Of all the gifts the Internet had bestowed upon society the ability to arrange no-strings sex was, for Alyson at least, one of the most useful. Some people might condemn Alyson’s leisure predilections, or counsel caution over the risk of exposing herself – in every sense of the word – to men she’d never met before. But Alyson didn’t give a hoot what other people thought and in any event would occasionally experiment with females too. These same people sitting in silent judgement may also have been hard-pressed to pick Alyson out in an identity parade convened to finger a venturesome, vascular, vamp. She certainly wasn’t pretty in a conventional sense, or in an unconventional sense for that matter. She was short and dumpy, the wrong side of forty, bought her clothes from Matalan and sported a pair of spectacles that would have found favour with Dame Edna Everage. But beauty isn’t only skin deep and in the eyes of many beholders once Alyson turned on her love lights she burned with an inner sensuousness that transcended all outward trappings of so-called glamour. It was a perfectly simple equation – she was up for it and men could tell she was up for it.

  After her companion shuddered to a halt – she was slightly disappointed he didn’t beat his chest in this moment of release – Alyson manoeuvred herself off the bed and started to pick up her clothes.

  ‘Smoke?’ said the hairball, reaching for a packet of cigarettes from the shirt he had jettisoned to the floor. Alyson merely pointed at the ‘no smoking’ sign on the bedside table and continued to get dressed. Hairball grunted again, this time not due to the throes of passion. Alyson reminded herself that conversation was rarely the priority in liaisons of this nature – they’d barely exchanged one hundred words since meeting in the car park of this budget hotel for their rapid, recreational romp. She withdrew to the bathroom for a few minutes to make herself school playground ready. When she re-emerged into the bedroom, Cornelius – she’d already decided this would be his name – was boiling the kettle and fussing over the tray of complimentary hot beverages and shortbreads. ‘Tea?’ he ventured.

  Alyson, noting that he was getting his money’s worth, shook her head and jerked her thumb back over her shoulder towards the door, indicating that she had to leave. He nodded back and focused his attention on peeling the lid off a fiddly UHT milk pot provided for the convenience of guests. As he did so, the sight of his furrowed brows and slack-jawed gaping mouth with tongue thrust out confirmed to Alyson that Cornelius as a name was definitely a good choice. Brief as their encounter was their farewell didn’t exactly rival that of Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.

  Outside, in her car, Alyson dug out her iPhone and tapped some bulletpoints into the notes app: Hairy like a gorilla. Grunt, pant, shunt. Unzip a banana. King Kong? King Dong? Cornelius/Planet of the Apes. Primal Urge? Let’s go Ape. She smiled as she put the mobile back into her handbag and switched on the car ignition. Yes, Let’s go Ape would do very nicely. She couldn’t believe that now she’d married her favourite pastime to writing about it she could honestly justify the afternoon’s activities as researching her next book.

  ‘Please, pretty please,’ pleaded Bronte, placing her hands together in supplication and cocking her head to one side while casting a doe-eyed look in her father’s direction. It was a look he knew well and one that, despite his oft-repeated protestations that this would be the last time, he was incapable of resisting. At the age of 23 it would be reasonable to expect that most children would be off their parents’ hands and maybe earning a living. Embarked on a career and having a fair idea as to what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. Of course, if pressed, Bronte would argue that she had all of these staples well and truly in hand: she was temporarily earning a living working in her mum and dad’s hotel and restaurant in the Malvern Hills, she had long ago decided on a future as an author, and by the time she was forty Bronte Damson books would have inspired countless TV and film adaptations. She would be known around the world.

  ‘How much is it?’ asked Adrian Damson, wearily.

  ‘It’s really good value, Dad. It’s called Pathway to Publishing and it’s all about getting an agent and a publishing deal. It’s only one day, and…’

  ‘I asked how much, Bronte.’

  ‘£180, but you get a lot for that. I wouldn’t ask but this is just perfect for me to find out what I need to do to get published. Won’t you be able to get the VAT back anyway?’

  Her father let this masterpiece of fiscal legerdemain slide past unchallenged. ‘Aren’t you putting the cart before the horse here? You’re a long way off getting published, Bronte – you’ve only just started writing.’

  ‘I know, Dad, but that’s why it’s so important that I find out all of this stuff now. It will really help me in my writing; stop me making mistakes. It could be the most valuable £180 ever.’

  ‘If I lend it to you – lend – then you’ll have to pay me back out of your wages. Agreed?’ Bronte, earning a generous stipend for her occasional shifts on reception and waiting on in the restaurant, nodded enthusiastically despite knowing that any form of repayment was as likely as AA Gill dropping in to give her parents’ hostelry, The Perseverance, a five-star review. The deal struck, she then talked him up to £250 to cover her rail fare, at the same time as pointing out how much she had saved by arranging to stay at a friend’s flat in London.

 
Negotiations concluded, Bronte retired to her room to continue work on her trilogy while Adrian sought out his wife, Diana, in the office behind reception. ‘I’m afraid I gave in a bit,’ he confessed before being asked.

  Diana sighed. ‘You need to be firmer with her, Ade, really you do. It’s not just the money – Bronte not being here means I’ll have to cover her shifts and pay twice for the privilege.’

  ‘I know, darling, but she’s really serious about her writing and, who knows, it could lead to something really big for her.’

  Diana clearly had less faith in her stepdaughter’s prospects of hitting publishing pay dirt. ‘Why couldn’t she be like her friends and get herself a proper job after university?’

  ‘Not all of her friends, Diana. Some are still unemployed. Bronte’s working here and she’s writing a book – you should be proud of her.’

  ‘I’ll be proud of her when she’s got this writing fantasy out of her system. For everyone who gets published these days there’s hundreds, thousands, who are just stirring the ink.’

  Adrian chuckled. Diana could be so negative at times. ‘Well, I’ll remind you of that when she’s up for the Man Booker Prize in ten years’ time and she’s only got a plus-one invite.’

  Con Buckley checked the word count on his manuscript. The menu bar read 75,069. He typed ‘The End’. Was it now 75,071 words, or didn’t the sign off figure in the tally? He pulled out his baccy tin and rolled himself a celebratory joint. Just a small one, to mark hitting land. Christ, he’d done it. It was finished. He’d only gone and written a book. In the gathering gloom of the late afternoon his computer screen blazed like the tunnel to Paradise, bathing the shabby furniture of the Kilburn flat in golden effulgence. The End? This was the beginning. Sparking his blunt he scrolled to the title page and highlighted the word count figure. He amended ‘00,000 words’ to read ‘75,000 words’. That would round it off nicely, and account for the title page as well. Immediately he began to fret, not for the first time, that the book might not be long enough. He’d Googled ‘typical novel length’ on numerous occasions and had initially set himself a target of 100,000 words. But some sites said as long as he hit 60,000 words it would be classified as a novel. He certainly didn’t want to fall into ‘novella’ territory but then he didn’t want to run the London Marathon only to finish at Tower Bridge while all of the agents were waiting at Birdcage Walk. In the end he decided his piece of string would be as long as it needed to be. Surely 75,000 words was ample? 80,000 words would have been better though. He took a draw on his micro-joint, sucking the THC deep into his lungs. No – it was finished.

  Anyway, describing his work purely in terms of its length – ‘75,000 words’ – struck him as being inadequate and misleading. Why not 448 KB as a measure? It was equally descriptive in a factual sense. Or 426,542 characters (with spaces)? Or 297 pages? They denoted size, but what else? It was like quoting a woman’s vital statistics. You say 36-24-36 and it’s a combination that automatically unlocks an image of a beautiful, young, curvaceous and nubile goddess. Add your own hair colour. But that was crazy because 36-24-36 could also adequately describe a 90-year-old wizened leper with one leg. What about the value of what he’d produced? They didn’t ask you to start giving them information on that. Never mind the quality, feel the width. And as for all that crap on presentation formats he’d had to research – how tiresome had that been? Times New Roman, 12 point, double-spaced lines, page numbers, title on every page, indentations and start a new para for each speaker. Well, tick those boxes. They wouldn’t catch him out on any of that.

  Now he had new tasks to address – the final polish, an overall sense check and a trawl for stray misspelled words and rogue punctuation. Then the synopsis and pitch letter, and a target list of agents to whom he could submit his work. Then… no, forget all that for now. Luxuriate in the moment. Relax. The manuscript, draft 1, was finished. He took another toke, which seemed to trigger another thought – the dedication. He had to dedicate it to Rosie of course but he shouldn’t submit his manuscript to agents with a dedication in place – he’d read that sort of stuff was added at proof stage. Still, for the version he was going to print off for Rosie to start reading tonight (he’d settle for one-and-a-half line spacing and double-sided printing on that to save paper) it would be a nice touch. Yes, put ‘For Rosie’ on there and then print it off for when she got back from working at the delicatessen at 8pm. In the meantime, just a little bit of well-deserved chill-time. Later, given it was a special occasion, he’d make his speciality, gammon and egg, for tea. They’d toast his future success as an author with the cans of Guinness and cider he’d placed in the fridge earlier that day. Poor man’s black velvet. Well, not for much longer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eric sat at his computer, furiously typing away. He had a deadline to meet. The Chancellor’s annual budget statement was yet to conclude but Eric had to cut through the blubber to get to the bones – how the measures would affect the commercial heartbeat of Greater Manchester. Despite this set-piece news opportunity the editorial floor of the Manchester Evening Chronicle was quiet – it always was nowadays. Twenty years ago, when Eric had started on the business desk as a bright, young graduate, budget day was ringed in red on the calendar for weeks before and the day itself was like a cup final. Phones rang incessantly, voices competed to outshout the person making a call on the next desk, and shock, wonderment and disbelief at the unfolding announcements were met with cheers, boos and laughter – it rivalled a football terrace. They never thought they’d say it then but the one thing they had was time. Time to sit down, discuss and analyse the content before isolating the headlines and adding relevant local and human-interest angles. Nobody expected to see the paper’s considered thoughts until the next morning. Today, Eric was tweeting updates at the same time as assembling his news piece on the monitor before him. In fairness, this multi-tasking responsibility was made all the easier by copying and adapting what the BBC was reporting and by keeping an eye on a number of national newspaper Twitter accounts. It was going to be a busy afternoon, especially as he only had two journalists assigned to assist him in doing a live blog, a ‘key points’ e-bulletin for their database, filing and updating the online version of the story and keeping the Twitter feed going. And they had to do it more quickly – not necessarily better – than the plethora of regional business news websites that continued to steal the bread from their mouths.

  Eric had evaded every round of redundancies at the newspaper over the past few years. At first he thought it might be better to take the money and try something new; now he was just grateful he kept missing the cut. That was one of the reasons why his vocation to become a novelist was now an obsession. It often struck Eric that his writing ambition was akin to a busman’s holiday. Tap, tap, tap all day; tap, tap, tap all night, hunched in a permanent stoop that had incrementally rounded his shoulders as the years passed – he called it his ‘scrivener’s slouch’ and was quite proud of it if the truth was told. When he first started writing Scrub Me Till I Shine in the Dark it had been through a desire to set himself a challenge, to create something out of nothing, to earn the title of ‘author’ – it was an end in itself. These days, as his daily routine rivalled that of Sisyphus in its back-breaking, repetitive and futile endeavour, he set his sights slightly higher – nothing short of becoming a ‘proper’ author would satisfy him. That’s why yesterday’s latest rejection was all the harder to bear. Sisyphus? Make that Tantalus, the fruit of the lower branches ever eluding his grasp.

  Five minutes after the Chancellor wrapped up, Eric posted his first run at the budget story on the newspaper’s website and then immediately checked their rivals’ sites to see if they’d been beaten to it. No – they were all still running their preview pieces. Another win. Bloody hell, would he still be sitting here doing this when next year’s book balancing beano came around?

  Reardon Boyle sat at the kitchen table
of his charming end-terrace in Islington, eating his lunch of tomato soup (a carton, not a tin) and a granary roll. He always took lunch between 1pm and 2pm, a break decreed by his strict writing regime. Normally he would do the Guardian crossword and listen to World at One but today, due to the budget, he’d turned on the television to learn what new privations the government was planning to visit upon the hard-pressed populace. As the Chancellor repositioned the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic, Reardon found himself cursing aloud, unable to contain his anger at the cold-blooded indifference exhibited by the leadership of the country towards the rump of its citizenry. Reardon realised that he was talking to himself or, more accurately, to the television – neither of which was a good sign. Belinda, his wife, had become increasingly concerned at his behaviour of late when he would rail and rant at the slightest provocation. God forbid Reardon having to make a telephone call to his bank, local council or utility providers. Negotiating more numerical permutations than Alan Turing he’d eventually break through the different levels of the game to gain the right to speak to an armour-plated call centre operative; he or she would then decline to address his query until the small matter of his postcode, the third and fifth characters of his password, his account number and the answer to his ‘memorable question’ had been furnished. Drained by this point even a man of such unimpeachable liberal views as Reardon’s would find himself harbouring less than charitable thoughts towards the economic foot soldiers of our former colonies, not to mention the lilt-tongued natives of Tyneside. Belinda tried to discuss his outbursts with him, to discover what was turning him into a 22-carat curmudgeon, but his refusal to acknowledge that there was a problem only made him more agitated still. Deep down he knew that things were getting to him in a way that they never had in the past. He told himself it was simply the pressures of being a successful author – people to see and engagements to attend, never mind actually having to write. But his phone wasn’t ringing as much as it used to and there were great swathes of blank pages in his diary. It was like his light was fading; he was turning into the Invisible Man. Well, just wait until he delivered the new novel he was working on – then it would all start again and he’d be moaning about how busy he was on the promo trail, doing press, signings and readings. Fits and starts – that was a writer’s life.