Love Is... always having to apologise

Chris, my editor, has my revised draft of the first three chapters on his desk, and so far he hasn't said anything except 'Hello' and 'Sit down'. I don't want him to start talking. I feel like a school kid in the headmaster's office who's done something wrong and has no defence. But he does start talking. Because, ultimately, after arranging the appointment and letting me into his office and facing me across his desk, it would have been weird if he hadn't.

"Right then," he begins. "My first thought upon reading the new draft is that you haven't actually really changed anything. Would you say that's a fair assessment?"

I shift uncomfortably in my comfortable chair. "Well, what is 'fair', really?"

"Sorry?"

"I don't know."

He looks confused, naturally. "I don't understand." I say nothing, so he continues. "Very little actually seems to have changed between this draft and the previous version. A few words here and there, a couple of sentences added, enough to show me that you didn't email the original by mistake. Fundamentally, though, it remains the same. It is almost identical to the one before. The previous draft has almost everything in common to the one I am holding now. Please feel free to jump in at any point."

"I'm happy listening."

"I'd actually like this to be a conversation in which we exchange information relating to your novel-in-progress. That is, I feel, the process most likely to achieve some kind of understanding between us."

"I can see how you'd think that, but really, I have very little to say."

"Yeah, I'm beginning to get a little exasperated, Christopher. I mean, I'm working hard for you, and yet you just seem to be acting quite childish, if I'm being honest."

I hold my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Steady. I'm this close to walking out."

He starts to lose his temper. "Well then talk to me. Why have you not revised the manuscript?"

"I have. There are some changes. I think it's better."

"We sat here only a few weeks ago and discussed in some detail how we could make your book publishable. Your job was to rewrite the first three chapters in a generous amount of time that's already put us behind schedule, and yet you seem to have completely disregarded everything we agreed upon and just hacked in a few sentences almost at random."

"I worked really hard on those sentences..."

"And what about the rest of it? Chapter two, possibly the weakest of the whole lot, was supposed to introduce the themes of surveillance and the impact on daily life, and there's nothing in there."

"It's quite subtle..."

"No it's not subtle. It's non-existent. And the introduction of Beechill, supposedly this heroic, near-mythic veteran crusader, hasn't been touched. It's rubbish. I don't know how it survived your own drafts. He needs to walk out of a burning war zone with deep gashes across his chest holding a little girl in his arms and an old man hanging around his neck. And he doesn't even debrief, he just goes back out on another mission 'cos he's that fucking heroic and near-mythic."

"That's a little..."

He talks over me. "All these character traits that start their arcs haven't been written. They need to start now to make them believable. I'm really frustrated, Christopher."

"I lost my way, perhaps, I admit."

"You seemed enthusiastic when he talked about it."

I rub my neck sheepishly. "I'd stopped listening towards the end. Actually, quite early on. I have a short attention span."

"What, so you were just nodding and pretending to listen?" he asks sarcastically. I shrug. "What, really? Jesus Christ."

"You were writing it down, though, so that was good."

He takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling for a few seconds. Then he looks back at me. "OK then. What are we going to do?"

"I'll try again. I've just got to gather the motivation."

"Motivation? Your novel is going to be published by Harper Collins. What more do you need? What the fuck can I offer you?"

"It's just that...I thought the rewrites would be little things. A polish. What you were saying seemed like writing a novel from the beginning again. Fundamental changes would require hundreds of hours."

"Oh I'm sorry. You have something better to do?"

"I've got to work, and spend some time with my wife."

"You've got an advance, haven't you?"

"It's not enough to live on."

"Move into a bed sit. Struggle makes for good art. Just make it work for Christ's sake."

"I will. I've just fallen out of love with writing at the moment."

"Gee. That's bad timing."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sure it's just a phase."

"You better fucking hope it's a phase. You better hope writing starts buying you flowers and sucking your dick 'cos there's a fuck of a lot riding on this book. It's not a game and yet you seem to be playing around."

"I'm not. I'm not."

"What are we going to do then?"

"Let's go through it again."

"You're going to listen to me this time?"

"I swear."

He sighs and opens a pad of A4. He begins to talk. I think about flowers and blow jobs.

First Chapter

People seem to want a preview of the novel so here is the first chapter (pre-editor). As you will notice almost immediately, it is a chase sequence. I think it is vitally important to begin every novel with a chase, a plane crash or a sex scene, or people will lose concentration within twenty-eight seconds and get up and walk around the room staring at objects, or switch the television on and watch commercials. My second novel will open with a '69' on a jumbo jet plunging into the ocean after being chased by Muslim extremists.

AGENTS GRAY and Reece shot through the deserted streets, pushing their cruiser hard into the swirls of dust that marked the path of their suspects. In the orange light of the low hanging dawn sun, the clouds thrown up from the filthy streets rendered their tracking system unnecessary. Reece stared ahead impassively, a study of concentration, expertly sending the car from side to side around crates and rusting shopping trolleys and abandoned, burnt-out vehicles, round corners into alleys and cross streets.

Their car was led away from the central district, where thousands of sleek sky scrapers stabbed through the smog into the clouds. Out here, in what had once been the warehouse district of the Old City, the buildings were flat and decrepit - gray blocks of crumbling bricks and stone, a monument to an abandoned way of life.

Gray squinted over at his partner, glad Reece had been so eager to drive that morning. A hangover headache pulsed in his temples. His heartbeat blotched his vision.

They had picked up the call from an overhead observational balloon on a routine sweep, and had been the only unit in the area. The interference from the Insurgents was minimal, almost inconsequential, and there was no profit in the Company chasing them. Still, standards had to be maintained, and an unlicensed vehicle unlucky enough to be tracked by Lumecorp had to be dealt with. Visible crime could not be tolerated, and the criminals knew escape was their only chance of survival.

"Turn it down." Reece spoke without looking away from the road.

Gray looked sharply at his partner. The modern rock station was always blasting from their radio. "What is with you?" he snapped.

"Turn it down." Reece spoke more firmly this time through gritted teeth.

Gray leaned over and punched the power button, and the sound of the revving engine, squealing tires and chips of debris hitting the chassis roared up to replace the music.

Reece had been acting strangely all morning and Gray was in no mood to argue. Usually a relaxed and funny man, Reece had returned from his three week sabbatical distant and taciturn, crisply dressed in full regulation uniform.

"Reece!" Gray had exclaimed when he walked into the locker room an hour ago. He embraced his partner with genuine delight. "How was the holiday?"

"You smell of booze," was his reply. Hardly something a friend should say to you in a place like Lumecorp HQ. A place where microphones and cameras were planted prominently on the walls almost as a source of pride.

Gray masked his surprise and shame with a strained smile. "You're mistaken," he said loudly. "New aftershave. Are you well rested?"

"Very. Thank you." And that had been the end of pleasantries for the morning. Reece didn't relax in the cruiser, and Gray concentrated on his pounding head as he sobered up. He was angry at his friend's comment, but more with himself, and thought it best to let the matter rest until he could be as sure as possible they were not being listened to.

The less attention he drew to himself, the better. The fact was that Gray was slipping. To be an agent was a privilege, providing an opportunity to live with certain freedoms and luxuries, but the Company would only tolerate so much. He was certain he was being monitored, although no one had approached him. He was putting on weight, enjoying his fried food the company discouraged and neglecting the physical training sessions they provided. He had been chosen from many and abused his privilege. He would get a good night's sleep and get himself together.

Reece sped round a tight corner into a narrow back-alley and they had their first visual on the Insurgents. An old Ford maintained years after the company's inevitable demise, in great condition considering its age. Reece eased off the accelerator and activated the standard caution over the loudspeaker.

"You are in breach of Central Territory regulations," the voice droned. "You are under arrest. Pull over and exit your vehicle with your hands in the air."

As expected, the suspects refused the request, and instead ducked into another alley. Reece sped through the turn, scraping the side of the cruiser against the brick wall of an old shop. Gray’s face was pressed up against the passenger door window, sparks and chunks of crumbling brickwork exploding inches from his eyes, the wing mirror smashed off and rattling, trapped between car and wall. Then the car lurched to the side and back on track. Gray returned to the centre of his seat. He shot Reece a look, who appeared not to notice, only keeping his gaze fixed intently on the car ahead. Shaken but unhurt, Gray saw that the corner, though taken recklessly, had brought them closer to the suspects. Deciding to make himself useful, if only in an attempt to keep up with his partner’s new zeal for the chase, Gray unclipped his holster and brought out his handgun, a modestly powerful weapon issued to all street cops and agents.

He opened his window and leaned out far enough to fire a clip into the car in front, shattering the rear window and lights, and managing to send a bullet between the seats and through its windscreen, which exploded outwards rather than simply icing up and blinding the suspects.

As Gray changed clips, the passenger in front suddenly lurched half-way out of the vehicle holding a powerful looking shotgun, which to Gray looked like a home-fashioned hybrid, probably put together from bits of old broken weapons and parts stolen from the Company. It worked well enough, and a first blast ricocheted off the bullet-proofed glass in front of Reece’s face, who barely flinched. The missile was powerful enough to leave a significant chip in the screen, and Reece swerved to make a trickier target as the gun was aimed at the cruiser’s tyres.

The suspect holding the shotgun looked deranged, firing with an utter lack of discipline over the car or into the decaying tarmac. A couple of shells made contact with the cruiser causing minor damage to the car’s body. The man presumably had been firing up the homemade narcotics some of these Insurgents were addicted to. It made them even less of a threat than they could be, but Gray, who battled his own demons, felt he could empathise somewhat. It was a barren existence out here, a struggle for everyday survival. He wondered how often, perhaps in their sober times, these renegades secretly longed for the safety of the city, to accept ignorance for comfort.

The passenger was working his shotgun for some time before it slowly dawned on him that he was out of shells. He ducked in to reload, or perhaps just to throw away the spent weapon.

“Enough,” said Reece. “We’ve given them a chance.”

Concurring, Gray leant out again and aimed his handgun at the driver, through the hole in his headrest into his brain. He squeezed the trigger only for the driver to swerve violently at that moment. The Ford clipped the front end of the burned-out chassis of a car, which slammed against the wall of an old factory and careered back across the street into the agents’ path. At this speed, Reece had little chance to react, and attempted to accelerate out of trouble between the car and the wall it was sliding towards.

Gray, still leaning out of the window, watched with sudden panic as the car skidded into their path, pinned in his position as Reece swerved to one side. Gray was jolted up against the window frame as their car connected first with the wall, and then with the wrecked vehicle a split second later. As their car left the road, Gray became disorientated, then shut his eyes against the pain in his shoulder and back as they were jammed on the car frame. For a moment there was silence, the engine stalled, the tires spinning uselessly in the air, only the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Then just as quickly, a terrific crunch of steel and glass and a bone shaking impact. Gray wrapped his arms over his head, thinking he had been thrown out of the car and fearing it could crush his body. But when there was no tarmac tearing at his skin, he opened his eyes and saw that the car had pivoted in his favour, tossing him back into the vehicle. He was now on his head, watching the road sliding toward him through a cracked screen, sparks flashing up from the tarmac, and the Insurgents ahead, putting distance between them.

The car hit something again out of Gray’s vision, sending them into a spin even as they continued to slide onward. He was thrown across the handbrake into Reece’s chair, head pressed into his chest. Then with a final neck-bracing jolt, the cruiser wedged into an alley entrance.

Immediately, Reece snapped open his seat belt and kicked open the driver’s door, and was out sprinting down the street after the suspects. Gray, who had hardly began clearing his head, fell into the roof when his partner slid out from beneath him. He touched the top of his head tentatively, and came back with blood on his fingers, but not much. Looking up, he became aware of his partner’s absence, then gazed bleary-eyed through the shattered windscreen. It was some seconds before he was able to recognise what he was seeing; the upside-down vision of Reece sprinting into the distance. Uttering a curse and rubbing his neck, he clambered clumsily out of the open driver’s door and picked himself up before making his way along Reece’s trail.


Up ahead, the two rebels were still giggling at their good fortune, the passenger preparing another hit on the crude chemical cocktail cooked up at base. When he caught sight of the cop in his wing mirror, he grabbed at the driver’s sleeve, and pointed in the rear-view. “Yo,” he barked. “He’s catching us, man. He’s catching us.”

The driver pulled his arm away from his friend’s grasp and put his foot down on the accelerator. “Stupid motherfucker,” he murmured uselessly as the car picked up speed.

The passenger continued to gaze into the mirror. “No man, he’s still coming. Go faster.”

The driver pushed his foot harder onto the pedal, already stuck to the floor. He looked at the approaching figure, then at the speedometer, the gauge rising slowly to 60kmh. Impossible, he thought, shaking his head as the fear ate its way into his stomach.

Beside him, the passenger grabbed a small hand gun from the glove compartment and cocked it. The policeman was still gaining on them, arms and legs pumping smoothly, staring forwardly intently, breathing lightly as though on a regular jog.


A few hundred metres behind them, Gray was chasing as best he could, still fighting his way back to full consciousness. His body was battered all over, and he was confusing his hangover for the onset of concussion. He stared at his distant partner, not fully comprehending the scene, just following the urge instilled in the agents since training began, to protect and standby their colleagues.

Reece caught the speeding car just as he reached his limit, something inside him burning, ready to drop. He fumbled for the driver’s door which popped open, the suspects too panicked to lock up. Reece jumped onto the chassis and began yanking the driver out of the open door. The driver looked at him in fear, unable even to fight back, and Reece easily dragged him out by the shoulder, sending the car into a swerve towards the far wall.

The driver slid then bounced, spinning through the air and sending up a sheet of blood, arcing down in splatters onto the concrete. Reece turned his attention back into the car, only to be faced with the nose of the passenger’s handgun. The man hesitated, terror and confusion on his filthy face, and Reece began a move to grab the gun. At that moment, the car smacked against a wall and the passenger’s finger was jerked against the trigger. Reece felt the impact in his arm, and although there was no pain he was unable to keep his grip on the door frame, and he fell backwards, sliding on the road as he fought to keep his head up off the ground.

Gray, his mind clearer, watched in alarm as his friend hit some crates, stopping his roll. Although his uniform provided protection, it had been a terrible fall. But almost immediately, Reece was up again, sprinting after the car that was now swerving out of control, the passenger reaching over for the steering wheel, grabbing it, but unable to slow the vehicle. The brick wall of an abandoned factory loomed, and the car crunched into it, stopping unceremoniously, steam flooding from the crushed radiator.

Reece slowed his run to a jog, then approached the car with his gun drawn, holstering it again after looking into the smoking frame. The passenger had flown forward with the impact, smashing his head on the wall. There was little of it left on his shoulders.

Gray had reached the driver and slipped in his blood, then felt his pulse and registered nothing. Blood flowed from underneath the body’s torn clothes, and most of the exposed skin had been separated from the muscles. He ran on towards his partner, who was walking away from the wreckage, fingering his radio, then turning his attention to the wound on his arm. Looking confused and in a state of mild shock, Reece gazed quizzically at the torn flesh, then began twisting violently at his shoulder. Gray approached, ready to shout at Reece to stay calm, that he would call HQ, then stopped in his tracks, staring as Reece pulled his arm away from his body, through the sleeve, exposing a neat round finish at the shoulder end with metal wires protruding through the bone and sinew. He sank to his knees, still looking at the arm, then prodded at the open shoulder end, causing the fingers to close and open again. His brow furrowed further, and he looked up to meet his friend’s gaze.

Struggling to make sense of the situation, Gray instinctively glanced into the smashed car, noting the corpse, then stepped back towards Reece, thinking about rumours he’d heard but now knew were true, when Reece began to convulse, rolling onto his back and kicking out his feet. Gray rushed to embrace his shaking partner, screaming into his radio for medics, for backup, any help, as Reece began frothing at the mouth and gripping his one hand tight enough to draw blood as fingernails punctured his palm, and Gray’s head was a rushing mess of confusion and panic.

Previous Post

Some of you may have noticed that the previous post originally disappeared hours after being uploaded. This was due to the threat of legal action from certain parties. However, after reviewing our position, we have decided to make the post available again.

"Where's that cunt of a woman you left your family for..?"

It isn't the nicest, cleverest or most diplomatic thing to say to my father, especially as I had promised myself not to spoil the day for everyone, but whenever I see his condescending judgemental face I just want to punch him.

We both redden slightly. "She's been dead for twelve years, Christopher," he says with a naked, aching sadness that pricks the backs of my eyeballs. But he'll forgive me, because he is just embarrassed enough not to try to justify his actions all those years ago.

After a shocked silence, my sister, Sharon laughs nervously. "You two," she says, as if we're playfully mocking each other's petty foibles. I take her cue and grin as I do to my brother when we are involved in the minor squabbles that involved daily violence when we were kids.

"Well, cheers anyway," I say clinking his beer bottle with mine.

Sharon insists on these family get togethers twice a year or so. I never talk to any of them otherwise. And when my sister does call me to put the date in my diary, I always stare at the name on my phone's caller ID for a few seconds, wondering who the hell Sharon is.

Cheryl can't get her head around this, as she loves her family more than anything, quite possibly more than me, and yet I have stolen her away from them, imprisoning her in a London flat with a slug problem. Ealing stopped being cool for her after four and a half months. Even though we have started drinking Polish beer to fit in with the locals, neither of us feel part of any community.

My mother is the only member of my blood relatives I see with any regularity, and that is because she lives in Shepherds Bush. She's alright, my Mum. I like her in small doses.

We waste an hour away and then my sister serves up dinner. I watch my brother Brian eating and feel slightly sick. He puts too much on his fork and scrapes the food across his cheek with every mouthful. He goes through an absurd number of red napkins and they pile up next to him as reminders of something more significant. While he eats he looks at nothing but his food, staring in silence and pushing his wire frame glasses up his nose with the knuckles of his knife hand. He has been beaten into submission, first by my father and now by life. He was there with me when it all happened and yet he isn't standing with me now. I hate him for it.

And then, suddenly terrified of being like him, I cut into the dinner conversation. "Last night I dreamt that one of my teeth was coming loose. It was such a cliche that I was able to wake myself up, disgusted with my subconsciousness."

This comment is acknowledged by no one, and when a suitable amount of awkward moments have passed, familiar conversation resumes. Current topics: The X Factor (this is a constant), the Take That and Spice Girls reunion tours, I'm A Celebrity..., the Evil of Pete Doherty, how if you rotate your right foot clockwise and then draw a '6' with your right hand your foot will change direction, text messaging and the Teddy Bear Row Teacher. I have nothing to say. Cheryl holds her own, and while she tells me she is just being polite, she has a suspiciously encyclopaediac knowledge of reality shows.

Afterwards, spaced out on sofas in front of the television, stealing glances at our watches and fending off requests from young children to play with them, my father gets his revenge by making me feel worthless again. Although I shouldn't have asked, faux-innocently, "What do you think of my novel?"

"Haven't read it," he says immediately.

"Really?" I ask. "Well, you've only had it, ooh, eighteen months."

"Science Fiction isn't really my cup of tea," he sniffs.

"Futuristic thriller," I correct him.

He waves a dismissive hand. "Aliens and other worlds and all that nonsense."

"You should read it," Cheryl says. "It's really good."

My father turns to Brian. "Have you read this book?" Brian looks up, startled. He nods. "And what did you think?"

Brian shrugs. "It's alright," he manages.

"My family," I announce to Cheryl.

"Are you staying tonight?" Sharon asks me.

"No, I have to work early tomorrow."

My father looks at me, feigning surprise. "I'd have thought that one of the perks of being a successful writer was getting up when you want."

"I'm working at Bid TV," I tell him. "I'm a cameraman, remember?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you were a big shot author."

I swallow my anger. "It's not out for a year," I manage.

He waves another hand. "You'll never make it. Get a proper job, my boy. None of this shopping telly rubbish. Get a career."

"What, work in the same office for forty-five years? Do you know how difficult it is to get a novel published?"

"When I was your age I owned a house and was supporting a wife and three children. You don't know the meaning of hard work."

"You don't know the meaning of support," I say somewhat nonsensically, and get up to leave.

"Don't be a damn fool," he says.

"Don't be a total fucking tedious, deceitful gnarly old wanker," I say, and we leave.

It'll be OK. Things heal. We're family.

"You’ve written a sci-fi novel. That’s just not sexy..."

The publicist and marketer assigned to me are horrible crones with pointed beaks for noses and beady slits for eyes. They are hideously ugly and evil and their personal hygiene is questionable. They won’t mind me saying this because we have agreed I should be honest in this blog.

I’m sitting at a large table with them at Harper Collins. They look at me like birds of prey studying a vole in a field. “So, I hear it’s going to take over a year to get my book out,” I say.

“That’s very standard,” Pauline tells me.

“Really?” I say sarcastically. I reach for my water glass and send it spinning across the table, big drops of water leaping out and scattering themselves across the wood. I manage to grab it with both hands before it topples, and bring it to my mouth like a model in a Cup-a-Soup commercial. They look at me as if they knew I was going to do that.

“Yes,” Mavis says. “We need time to build a buzz about you. No one knows who you are right now. We need to change that.”

“Well, just tell ‘em,” I suggest. “A quick phone call, job done. A day at most.”

“Tell who?” Pauline asks.

“Don’t know,” I admit. I reach for my glass and take another sip with excruciating slowness. “The press?”

“There’s a lot of press out there,” Pauline says. “Do you know how many books are released every week?”

“Not my problem,” I say, trying a new tact. “It’s up to you to let people know I’m the next big thing. I’ve written a great book and it’s going to blow people away.”

“We have to be realistic,” Mavis says. “If we tell people that every author we have is the greatest writer since Hemmingway then they’re going to get bored very quickly. They get told that every week as it is.”

“Not every author,” I say meekly. “Just me. Worry about me.”

“We have twenty writers to look after,” Pauline says.

“So? What can you do for me?”

“Well actually, we wanted to hear your ideas.”

“Mine?”

“Authors are expected to do a lot of the publicity themselves, I’m afraid. If you want to sell you’ve got to put yourself out there. Phone local radio stations, print up flyers for appearances, go to reading groups.”

I’m aghast. “I want to do multi-page spreads in broadsheet weekend supplements. I want to go on Mayo in the afternoon.”

They look at each wearily. “First time authors don’t really get that level of publicity.”

“What about Zadie Smith?”

“Phenomena like that are rare.”

“Look at me though. I’ve got a face to grace magazine covers. I’m a happening young thing. I’m the new Alex Garland.”

“Well, you’re not really young, I’m afraid.”

“And you’re not as good looking as Alex Garland…”

“Or Zadie Smith…”

“And, well, you’ve written a sci-fi novel. That’s just not…sexy.”

We look at each other in silence for a moment. “We could call it…a futuristic thriller,” I suggest.

“Even so,” Mavis says. “With a year we may be able to make something happen. Besides, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of re-writes to do.”

“That could take a year anyway,” Pauline adds.

I get up from my chair and lie on the leather sofa against the window.

“Are you stressed?” Pauline asks.

“Yes.”

“Just relax.” They pull up chairs next to me and Mavis strokes my head. “We can help you. Part of our job is to make sure the writers are happy. We can’t have you all conflicted. Tell us something dark about yourself.”

“Like what?”

“Something you’ve never told anyone else.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Come on,” they coax, “There must be something. We’ve heard it all. We can help you if you unburden yourself.”

“I have a fantasy…”

“Yes?”

“I fantasise about being covered in napalm and burning to death.”

“I see. What else?”

“I wonder if I held a lit match under my tongue would it sizzle.”

“Sizzle?”

“The spit.”

“Right.”

“I’d like to sleep with three groupies at once.”

“Sexual matters aren’t our forte.”

“Well, the napalm thing was specifically on my genitals. I didn’t say that at the time.”

“Close your eyes and relax.”



When I awake they have gone. No one can get hold of them on the phone. Nothing is resolved. They know too much.

"That's why I want my book to sell..."

I live in a ground floor flat in Ealing Common between two of the loudest households in Britain and below a young couple whose chief preoccupation appears to be dropping heavy objects on the floor.

Cheryl and I are sitting in our living room sipping wine and straining to hear our television above the cacophony surrounding us. DVDs seem to be mixed with the dialogue approximately three times quieter than the music and sound effects, and as the plot unfolds on The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and I edge the volume slowly upwards to a comfortable level, suddenly Reggie imagines his mother-in-law as a hippopotamus and the bassoon goes ‘wah-wah’ and the audience erupts in deafening laughter, the room shakes and the baby upstairs wakes up and screams. Oh, did I mention the baby upstairs? He’s one and he likes to run around and bang on windows. And, of course, he has been blessed with the dropping-heavy-objects-on-the-floor gene.

The man to our north owns ten records. Not ten different albums, you understand, but ten songs. And he is immensely proud of them. So much so that even on a November evening when it gets dark at four and dips below freezing shortly afterwards, he has his back doors open, singing along in broken English to his tunes. This way we can hear it throbbing through the wall and through our poorly insulated patio doors.

He always opens with The Animals’ 'House of the Rising Sun’. This is also the ring tone on his phone. So sometimes we have it playing twice simultaneously, at different stages of the song. Next along is ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,’ a song played so often that terrible summer of its sixteen week stay at number one that everyone in the country except for him still reaches for the closest sharp object and begins to stab themselves absentmindedly whenever they hear Bryan Adams’ ghastly crooning.

Following these two, always in the same order, is ‘Civil War,’ ‘Comfortably Numb,’ and a return for Adams with ‘Summer of ’69.’ You can probably guess one or two of the remainder. Thanks to the way I consume these songs, I know every thunk, rattle and scratch of the bass lines, but little of the high guitar notes. His kid uses our fence for football practise and shouts in Arabic. His wife is fat and English. His daughter is a loud, surly teenager and appears to be Australian. It is deeply confusing.

And to our south lies Party Central. We are not sure whether it is inhabited by ten people or one very popular couple. Either way, it is rammed every night with braying, shrieking youths. They do not play music or watch television, merely scream and cheer for hours. I have never heard anyone have so much fun, although the alarmingly vast quantities of dope they smoke may go some way towards explaining it.

Naturally I am far too cowardly to confront these people directly. Occasionally, usually towards the end of the wine, I may suddenly leap out of the chair and slam my fist against one or both of the walls, which appears to go unheard or just unheeded.

Tonight, Cheryl watches me sink back onto the sofa, clutching my throbbing hand and weeping gently. “I don’t think that achieves anything, Christopher.”

“I know,” I moan, frowning like a five-year-old.

The episode finishes and we sit in silence for a few depressing minutes, listening to our neighbours having conscience-free revelry.

“This is why I want my book to sell,” I tell Cheryl. “I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to be excessively rich. I just want a detached house in the country where we can’t hear anyone else and no one can hear us. Everyone should be entitled to that. Why do they make us all live on top of one another?”

“Some people like living in a community,” Cheryl suggests.

I shudder. “I don’t ask for much. I don’t want celebrity friends, I don’t want to be a media whore, renewing our vows in Hello for a few grand.”

Cheryl tilts her head as if she thinks this might be worth considering. “No celebrity friends? What about Pete Doherty?”

She knows my weaknesses. “OK, maybe just Peter. My feelings towards him are conflicting, though. I want to help him, but I also want to do drugs with him.”

“Can I be friends with the Mighty Boosh?” Cheryl asks.

“Both of them?”

“Yes,” she says, putting her head on my chest.

“OK,” I concede. Party Central screams, the baby drops a piano and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ begins again. “I’d like a workspace at the bottom of the garden.”

“Away from the house?” Cheryl asks. I nod and she smiles. “That would be great.”



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"You're too old to be a young author..."

My agent, Sid, says this to me over the phone as I'm crashed out on my sofa, shattered and eating a duty free-sized Toblerone. I have called him for a pep talk, a pick-me-up from the man who believes in me more than anyone else alive because his pay check depends upon it.

Sometimes, it seems, he forgets this. I am merely talking aloud about my dream of being included in some magazine article called 'Britain's Best Young Authors' when he cuts me off mid-sentence. "You're too old to be a young author."

There is a stunned silence on my end and the sound of running water at his.

"Are you... flushing your toilet?" I ask when I recover the power of speech.

"No," he replies after an unconvincing pause. The water stops with a glug.

"I'm only thirty years old."

"Officially that's the cut-off point. Once you're out of your twenties you're a latecomer, if anything."

"Where did you read this 'official' ruling?"

The sound of a packet of crisps being torn open. "Well, perhaps not official. It's common sense though, isn't it? Perhaps the author of the article will have a different, more generous scale. Which magazine is it again? I'll give them a call, see what I can do."

"No, it's not real. I want to be in the next one. They have them quite regularly, don't they?"

"I don't know," he tells me through a mouthful of savoury snacks. "Do you fancy a pint?"

Perhaps we've become too friendly. At first I was pleased when Sid wanted to meet up for a few drinks on weekday afternoons, impressed with his spare-time generosity over evening dinners in Soho steakhouses. But after a couple of Saturday nights out during which my own drunkenness was ruined by Sid's shambolic, leering, abusive intoxication, then an intimate, confessional dinner with my wife Cheryl cooking at home, I quickly realised Sid was just lonely.

He refuses to talk about his other clients, and I suspect, sadly, there are none. And now that the book deal is signed he has relaxed and forgotten his job description.

Cheryl, of course, is great. All fledging writer's spouses are great because they allow most of their precious togetherness time to be spent apart while the writer struggles to yank this monster out of himself and onto a page on top of holding down a job that actually pays the bills. She rubs my head, and reads the words I write before anyone else, but she cannot change things in my creative life. Sid can. Sid should. He is paid to understand the business and make me feel positive.

The reason I am slumped on the couch in the spare bedroom/office, stuffing comfort food into my greedy mouth, is something he appears unconcerned about. I met with my editor, Chris, as he has now had a chance to "Study the manuscript" and "Take some notes."

He pulled some pages from a drawer in his Collins office and they thudded onto his desk next to my novel. They looked almost as long.

"How many copies have you made?" I asked him numbly.

"I am known for my thoroughness," he said. "At the front I've bullet pointed a summary of areas to work on."

I scanned the list. "But this is a complete re-write," I tried not to squeal. "I thought you liked the book."

"Oh, we do, we do. It's just that we think it could be even better."

I couldn't speak.

"It's a competitive market," he continued. "We need to make each product we put out as crowd-pleasing as possible." He leaned forward. "We think you're very talented, and we want to make sure you succeed. There's nothing more heart-breaking than seeing someone with potential failing on his first book because his editor didn't do the best he could for him. This is all standard procedure. Your agent should have gone through this with you."

I managed a bitter chuckle. "Well, this will take me months. Months. Surely we don't have time to get all this done."

"Oh, we've got about a year."

"What? A year? I've been telling acquaintances to look out for it in W H Smith."

He sucked breath in through his teeth. "Tough to get into Smith's. Tough."

"But why does it take a year?"

"You'll be surprised. Let me arrange a meeting for you with publicity."



"Sid," I say over the phone. "I've already started working on the second book. Now I have to write the first one all over again."

"There is some good news," he says.

"What? Tell me."

"No one knows anything about you. We can always lie about your age."

"Most books sell nothing..."

This is what my agent, Sid, chooses to say to me on the way to our first post-contract signing meeting with the publisher. I don't know whether he is playing devil's advocate to keep his own hopes down, or whether he is genuinely bracing me for inevitable faliure, but either way it seems a strange time to tell me this.

But then there are many strange things about Sid. I cannot fathom how he managed to get Harper Collins even to read my novel, let alone agree to publish, but it took just a couple of months from when we signed our little agreement. I can only guess he has some suction with an executive there, a compromising photograph perhaps, or secrets too dark to contemplate, but when he told me the news I laughed at him. He was unfazed. He expected me to expect him to fail.

I had been rejected by countless literary agents before I approached him. Well, not countless. Twenty-seven. Which is still a lot. And I had really given up hope. The second book will be better, I thought. Patience. And when he wrote back to me asking to see the whole manuscript, that he had liked the synopsis and first few chapters, I had wondered what was wrong with him. 'No one else likes it,' I thought, 'So he must be desperate.' But so was I, and I went to his pokey little office on Regent Street.

"Why don't you move somewhere cheaper and get a bigger office?" I asked him.

"It's Regent Street," he said, spreading his arms wide. "Unfortunately my business is all about perception. That's why agents all fuck beautiful women and drive Porsches."

"Do you drive a Porsche?"

"No," he admitted. "I take the bus."

I looked at him, slouched on a beaten up sofa dressed like Bilbo Baggins, and decided not to inquire about the women.

Even now, done up in his best suit, he still looks scruffy somehow, like an adult William Brown after a long school day. But he seems sober at least.

I am introduced to my editor, Chris - we have the same name! Oh how we laugh, "That should make things easy, or maybe confusing," etc... - and then we sit around a table with a few other Collins people whose names and titles I don't listen to because I'm focusing on my own conduct.

It's mostly a blur because I'm not good in meetings. I trail off and think about other things, like whether the final "controversial" episode of the Sopranos is going to disappoint me, or how smug I am at having discovered Black Kids before any of my friends, and then 'Hurricane Jane' is looping through my head.

Luckily Sid does most of the talking, and I am impressed by his authoritative tone, even though everyone can surely see it's a bluff. Then the suit who seems like the main Harper guy, a good-looking bloke in his forties (hey, I'm a writer, we observe these things about everyone we meet, we can't help it) turns to me and tells me again how much they all like the book. "So, are you working on a follow up?" he asks.

I nod. "I'm about a thirteenth of the way through it."

"A thirteenth, huh? That's great news."

"I mean, it's not a follow up per se, but, you know, a second book."

"Not a follow up?" The Collins men share concerned looks.

"Well, it's not connected. But it's still a novel written by me. So it's a follow up in that sense. Just not a sequel or anything."

The head honcho gives me a stern smile. "Sci-fi readers like to get involved in a different world over many years. They like a whole series of books set in and expanding the same universe. Like the Discworld books. Then latecomers to the series will go back and buy the earlier volumes."

There are murmurs of agreement and then Sid, curse him, says to them "I told him that."

"I don't see myself as a sci-fi writer," I tell them. "It's just my first book happens to be set in the not too distant future."

The head guy blanches. "So the second book isn't even the same genre?"

"Well, no." Another murmur goes up. "This book is just a story like any other," I plead. "I'm not Philip K Dick. It's not set in the year three billion on the planet Zarg. I'm a writer."

"In this day and age we need someone we can market. It's difficult for readers to recognise what they like if authors skip around genres."

"I'm sure Christopher can come up with something," Sid says.

Then there's a long silence while we all look at each other. Then the head guy says "Well, have a think about it."

So I was almost happy for a few weeks, which is a record. Now I'm a sci-fi writer, apparently. Which is still better than not being a writer.

"I think they like you," Sid tells me. Sid's full of shit.