LA Part 2

Without wishing to go all Camus on you, my mother died last week. A heart attack. I thought men had heart attacks and women had strokes. So it was a bit of a shock.

LA seems a long time ago now. Since then I’ve been to Berlin and seen Peter Doherty at the airport.

No building in LA seemed to be older than me. The cliché, of course, is that no one in LA walks anywhere. It is true, and I assumed it was because they are all too lazy. But a quick stroll though the Westside tells a different story. The few visible pedestrians are the underclass. They are walking because they cannot afford cars, or because they enjoy hanging out on street corners looking like they might shoot you. Illegal immigrants solicit under bypasses, waiting for pick up trucks to take them to gardening and maintenance jobs. Even though there are thousands of cars flying past every second, the pavements can seem like alleyways at night. I don’t know if the streets are like this because everyone drove everywhere, or if everyone drives everywhere because the streets were like this. Either way, it seems a shame because the sidewalks are so huge.

We ate meals with friends, rode mechanical bulls in shopping malls, smoked potent weed in the desert, had our photographs taken with black bears, counted trash cans on the beach, bought moderately priced jeans in Santa Monica, drank tea in Culver City, cooed over new-born babies, met strangers and drank beer with them, forgot who they were and re-introduced ourselves days later, failed to get friends to take us through Compton, teased cats with laser pointers, played Guitar Hero, watched a double bill of Homicide and the first episode of the new season of the Wire, fell in love all over again in countless tiny moments and stood on a pier as dusk fell and saw the low sun create orange halos around our heads and reveal the secret white hairs on women’s faces.

Then I got a phone call. It certainly put a dampener on the last couple of days of my holiday. The funeral was a predictably grisly affair, featuring awkward conversations with guests only reluctantly invited, stale vol-au-vents and more maudlin drunkenness from a gatecrashing Sid.

Over the next few days I wrote fifty pages and sent them to my editor.

LA Part 1

Harper Collins sent me away for a week to help me write. It was the last act of desperate people. Chris, my editor, asked me where I wanted to go.

“LA,” I told him.

He blinked. “I was thinking more like Cornwall, or perhaps Torquay.”

“I find the locale very inspiring. The palm trees bring something out in me.”

“The palm trees are all fifty feet high. No one looks at them.”

“Just to know they’re there though…” His hand twitched towards the phone but stopped. He was wavering. “I’ll be writing non-stop by the poolside.”

“OK,” he sighed, broken. “I’ll set it up.”

“First class?” He reddened further until it seemed something in his face would pop. “Economy then.”



I bought Cheryl a ticket as we have friends out there. I planned to write on the plane, but BA has introduced On Demand movies with a library of about forty films. I had checked in on-line as soon as it became available, refreshing the screen and then snapping up seats in the emergency exit row. I tell them I am willing to help people escape in the event of an emergency, even though I would actually be first out of the door, if I was still sober enough to care.

We drank wine until Cheryl went to sleep, and then, reluctantly, I took out my laptop. A pretty air hostess sat opposite me when it became turbulent and we flirted and I told her I was a writer. She upgraded me to club class. I left Cheryl sleeping as she can get grumpy when woken.

The hostess brought me endless small bottles of wine. My seat flattened out into a bed. There was a man next to me, and it felt a bit odd, as essentially I was lying in bed watching television with another man. He kept watching the same film twenty minutes ahead of me and I couldn’t help but glance over and ruin it for myself. I put the screen away and listened to my iPod. Even when it got turbulent again I was calm. I find that when I’m drinking and listening to good music, I don’t mind the thought of dying as much.

As take-off is the most dangerous part of flying, only when we've reached cruising altitude do I adjust the time on my watch. I wouldn't want to have wasted a minute of the end of my life changing time zones.

The hostess came back and said that my wife had woken up and become distressed when I had disappeared with my bag.

“She can be temperamental,” I explained.

“It was some surprise when the woman sleeping next to you turned out to be your wife. Some of the things we said to each other were inappropriate.”

“She was asleep,” I shrugged. The hostess didn’t come back again and I had to make my way to the snack area and rout around in drawers to find wine and whiskey. Things became a blur. I must have passed out. I hope I did. If not, I don’t want to know what I did for the last six hours of the flight. I wouldn’t say I’m an alcoholic, because people from Harper Collins read this. Although they never click on the ads.

I came to at the baggage claim carousel, standing but hunched over, my head already hot with the encroaching daytime hangover. Cheryl was talking and I hugged her. She pushed me away, holding her nose away from me. But there was a Jacuzzi at the hotel which made up for the trip so far. Well, it did for me. Cheryl had forgotten her swimming costume.

In the room, I told her I thought I could write for hours in the hot tub. “Your heart will boil,” she said, not without hope.




If you would like to read about when I lived in America, you can go here: www.myspace.com/jesenk and read the When Chris Moved To America blogs.

"This book is not exactly a priority for me...”

I have learnt to dread visiting the publishing house, which is a shame because it was once a place where all my dreams seemed to have come true.

Lenny, the designer assigned to my book, is what someone could uncharitably call a bearded cockney prig. But I never would, because I am far too nice. He sits at a cluttered desk in a gloomy office as far from the main entrance as possible. I imagine he requested to be located here, and if he didn’t then management hastily moved him. But, as these difficult types so often are, apparently he is good at his job.

He bends over a large sheet of paper with a soft pencil, and at first I think he is sketching useful ideas. Then I see it; a man hanging by his neck, his black tongue lolling out like something I saw on Nothing Toxic. “So, do you have any ideas for the cover?” he asks indifferently.

“Yeah,” I say. “Obviously, it should be something dark and Blade Runner-like, rather than something bright and, I don’t know, The Fifth Element-esque. What do you think, have you read the book?”

He makes a strange, guttural noise, and I am vaguely concerned before he looks up and I realise he is laughing. He even snorts a couple of times.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then.”

His laughter stops suddenly and he bends over the paper again, adding a crowd of bystanders at the execution. “Sorry, mate, nothing personal. But I don’t ever read the books.”

“Just the synopsis, then?” I enquire, bracing myself for a fresh outburst of laughter.

Instead, he just fixes me with a blank stare. “Not as of yet, no.”

“Well, it’s only a page, and it might help.”

“Yeeeeah,” he says absently, as though he’s humouring me. “But go on, mate, go on.”

“Right, I see a sepia-tinged image of a police cruiser, one from the near future-”

“Like in Blade Runner.”

“Well, yeah, but let’s not get too bogged down with that, it was just a reference point. And next to it, or maybe just behind it, a photograph of an agent – black trousers and shirt under a flowing brown cloak – staring back at us, a mini-gun in his hand but not pointing at us. And the photograph has been altered to look more like a drawing, or a combination of the two so we can’t tell whether it’s one or the other. And the blue and red lights of the car, the only non-sepia part of the image, kind of blur outwards and make everything kind of indistinct and foggy.”

A long silence. “Like in Blade Runner.”

I sigh and frown. “Why do I get the impression your heart’s not really in this?”

He sniggers again. “Look, I understand that it’s important to you.”

“Riiiight? Please go on.”

“Don’t take offence, but this book is not exactly a priority for me.”

“Oh. Right.” I say, stunned.

“If your wife was murdered,” he continues in a patronising tone that doesn’t fit his words, “That would be the most important event in your life at that time. But the detective working on his twenty-third murder of the year isn’t going to have any emotion invested in it personally, is he? It’s not possible. Try to understand, mate.” I just look at him, hurt. He doesn’t notice or care. “Besides, I hate this Sci-fi crap. Johnny over there usually does the fantasy bollocks.”

I turn and for the first time notice a small ugly man hiding in the shadows, colouring in a picture of an alien and a robot on a desert planet with five suns. I nod my head but he ignores me.

“That’s his speciality,” Lenny says, raising his voice in Johnny’s direction, “But they want to try him on a soppy romance, which is my forte.” He looks back at me. “I like drawing the tits.”

“Well, you better get yourself together,” I say, trying a new tact, “Because this is a top priority for Harper Collins.”

Lenny laughs again, louder and longer this time, and even Johnny joins in from his corner. “From what I hear, it might never see the light of day.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” I shout, panicked. “What do you mean?”

Lenny is still smiling and doodling. “I heard you weren’t fulfilling your obligations. Heard you weren’t making the necessary changes.”

“Oh they’ll get done,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Don’t you worry. Just get cracking.” My legs feel weak and buckle into a chair.

“And what did you tell Mavis and Pauline?” Lenny asks.

“You’ve seen them?” I blurt out. “Where?”

“Well, they do work here, don’t they?”

“What did they say?”

“Sounds like you’re into some weird shit.”

“Listen, they tricked me. They demanded I tell them something weird so I made something up.”

He holds his hands up. “Nothing to do with me.”

“Haven’t they got some confidentiality clause?”

“They’re not doctors.”

I sit and seethe, ready to go to someone and complain about this bearded cockney prig.

Then he picks up the paper and holds it towards me. “How does this look?” Above the hanging is the front cover of Clear History. It is rough but beautiful. I want to buy him dinner and kiss him.

“It’s fine,” I say, and pretend to check my phone for messages.



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Sid has popped round to my Mum's for dinner...

...And he's drunk and maudlin on red wine. Not only has he the tenacity to come here on New Year's Day, a family holiday, but he was already on the bus when he called.

"How do you even know where my mother lives?" I ask him when he stumbles through the door, clutching a bottle wrapped in paper.

"You mentioned it once," he says dismissively.

"I don't think I did."

"Sure you did."

Even though he has never met my mother, he moves past her with a brief wave and walks into the kitchen. This could end badly. We follow him. "You've brought wine then?" I say.

"Yes. Where's your opener?"

My mother is taken aback. "Just on the side there. It's a fancy new one Sharon bought me for Christmas. I haven't worked out how to operate it yet."

Sid slides the cork from the bottle in two seconds and throws the contraption back on the counter with the cork still skewered.

"Let me get you a glass," my mum says, opening a cupboard. Sid takes a swig straight from the bottle, and doesn't offer it around. My Mum gives him a glass anyway. "Dinner will be ready soon. Just leftover turkey I'm afraid."

Sid frowns. "Leftover from Christmas?" She nods. "How long does meat keep in the fridge, would you say?"

"I... think it will be OK."

Sid accepts this and fills his glass. At the dinner table, he is unusually quiet. My Mum hates quiet. "I think it's nice you use the bus," she tells him. "It's good for the environment." Sid of course couldn't give a shit about the environment, and is only taking the bus because he doesn't own a car. The fact that he is drunk probably wouldn't stop him.

I don't drive on evenings when I've been drinking, but the mornings are different. When I woke up this morning, Cheryl dressing for work and cursing softly, I had no hangover and smiled. Only when I stood under scalding water in the shower, watching a slug slither into a fold of the curtain to avoid the spray, did I realise how drunk I was. When I cleaned my teeth I couldn't taste the mint toothpaste. When I started to soap myself I gave up, exhausted. In the car, leaning forward to watch for pedestrians with extra vigilance, I had to pull over twice to vomit. I feel better now.

"I'm going to buy a Porsche, like an agent should," Sid says.

"A Porsche?" My Mum says, impressed even though she wouldn't know a Porsche from a Lamborghini. "My son must be making you money!"

"Not a proper one," Sid says. "An old one, like that X Files fella has on Californication. I'm going to keep it dirty and smash one of the headlights out."

"Sid, that character is not supposed to be a role model," I say, watching a lump of margarine melt on my potatoes.

Sid ignores me. "And your son has made me no money."

"Oh," my Mother says.

"The advance barely paid for overheads. But you struggle along, don't you?"

"I suppose so. Still, when the book comes out, you'll both see something then, won't you?"

"Oh, don't get your hopes up, Mrs. Hardy." He drains his glass and pours the last of the wine. "There are hundreds of books released every week. The chances of even getting noticed are small. Especially with a Sci-Fi novel."

I look at my Mum. "Do you see? This is what I'm up against?"

"Yes," she says. "You are a bit negative. Why did you even sign him?"

"Oh, I like the book. I think Christopher has real talent."

"But talent's not enough?"

Sid shrugs. "You never know. Stranger things have happened. But people keep buying the same thing. Last night I saw an ad on the BBC for a new version of Sense and Sensibility. Is it me, or do they just keep making the same costume dramas over and over?"

"Why are you here?" I ask him. "Why are you drunk? In my mother's house."

He looks at me. "I like you," he says.

"Oh."

My mother is unmoved. "Then why are you so unsupportive?"

"It's OK, mum..."

"No, it's my house, as you say, and I'd like to know." She has colour in her cheeks for the first time in a long while. She is almost angry, an emotion I forgot she possesses. Or almost does. "Why don't you work for him?"

"Oh I do, Mrs. Hardy. And I never grumble about the shit I have to shovel. But I'm afraid your son is a temperamental artist." My Mum looks unconvinced. "Believe me, most of them are when it comes to their art. You see, the editor assigned to Christopher's book is asking for some changes to meet the publisher's criteria. Changes that were acknowledged before the deal was signed. But now, for reasons only these writers can make sense of, he is refusing to carry out the alterations, leaving me dealing with worried and frustrated Harper Collins people every day. And if he doesn't pull his finger out, the whole deal could go tits up."

My mother looks at me. "You stupid boy," she says. "What are you playing at?"

"I had no idea," I say. "He didn't tell me."

Sid gulps at his wine. "It's your job to worry about the writing, mine to worry about everything else."

My mother is definitely angry now. "Go home and get writing."

"OK, I will."

"Now. I mean it."

"Right now?"

"Yes. I won't let you throw it away. You owe it to everyone who believes in you, not just yourself."

"Can't I finish my sausages?"

"NOW!"

I get up slowly and walk out, leaving my mother and my agent chatting about my life and work. When I get home, I rearrange my songs on iTunes until Cheryl gets home, and we watch a DVD.