I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness...

I dislike being the centre of attention but the launch party is a concession I make in order for those close to me to express their adulation and pride at my success. Or their envy and bitterness. I don’t really mind which as both will make me feel special. To stifle this emotional outlet would be unfair on my friends.

My publicists have given me a budget of four hundred pounds. Like everyone in my position I had, as I scrawled my childish signature on the publisher’s contract fourteen months ago, imagined a lavish event with a red carpet, limousines, paparazzi, formalwear and invitations printed on gold-edged cards and mailed by private couriers. My expectations had dwindled since then, of course, but even so this paltry budget was something of a surprise.

I sent a whiney email to Pauline, largely because I’d managed a thousand words of the follow up to Clear History that day and was at a loose end. In a decidedly terse reply, she informed me that the offer was non-negotiable, and that I needn’t produce receipts. I immediately hired a small room above a tatty old pub in Acton that still hadn’t managed to air out all the fumes since the smoking ban was implemented, ordered a limited amount of booze, sent a load of Evites and gave the remaining two hundred pounds to Cheryl towards a ticket home for a week around Thanksgiving. She became teary when I handed the cash to her and hugged me while I fantasised about what I might do with the week to myself.

Neither Pauline nor Mavis is able to attend the party as they are busy organising James Hardy’s launch at the Kensington Roof Gardens next week. Apparently, catering to the needs of the various royals and dignitaries due to attend the event is “a major headache.” I swallow the stabbing jealousy this information causes and realise that my party could well run more smoothly in their absence. Their ghoulish auras could confuse other guests who might wrongly assume they missed the Halloween theme on the Evite.

Cheryl has been called into a late shift at Sky which simply opens the door for the potential Californication-style misadventures that have so far eluded me. (I understand that the producers only have Duchovny’s character yeaning for the love of the mother of his child to allow the average viewer to accept the naked joy of his endless sexual encounters with gorgeous filthy young LA bimbos).

I arrive half an hour after the start time and buy a pint downstairs. I am being a pleasure delayer: delaying the pleasure of the guests upstairs. I sit in the corner and receive a text message from my friend Brandon informing me that he has been under the weather and won’t be able to attend. I watch the door and no one I know comes through it.

Slightly alarmed now, I make my way upstairs and stand blinking in the dark emptiness of the hired room. The young man the pub has supplied as part of the package is seated behind the makeshift bar, head leaning back against the wall. He suddenly notices me and leaps to his feet, rubbing his eyes. He is playing some kind of techno at a low level over a portable CD player.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. Another text, this time from Mark. His young child has a fever. An epidemic in London, perhaps.

I approach the barman. “Welcome,” he says in a heavy European accent.

“Polish?” I say.

“Oh, no sir. From Slovenia.” He opens a bottle of beer and hands it to me. “You are here for writer’s party then.”

“Yeah,” I say, looking around. “Am I early?”

“No,” he says, smiling. “Perhaps this writer man is not so popular, no?”

I force a smile. ”No, I guess not. Strange, I thought he was alright.”

“Oh, he is a friend of yours? You are close?”

“No,” I say. “Not so much.”

“Even he doesn’t come to own party. That says something, no?”

He laughs and I ask him for whisky. “He’s okay,” I say quietly.

“You are a good friend, I think. No one else come, but you come. That is…nice for you.”

“It’s still early.”

“Yes, of course. Still time.”

I drain the Scotch. “I have to make a phone call.”

He holds his hands up in an exaggerated gesture of non-obstruction. “Please. Don’t let me stop you.”

He makes a show of rearranging the bottles on the table and I walk to the far end of the room, calling my agent.

“Christopher! What’s up?”

“I’m dying here. How far away are you?”

“Away from what?”

“What do you mean, from what? Where are you?”

“Mama Mia baby. It’s cinema night.”

“Again? What about my launch party?”

“Oh, shit,” he shouts. “I forgot that was tonight. I’m sorry. My mum was supposed to remind me.”

“Your mum’s senile.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to get a new system.” Then, slightly muffled, “Why don’t you shut up?” followed by a distant ‘Fuck off.’

“Wait, are you in the cinema now?”

“Hold on mate. Yeah, yeah, shove it up your arse, I’m talking.”

“Sid, come now. There’s no one here.”

“No way. Meryl’s about to launch into ‘Dancing Queen.’” Immediately the opening bars flair into life so loud that it distorts and I slide the phone shut to stop its squawking.

I walk back over to the barman. “You may as well go home. No one’s coming.”

“You never know,” he says.

“If someone does come I can handle their drinks.”

“I prefer to stay. I don’t like to leave my job until it is finished. Then, no problem for me.”

“At least have a drink.”

“Oh sure, I will drink.”

We drink most of the bottle of Scotch. No one comes.

“I’m having problems with the world,” I tell the barman. “I find it harder to relate to people. Is it an age thing, I wonder?”

“Oh yes,” he says. “Certainly an age thing. I feel the same way.”

“I’m bored by people’s opinion. I’m scared by people spending hours on Facebook.”

“Facebook is stupid.” He waves his hand as though sweeping Facebook away.

“People who know only one thing about someone that undermines their entire career of merit. Like, Woody Allen; paedophile. Kobe Bryant; rapist. Zidane; the head butt.”

“Zidane is one of the greatest footballers ever.”

“Exactly. If there’s one thing that makes me feel like an alien amongst humans it’s watching Saturday night TV through my fingers knowing millions of people are wedged in their sofas munching Pringles, braying with laughter and actually rooting for a celebrity to…dance on ice, or something.”

“Sure. Saturday nights should be out with the music and the girls.”

I gulp down a beer. “And look at the movies they love. Norbit and Chuck and Larry and Saw V.”

“Norbit wasn’t so bad.”

“Really?”

The barman shrugs.

“Well,” I say. “What about the music? The Kaiser Chiefs and McFly and fucking Westlife?”

“I don’t mind the Westlife so much.”

“What?”

“They are fun. They enjoy it.”

“I don’t want my music fun. I want the musicians to sweat and bleed and become junkies to suffer for their art.”

“That Pete Doherty man is a nasty man. A nasty filthy junkie man.”

“I like him,” I say quietly.

“Oh. Me, not so much.”

We sit in silence and finish the whisky. It is past midnight.

I get off my stool. “I should go, I suppose. Give me that bag. I’m going to take this booze home.” I begin to put bottles of beer in a plastic bag.

The barman stops me. “I can’t let you take this.”

“Why?”

“I get in trouble. This writer man must take it. He paid for it.”

“No,” I say, smiling. “It’s me. I’m the writer man.”

“No.” He stops me and takes the bag back. “Nice try but you are nice man. Writer man is a bad man. But the bad man gets the drink. It is not fair perhaps, but is the only way.”

I’m drunk but I resist showing him my driving licence to prove my identity. Instead I release the bag and stand up as straight as I can. “You are an honourable man,” I tell him.

“Yes, it is the only way,” he says again.

I salute him and make my way past the mayhem of the Red Back and along Uxbridge Road, fingering the speech still folded in my trouser pocket.