You See Me In Whatever Light That You Choose...

Sid, my agent, calls me from his office at seven am. “Christopher!” he announces cheerfully.

“This better be good,” I mumble, my brain sending out surveillance probes to assess the extent of my hangover.

“Oh, is it early again?” he says. “Sorry mate, don’t mean to keep waking you up.”

“Why are you always at work so early anyway?”

“Well, I share hot water with the other flats in my building and a couple of times it’s run out in the middle of my shower so I’ve started getting up before anyone else to beat them to it. Unfortunately a few of them are road sweepers. So I’m up at four every day now.”

“Jesus. No more nights out then? You must be going to bed at nine.”

“Nah. The good news is I’m out of the office at one every day and I just sleep in the afternoon. The other good news is that I get to see all the filthy foreign cleaners. I tell you, there’re some beautiful, sad-looking Latino women knocking about before the sun comes up. There’s one on my industrial estate with a waist the size of a can of Pringles and tits like Zeppelins but she looks painfully damaged. Seems like easy pickings except every time I drive past her there’s always some older man shouting and threatening to hit her. Surely I can offer her a better life than that?”

“So you’d let her give up the job?”

“Oh, I see. No. No, I wouldn’t. Maybe I could stop the threats at least.”

“What the fuck does he want?” Cheryl hisses from next to me.

“Yes, what the fuck do you want?”

“Let’s do a meeting. I’ll be round at noon.”



He sits on the couch while I make him a toasted cheese and ham sandwich. Cheryl hides in the bedroom. Sid changes the channel to QVC and I try not to take it as some kind of mockery.

I hand him his sandwich and he points at Julia Roberts selling Diamonique. “Is this stuff actually any good?”

“I’m not a jewellery expert, Sid. I don’t know.”

“Huh.” He leans forward, scrutinising the merchandise.

“So what’s this meeting about? Any good news for me?”

“Maybe. You mentioned you’d written your first song in ages?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve found someone who wants to record it.”

“Who?”

“Some kid with a studio in his flat.”

“So this is a change of career? You’ve given up on me as a writer?”

“Just keeping our options open, Christopher.”

“I’m too old, Sid. I’ve done the band thing. No one wants to hear what a thirty-two year old man has to say.”

“Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

“Jesus. You’re not supposed to agree.”

“I’m not, I’m just telling you what I thought you wanted to hear. I’m all about an easy life.”

“What about my second novel? Have you been shopping me around? Any feedback, and leads?”

“I’m trying, Christopher,” Sid says, blowing on the steaming sandwich. “But that part of things isn’t really my strong suit, to be honest.”

“But… That’s what an agent does, for Christ’s sake. What have you been doing? What is your strong suit?”

“Just being supportive. Having a laugh. Going out for drinks. Just being a mate.”

“No, that is a mate. That’s what my friends do. My agent is supposed to fulfil certain other functions.”

Sid shakes his head, his mouth full of hot cheese. “No one really needs an agent. It’s just perceived that you do. So you do need one, I suppose, but only because that’s the perception.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing an agent can do that you can’t. It’s just an unofficial rule that you have to have one.”

“Sid, I’m pretty sure that’s just you. I think other agents are actually out there working for their clients, selling their work.”

He looks at me blankly, slowly munching his lunch. “Trust me,” he says finally. He finishes and puts the plate down. “Right, I’ll take a nap and then we’ll go round this bloke’s house. Can I use the bedroom?”

“Not really. Cheryl’s in there…working.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. As long as I’m on a bed I can sleep through anything.”

“Why don’t I see if she can take a break?”

So Cheryl and I sit in the living room while Sid snores in our bedroom.

“He’s on my side of the bed,” Cheryl says through clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry,” I say for the seventh time. It is almost ten minutes before it occurs to either of us that we are still watching QVC.

Two hours later, Sid wakes up and we go to a stranger’s house where I record all the instruments in one take and a friend makes a video that causes mild brain damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxSRChS793U

"Atypical Selection..."

I’m hung-over because last night I was up into the mid-morning hours struggling with the follow up to Clear History. I pace the living room ranting at Cheryl because she is locked into her laptop and is therefore here but not here.

“They’ve got me over a barrel. They’re playing me like a puppet. I really want to just say ‘Fuck them’ and write what I want but they’re dangling this second book contract over my head and I’m jumping for it like a fat kid for cake and it’s embarrassing. It’s just such a horrible torturous process fighting to put a few hundred words a day down because my heart’s not in it and I haven’t got any ideas and everything’s horrible. But it’s the only chance I have of getting a new contract so I have to show them something definitive soon and it has to be good and…”

“Christopher,” Cheryl says, surprising me by looking up from the computer. She summons a sheepish, compassionate look. “I don’t think they’re going to offer you a second contract.”

I stop pacing because as soon as the words have left her lips the absolute truth of them hits me like a wrecking ball and I slump bonelessly into my armchair. All the breath has gone from my lungs and it takes an immense effort to gasp, “Oh God.”

“Look, what do I know?” Cheryl says but I don’t listen and suddenly I realise I need to breathe because my vision is greying.

And then the shock is replaced by a euphoric sense of relief and freedom as now only one logical path is open to me and the nightmare that is piled up on my desk has become obsolete and irrelevant.

I stop short of burning all my work in a satisfying ritualistic cleansing as even I have enough foresight to realise the possibility of one day regretting it. Instead I pile up all my notes and chapters into a red folder that is tearing at the edges and put that in a box in my bedroom wardrobe. Then I pull out a green one and spread the papers within across my bedroom floor.

Three hours later I compose an email to my editor, Chris:

You haven’t been responding to my emails but I know you’re still alive because I saw you purchasing unusual fruit juices in a health food shop in Sloane Square on Saturday. I wasn’t in the shop so I cannot be specific about which fruits you chose, but a brief glance at their website shows all the juices to be of an atypical selection.

I have chosen to cease jumping through hoops in a desperate attempt to gain a contract for a second novel. It is not that I am ungrateful for the opportunity of the first or ignorant of the reasoning behind a sequel and perhaps a series. It is simply that my heart is not in it and therefore the quality of writing is insufficient.

Thus it is my intention to win a new contract on the merits of an entirely new work. (I will not use the word Thus in it). I am attaching the first draft of a sample chapter that I have just dashed off in a joyfully creative burst. It is set in a hostel in Sydney. This is what I want to write. If you see nothing in it, then I will be disappointed but at least I will have tried. Enjoy. I hope.



Recognised On a Beach

We went to the beach in the early afternoon. It was still too cold to do so but there was nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, so we all pretended it was hot. I sat at the edge of the group.

Bradley obviously had felt his cunt gene kick in again, and was carrying Katie down towards the water. She was kicking and screaming, uselessly hitting at his massive body. Some of us chuckled at the sight, watching him step into the cold water above his knees. Then he threw Katie forwards into the ocean, soaking her shorts and shirt and hair. The group stopped laughing. Immediately, Bradley turned and walked back towards us. Katie splashed at him, wetting his T-shirt, then stood up and followed him, looking down at her clothes.

Bradley reached us and stopped, grinning. Some of the people in the group laughed again. “Nice one,” Rob said.

“You’re mean,” Emma said in a jocular tone. No one said anything seriously. No one wanted to voice their disapproval against anyone who fitted in. No one wanted to draw Bradley’s attention.

Behind him, Katie shuffled up, uncomfortable in her clinging wet clothes, dripping water and sand. She looked down at herself and it was easy to see the anger and embarrassment behind her strained smile.

“Aah, she’s all wet,” Rob patronised her.

“Most of the time, I’ve heard,” I said as an innuendo, fucking hating myself. Katie pulled ineffectively at her shirt which was clinging to the fabric of her white bra.

An uneasy silence fell over the group. Bradley either didn’t pick up on it or chose to ignore it. All the while he had been picking his next victim and I watched in amazement as he told Rhiannon to take her valuables out of her pockets.

She looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. “No, come on Bradley. Enough’s enough.”

All the humour had left the situation. Still he persevered. “Look, you’re going in the water,” he told her. “I’m just giving you fair warning. If you take your phone out now, it won’t break. Now that’s fair enough, isn’t it?” He didn’t look round for laughs. Instead he stared at her, smirking, and I wondered what he was getting out of it, what drove him to it. He bent over, reaching out for her.

She looked round for help, almost pleading with him now. Both her boyfriends were there, lying back and forcing smiles. Now would be the time for them to step in, but they didn’t. Maybe they were scared of taking her place in the water. Or maybe because she was fucking both of them, neither felt it was their duty to stand up for her. Randy was pretty big, and if both he and Simon worked together they stood a chance, albeit a slim one, of taking him down. But Rhiannon was learning now that life doesn’t work that way, and if neither Simon nor Randy were willing to acknowledge the other’s relationship with her, then they couldn’t fight together for her. It would be a public admission of their triangle.

“This is your last chance,” Bradley said, lightly slapping her legs below the knee.

“I’m not wearing a bikini,” she wailed. “I don’t have a towel.”

“Not my problem,” he said and scooped her up.

“Fuck’s sake,” she said, and threw her phone and keys onto the sand near her bag.

Rob and a few others laughed. Her denim skirt rode up revealing her white thighs, and I thought perhaps Bradley got a sexual thrill from it. He had given up on the idea of being able to pull any of the girls, so using his power to humiliate them was the next best thing. If he could grab a quick feel in the process, his day was made.

We all watched him carry her down the beach, Rhiannon resigned to her fate and lying still in his arms. I wondered if she was saying anything to him as he padded onto wet sand and the waves began washing over his feet, then up to his knees as he moved out further.

This time, instead of throwing her, he maliciously lowered her in slowly, not letting her feet touch the ground.

I risked a muttered “Jesus Christ” just loud enough for Martin next to me to hear. Perhaps as a response, he laughed at what was happening in the water, and now more than ever I felt isolated.

Rhiannon stayed in the water, lying on her back, acting as if she wasn’t bothered. Meanwhile, Bradley was making his way back towards us, and the remaining girls were stirring uneasily. Even though it seemed unlikely he would pick on me, it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, and I wondered how much of a struggle I would be willing and able to put up. His sneer widened as he approached, and it seemed possible that we could lie here in silence as he picked us up one by one and threw us into the ocean.

Then my attention was taken by two young girls standing fifty metres down the beach, chatting and looking over at us. I had seen that look a few times before in my life and I knew they were looking at me. I lowered my sunglasses and looked away but it was too late, and in my peripheral vision I could see them coming over. I thought about throwing my shoes on and running away, but that might not stop them asking the others about me. At least if I stayed I could exert some influence over the situation.

I was barely aware that Bradley was in front of the group again, grinning inanely. “He’s back for more!” Rob said excitedly, possibly the only other person getting off on it. As Bradley’s mate he was fairly safe; Rugby lads sticking together.

There were only three girls left, and I hoped that Martin would stick up for Claire, although Emma was the more likely choice because she was prettier. Then the two girls were by me, shielding their eyes from the sun even though it was behind sheets of clouds.

“Excuse me,” the blond one began. I ignored her but everyone else turned and looked at the girls, then at me. “Aren’t you Henry Clarke?”

I was still looking away, but with everyone else staring at me, I realised my attempt at ignorance was coming across as imbecilic. I looked at them and said, “Sorry?” pointing at my chest.

“You’re Henry Clarke.” They were grinning now.

I was aware of a heavy silence around me, then the thundering of a wave crashing into shore. I was hung-over.

“No. Sorry.”

The girls look slightly unsure of themselves.

“Yes you are,” Martin said. “I’ve seen your passport.”

I looked at him and nodded slightly, stuck. “Oh” was all I could think of to say.

“Could we get a photograph with you?” the brunette asked, and I laughed a little. They were English, these girls, but not the usual type who recognised me. Mostly I was placed by society’s elite, nine times out of ten by middle-aged women who saw me as an eligible bachelor for their pig-faced daughters. This was the world I had come to escape entirely, ten-and-a-half thousand miles away on the other side of the planet. These two girls, eighteen perhaps, must have read OK or More very closely, where my photo would appear occasionally from some fashionable party I had attended, usually standing next to someone far more famous…

Leatherman

James Hardy is strolling along Berwick Street browsing the record shops. A bitter, jealous loathing erupts with an intensity that both shames and scares me. But the loathing is stronger than the shame.

He looks so casual that for a moment I wonder if I have the right man. Then he stops for two pretty girls half my age who are holding towards him pens and copies of his lavishly bound novel with a submissive eagerness that momentarily pleases my misogynistic tendencies. With a winning smile he scrawls his signature and, no doubt, a charming personal message on the title page of each.

He excuses himself and the girls watch him leave with the books clutched to their chests and their hearts swelling. He doesn’t look back and the girls turn away, giggling and opening their phones to tell their friends.

Sales of my novel have stalled at an embarrassingly lowly figure and in recent weeks, as James’ cherubic image beams out from every magazine and website alongside captions including words such as ‘genius,’ ‘sensational debut,’ and ‘selling by the bucket loads,’ he has become something of an obsession for me. The publicists assigned to my novel have spent their time and energy ensuring his success, leaving my effort to fend for itself. As a result, he has come to symbolise all my failings in the literary world and life in general.

And here he is, swanning about Soho in blissful freedom when he should be paying the price for his actions that have ruined my life. And not just mine. Another neglected Harper Collins author had a non-fiction book published and ignored on the same day as mine with Pauline and Mavis offering the pathetic excuse that the ‘self-help market is saturated.’

I follow him for awhile, anger building with every flick of his stupid blond hair, his sly smile that he flashes easily to shop assistants and passing ladies, his snobbish, elitist insistence on purchasing vinyl.

Finally we are alone together in the basement of one of the few record shops left here; the obscure, dusty vinyl-only cells where men with passion still get their kicks. My hand goes to my hip and fingers the lump there. I came straight from an early shift at Bid TV and my Leatherman is still on my belt. Without thinking, I pull it free of its case and flip out the sharp blade.

I move slowly towards him with the knife at waist level, ready to…I don’t know what. Stab him in the leg perhaps. At least cut a hole in his jumper. At the very least, show him the blade. From a distance in case he’s tough and disarms me.

I fail to reach a decision on which course of action to take and so end up stopping right behind him, breathing audibly. He turns, brushing against me, and takes a small step back, slightly unnerved.

“Can I help you?” he says.

“I suppose you think I’m an obsessive fan,” I say, going for a menacing tone.

“We’re all obsessive fans in a place like this,” he says with the quick wit that has sent interviewers, male and female alike, scurrying to their laptops to proclaim him the new Messiah.

I can’t think of anything to say to this, so I just stand and stare at him and his eyes narrow and he frowns and I think he is scared but then he says, “Hey, are you Christopher Hardy?”

“Errr…yes.”

“Oh, man.” He holds his hand out. “I’m a huge fan of your novel.”

Stunned, I slip the Leatherman, knife still out, into my jeans pocket and shake his hand. “Really? You’ve read it?”

“Yeah, a friend recommended it and I’d heard about you at Harper, so…Oh, I just had a novel published as well at Harper so I knew your name.”

“What’s the name of…err…”

“The Art of Life and Death.”

“Oh you’re James Hardy,” I say, then clear my throat.

“That’s right,” he says. “I’m honoured.”

“So…you’re a sci-fi fan?”

“Not ordinarily, no. but to be honest I didn’t really see your book as sci-fi. Don’t know if it’s just me, but…”

“People have said that,” I say, reeling from the sudden heart-thumping adoration I feel for this man with his gorgeous, stylish blonde hair, his playfully endearing smile, his flawless taste in music.

He sees me looking at the copy of Yanqui U.X.O. in his hands. “I have it on CD,” he says, “but the vinyl version is supposed to have extra stuff.”

“A nine minute extended ambient section,” I say as though in a trance.

“A man of taste,” he says. “Here, if you’re not doing anything do you fancy a pint?”

“John Snow?”

“Excellent. Love that place.”

“I’d have thought you’d be hanging out in private members clubs with your new found success.”

“Fuck that,” he says. “Pints are still two quid in the John Snow.”

While he pays for the LP I carefully fold the knife back into its housing and then just watch him.



After a few pints I’m moaning endlessly about Harper Collins and he is agreeing with me and empathising.

“They don’t know it but I’m going to leave them,” he confides. “Even if they make the biggest offer for the next book, I’m gone.”

“But the book’s doing so well. Why would you leave?”

“Because they don’t listen,” he says.

“I know,” I say, wondering how anyone could fail to listen to James Hardy.

“I wrote my manuscript with double speech marks, I specified double speech marks for the printing, and what do they use? Single speech marks. Shitty little singles.”

“Wow. Even mine has doubles.”

“I’m jealous. But also, they started the page numbers from the cover. So after all the copyright and blank pages and whatever, the first page number is seventeen. What kind of idiot does that? Page one is the title page. Count from there!”

“Takes the piss,” I say, sipping the Alpine. “I want to write about international terrorists next but they’re forcing me to do a sequel to Clear History.”

“Wankers. Although, I would read that.”

“You’ll be lucky. They haven’t offered me a contract yet.”

“Wankers,” he says again.

“You should have a word for me,” I say, smiling as though I am joking.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling and actually joking. “I just have so many ideas and I want to get them all down but there isn’t enough time. I wish I could somehow suck them all out of my brain and fire them onto paper. Do you feel like that? That it’s a race against time now and we’ve only got however many years left to live and so many stories to write?”

“Not…really. I don’t get many ideas.”

“Oh, I can’t stop. Sometimes it feels as though my head’s going to explode.”

“I suppose I have a few real-life stories but none of them are really full-length novels. Maybe short stories. I have some I try to put in other things but it always feels as though I’m just shoe-horning them in.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like when I was seven and I wrote ‘FUCK SHIT SHIT FUCK’ on a ruler.”

“Huh?”

“We had a communal tin in the classroom that everyone took a ruler from and I saw it on one of them and copied it onto another. I showed a girl on my table and she put her hand up and told the teacher.”

“Bitch.”

“I can still remember that awful, squirming feeling of dread while I was pleading with her and she wouldn’t put her hand down. I admitted it to the headmistress and she called my mum and I denied it to her. It went on for weeks with me admitting it to the headmistress and then lying about it to my mother. She had to come in to school and when they were together I’d deny it. I told my mother the ruler had said ‘bloody.’ I remember the look on the head’s face the next day in her office when she said ‘It was not bloody.’”

“That’s funny.”

“Or how I hated swimming for years because of an incident with my teacher.”

“Go on.”

“We went swimming in the summer and everyone had to get out of the pool while the teacher talked to us. I didn’t get out and he kept shouting at me and I ignored him and he kept shouting. All the kids were just looking at me and I beckoned the teacher over. He bent down and I whispered that I couldn’t get out because I had been thinking naughty thoughts and well, I had…become aroused. He winked and said, ‘Oh, I see. Don’t worry, lad.’ Then he stood up and faced the whole class and said, ‘Hardy will not be getting out of the pool because he has a boner.’

“No way.”

“Needless to say, there was much laughter and much embarrassment.”

“They’re both good but, yeah, difficult to find a place for.”

“Maybe one day.”

We finish our pints. He looks at his watch and rolls his eyes. “Better go. I’ve got Wogan in the morning.”

“Ugh. Typical.”

“Well, it’s been fun.”

“Yeah, we should do it again.”

“Well, you’ll often find me perusing the old vinyl racks for bargains.”

I pull out my phone. “Cool. But just give me your number and I’ll give you a ring next week or something.”

“Err… Tell you what, give me yours and I’ll call you.”

“You don’t like people calling you?”

“No, I’m just a bit funny about giving my number out. Been getting some crank calls recently.”

“I’m not a crank.”

“I know, I know. But I’d rather take yours. To be honest I’m not sure what my schedule’s like at the moment.”

“Okay.” I give him a fake number which makes me feel slightly better.

We shake hands and he leaves the pub in a hurry and I sit alone for a moment telling myself that I have enough friends anyway.

Thirty seconds later I am running down Poland Street yelling that I’ve given him my old number by mistake…

Book Tour Pt 2

Mavis at Harper Collins has marked out on my itinerary for which appearances I should be drunk. Generally, as part of her continuing ‘Drunken Public Appearances’ plan, anything to be broadcast after nine pm has a D next to it. Some events with a liberal attitude have a DD meaning that I should be totally beyond my own control and will still probably avoid arrest. Mavis doesn’t seem to understand that once I start, the consumption of alcohol is already beyond my control, rendering the concept of regulating my level of intoxication laughable.

Last night's radio interview was a DD and yet, as I remember it, the DJ was delighted with my condition and, after baiting me into spouting ludicrous slurs against people of various races and religions, joined me with his own bottle of…Absinthe perhaps.

The session concluded at two am with the presenter actually snorting lines from the mixing desk and babbling like a madman about being the new king of Shock Jocks.

This morning I look online for any local or national stories about the incident but there is no trace of it anywhere, not even in the dregs of the blogs, and I feel, not for the first time, invisible.

Since the BBC has, in the last few years, reacted to minor scandals with a maniacal martyrdom, gleefully ripping its shirt off and flogging itself in the town square while sobbing and begging for more, cutting itself and firing anyone that happened to be in the office that day, comparing rash decisions made by stressed PAs to the atrocities carried out under Stalin and Hitler, offering to accept responsibility for every sin committed throughout history and generally declaring itself unfit for existence, it has been decided that all BBC interviews should be conducted whilst sober.

Mavis, though, as someone who probably thinks being drunk is giggling once or twice over an evening, hasn’t factored in the time required to sober up from such extreme intoxication, and I have to drive to Doncaster Radio at seven am covering one eye.

An ugly PA greets me at the door and I try to smile but just manage a pained grimace. She takes me to the green room. “Can I get you some breakfast?”

I start to shake my head, then stop, closing my eyes. “No solids.”

“Oh. Some tea then?”

“No liquids either.”

“Nothing then?”

“Can you make it tomorrow already?”

“Don’t wish your life away,” the nineteen year-old urges me.



The DJ is yet another bland early middle-aged man wearing an uncomfortable-looking jumper. I sit opposite him, trying to keep my head upright.

He introduces me. “Welcome to Doncaster.”

“Thank you,” I say, picking up on some irony in his greeting that isn’t actually there. “The AIDS capital of Great Britain.”

His smile drops. “I don’t think…” He falters.

“Luckily, I’ve already got it.”

He just stares at me.

“I haven’t really,” I say. “I’m not…involved in any of that sort of thing.”

“This is the BBC,” the presenter says.

“It’s alright,” I say. “It’s not… I mean, somewhere has to be, doesn’t it? I’m just saying.”

“I actually think that’s a myth started by spreaders of hate,” he rages, red-faced and spitting.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s not get bogged down in it.”

He looks at his notes, then back at me with a sneer. “How’s the tour going?”

“Fine.”

“Really? Pleased with sales so far?”

“I…think so.”

He gives a surprised snort. “Interesting.”

“I haven’t actually seen them.”

“Perhaps you’d like me to inform you on air?”

I panic. “AIDS capital.”

He reddens again. “How can it be the AIDS capital when there’re all those gays in Brighton?”

There is a suitable amount of dead air before a record is played.



I call Mavis on my way to Lincoln. “How many copies have I sold?”

Mavis sighs. “I don’t have that information right now.”

“Then find it. I know you’re in the office.”

“Christopher…”

“I want to know.”

“It’s not important right now.”

“Tell me now,” I say, and she sighs again and clicks her computer mouse.

“Erm… Two hundred and twelve.”

“Two hundred and twelve…thousand?”

“No. Two hundred and twelve copies.”

“Right. That’s not great, is it?”

“Early days,” she says. Then, “Sorry, got to go, James Hardy’s on the other line.”



At the next Travelodge later that morning, a bottle of J&B Scotch sits with a plastic cup wrapped in cellophane on my bedside table. With it, a printed note from Mavis:

‘An early DD this afternoon. Get stuck in!’

I groan and sit on the bed and then crack open the bottle. The fumes make me wretch. Nethertheless, I force the whisky down and after a few shots it starts to smooth out my hangover. Then, a third of the bottle through, I’m kneeling in front of the toilet watching streams of brown liquid force their way out of my stomach.

When I regain control, I sit on the bathroom floor, wiping tears away and moaning. Then I look at the bottle that for some reason I brought in with me, take a few deep breaths, and begin again.



The taxi takes me under a sign that has the word School on it but it barely registers because I’m slumped in the back, forcing the last of the whisky down my throat. I shove the empty bottle into my bag.

The headmistress and teachers are clearly disturbed by my condition but with the last of my lucidity I manage to avoid any challenges. “We want to encourage the children in their creative writing by hearing from someone who has made it into a career,” the headmistress says.

“You have progressive children,” I say, and she nods, confused.

The possibility that Mavis has mixed up the schedule leaves my mind along with the last fragments of my sanity as I stumble onto the stage and spend the first two minutes trying to open my book at the page with the large bookmark. “This is the live autopsy scene,” I say.

“‘Harris picked up a scalpel and leant forward over the patient. Holding the blade at face height, he looked for a moment at Reece. The agent’s eyes were rolling like marbles in a glass, and a low growl began to form in his throat, coupled with a gurgling, strangled gasping.

“‘Scully put a hand on the man’s brow, a gentle look in her eyes, as Harris moved the blade from the chest to the pubic bone, sending a fine arc of blood onto his gloves and arm. The Y-shape complete, Harris then pushed his fingers into the incision and peeled back the skin in three huge flaps, exposing the steel ribs and wasting muscles. Reece’s groan turned into a whistling, whining moan that made Scott want to cover his ears. He turned and saw that Wilson’s mouth was curved downwards in distaste. Only Owen remained impassive. In fact, Scott noticed, he was watching intently.

“’Harris strummed his fingers over the blood-flecked ribs, seemingly oblivious to Reece’s cries.’”

I pause for a moment, taking a few deep breaths to ward of the whisky nausea. There is a general murmuring among the adults, and a few of the children are crying. “Shut up,” I say, which makes them cry louder. I continue anyway.

“’A scalpel was used to make a fresh incision from behind one ear around the back of the skull to the other. As the cutting began, Reece’s face froze into a shocked stare and his eyes blinked stupidly. Harris remained in front of him, watching.

“’Reece’s scalp was then pulled up and inverted over the head, exposing the skull and mercifully, Scott thought, covering his face from view. His low moans were muffled now by his own flesh and hair.

“’One of the techs used the drill to unscrew the back of Reece’s skull, and then using a lever, he popped the top and lifted the bone clear, revealing the brain. Harris leaned over and prodded it, pushing his fingers into the cortex. Under his hand, Reece shook against the paralysis drug, and emitted a shrill shriek. Scully and her assistants first looked on in distaste, then turned away as Harris slid his fingers into the oozing pink organ up to the first knuckle.’”

I can’t find the section about pornography that I have been ending my adult readings with but I lunge into my post-reading routine without a bridge.

“Talking of pornography, I’ve never enjoyed watching it because circumcised cocks look so painful.”

The audience is restless now, and I jerk my head from side-to-side, vaguely noticing how young these children are.

“Do you think porn stars have porn collections?” I say, continuing the routine I’ve been considering taking into the comedy clubs. “And, hey, at what point do you think porn stars tell their kids what they do? ‘Err…I’m an actress.’ ‘Wow, mummy, can I watch one of your movies?’ ‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t. Mummy has no clothes on and several men who aren’t your daddy are jizzing all over her…’”

A teacher jumps on stage and runs at me, swinging his fists. I stumble backwards and am bundled out of the hall and into my cab.



By the time I regain consciousness in my Travelodge room Mavis has drafted an apology letter to the school and the tour is finally over.

Book Tour part 1

(You can now subscribe to this thing by email over on the right)



…My only television interview is for a local access digital cable channel in a shed in Shropshire. A young balding man greets me at the door and shows me to the green room which is just a cupboard with a portable TV showing dreadful documentaries about the local community. I make a cup of tea and then the same man leads me to the studio which is another tiny room with one fixed camcorder on an Argos tripod pointing at two plastic chairs in front of a green screen.

The screen makes me nervous because they are able to project anything that takes their fancy after the fact. On my Media Production course at Bournemouth University I once floated TWAT above the head of a fellow student who I actually quite liked, so I know what people are capable of.

The man clips a microphone to my shirt and then sits in the chair opposite mine. He clips on his own mic and slots an IFB into his ear. There appears to be no one else in the building, although it seems that he receives some information on his earpiece because he nods at the camera and then at me.

“Okay?”

“Yep. Great.”

He turns on a TV smile. “So, Christopher Hardy, welcome to our studio.”

“Thank you. Great to be here.”

“Your debut novel is called Clear History. Talk a little about how the idea came about.”

“Well, it’s an idea I’ve had knocking about for many years. Probably since I was about fourteen or fifteen. It’s an amalgamation of several different influences such as 1984, Robocop, Judge Dredd and computer games such as Beneath a Steel Sky and Syndicate. But it took me twelve years or so to make sense of all the ideas and come up with a cohesive storyline. Plus I wasn’t really mature enough to write a decent novel until a couple of years ago.”

“What genre would you place it in?”

I do a TV laugh. “Well, that’s a good question. I suppose it’s a sci-fi novel, and that’s where you’ll find it in the shops, but I think it has a broad appeal. It’s set in a semi-fictionalised version of our present, and the themes it tackles are, I think, very much of the present, or perhaps our immediate future.”

“Writing a novel is really a process of implanting a dream in someone’s head, isn’t it?”

“Err…Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Is this a nightmare or a nice dream?”

“I suppose it’s more of a nightmare if I’m being honest. But, you know, an exciting one. The kind that when you’ve stopped shaking and sweating and you feel safe enough to turn the light off again, you want to write down. But don’t; I own the copyright.”

“Would you mind reading a passage?”

“Not at all.” I pick up the copy of my book by my feet and turn to the pages I’ve read five times already this week. I address the camera lens directly in an effort to engage the audience. My mouth is dry by the time I finish. I close the book and turn back to the presenter.

“Excellent,” he says. “That’s great. I think we’re ready.”

“Okay. Ready for what?”

“We can go for a take. Let’s roll to record. If you’re ready?”

“That wasn’t…recorded?”

“No,” he says. “I just needed to know a bit about you and the book before we start. This is the real thing. Ready?!”

I nod tiredly and his real TV smile appears, dangerously dazzling under the row of lights hanging from the pipe in the ceiling.

“So, Christopher Hardy. Welcome to the studio…”



…A surprisingly intelligent DJ on Radio Norwich actually seems to have read my book, which throws me at first. He has it at arm’s length, occasionally flicking it around his desk with the point of a finger as though it is somehow harmful.

“Your book is poison,” he says on air, screwing his face up in distaste.

“Sorry?”

“It appears to have embedded in it a thorough hatred of the human race.”

“Oh,” I say, relieved and delighted that someone finally appears to have understood my novel. “Yes, absolutely. Almost everything and everyone fills me with despair. Each day brings with it something else to send me further into a spiral of despair.”

“So how can you reconcile those feelings with an effort to sell your book to those very same people?”

“It is tough,” I admit. “Ideally only the small percentage of people who aren’t objectionable would buy it. I wanted to vet potential buyers, have them pass a series of tests before they were allowed to make a purchase, but the publishers wouldn’t allow it. So I’m encouraging people who have bought it to ask themselves a series of questions. If the answer is Yes to things like ‘Do you own and enjoy records by the Lighthouse Family?’ ‘Do you own more than one mobile phone?’ or ‘Did you actually complain to the BBC about Brand and Ross’ misguided comments?’ then they should return the book to me via my publisher and I will personally send them a cheque for the cover price because I don’t want them representing my audience. I’m not paying their postage though.”

“But surely a dual mobile-owning Lighthouse Family fan who doesn’t enjoy seeing old men humiliated in the name of light entertainment and also happens to appreciate your book demonstrates either the variety of tastes that make up our population or you’ve inadvertently written something that belongs in the same niche of popular culture?”

“That thought is certainly…chilling.” I say little else for the rest of the ten minute interview…



…I call Pauline back at Harper’s while I drive between Liverpool and Birmingham.

“I had to turn down four late shifts at QVC for this trip,” I moan. “I think that I should be compensated for that.”

“You should be thanking us. I thought you hated it.”

“I’m secretly in love with Anne Dawson,” I say. “We would have been together for two of those shifts.”

“If you do a good job then you’ll make as much money from book sales over the next two weeks as you would doing proper work. As for the woman, whoever she is, you’re married.”

“These Travelodges don’t even have mini-bars for Christ’s sake. I’m homesick. I want a contract for a second book. I want a tour manager. I want women sent to my room. I want a better room. I want my book sold to the US market. I want to stop seeing James Hardy on the television. I’m sick of driving. I’m racking up a fortune in petrol costs.”

“I told you, just keep track of your mileage and we’ll reimburse you.”

“Damn it.”

“What?”

“I forgot to reset my milometer. I’ve no idea how far I’ve driven since London.”

“I’m losing you Christopher,” she lies and she hangs up…



…I wake up in an unfamiliar town and some eager radio station actually sends a taxi for me. Unfortunately as I sit contentedly in a leather swivel chair in the interview booth, the DJ starts speaking to me in a foreign language and I simply cannot understand a word the woman says and after a few uncomfortable minutes she plays a record and just looks at me as if the mistake is mine.

“What country am I in?” I ask the intern leading me out of the building.

She looks at me as the DJ had. “Scotland.”

“Then why was that woman talking a foreign language?”

“It’s called an accent you cheeky wee English cunt,” she says.

I drive back across the border, thankful to be back where people speak proper English. Then I check my tour itinerary and see that I am going to Newcastle…









Free Counter