"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…