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…