Burley Cross Postbox Theft

by Nicola Barker

  You may notice that I have taken the decision to blank out much of the swearing in the text; this is actually because I named my only daughter, Bronwen, after one of The Little Wren’s most beautiful songs – ‘My White-Breasted Bronwen’ (off his 1994 album Up on the Downs). Bronwen is currently only twelve years old.

  Prior to transcribing this tape, I had considered myself quite a fan of Frank K. Nebraska (as he now insists on calling himself). I even played his first hit, ‘A Big Whistle (for a Little Wren)’, as the first dance at my wedding! Of course at that stage I didn’t have the slightest inkling that in real life he would turn out to be such a stuck-up, arrogant, filthy-mouthed little b*****d.

  Please feel free to get back to me if you have any queries about the text, as it stands –

  WPC Graves

  Troy – Frank here – and I’m so f***ing, f***ing ANGRY I hardly know where to put myself… Where are you? I need to talk to you for f**k’s sake! [Sound of FKN grappling, clumsily, with a door handle]

  I’m still lying low in the wilds of West Yorkshire struggling to get some s**t together for the new album… [Sound of FKN pushing a door open and entering a small, tiled room] Of course this is on the remotest off-chance that you actually even care where I am or what I’m doing with myself right now… [Sound of FKN petulantly slamming the door shut behind him]

  I tried your mobile, but I kept getting sent direct to your message-bank, so then I tried the office, and your haughty, jobsworth of a secretary tells me you’ve swanned off to the f***ing Maldives for three weeks, you jammy c**t!

  Why the f**k aren’t you picking up your messages? I mean who the hell gave you carte blanche to suddenly go all f***ing Garbo on me?

  Huh?!

  Because I’ll tell you something for nothing, here, Troy: if you had picked up those messages you’d be shi**ing your f***ing Bermuda shorts right now. You’d be standing, weeping, in the full glare of the tropical sun, on a wide expanse of f***ing, steaming tarmac, desperately trying to hitch a ride back to the UK on the next available f***ing flight. Your ears would be bleeding, Troy, because I am f***ing livid. I am incandescent with f***ing rage here, Troy.

  Oh, yeah, and I can’t be f***ed writing all this down, so I’m recording it on my Dictaphone – as per – then couriering the tape direct to your hotel – or your t**tty stilted chalet – or wherever the hell else you’re parking your slack, white, lazy, pock-marked arse right now.

  Kizzy’s sitting by the front door with her coat on, as we speak, primed and ready to make the drop.

  [FKN expectorates, noisily, into what sounds like a sink]

  The poor kid’s been in f***ing tears all morning, Troy. She’s inconsolable. She hates what this sh*t is doing to me! She thinks it’s criminal that you’ve fucked off like that, without so much as a f***ing by-your-leave. She thinks it’s completely, f***ing unprofessional, as it happens.

  So f*ck you, Troy! You’ve made a beautiful, heavily pregnant young girl sob her gorgeous little heart out. You’ve broken her f***ing heart, Troy. You’ve broken my unborn child’s heart, Troy. So I hope you’re f***ing satisfied with that! I hope your three, tawdry weeks in the f***ing Maldives was worth all that, huh?! Huh?!

  I also hope, for the sake of our twenty-year-long relationship (I won’t call it a ‘friendship’, that’d be rather stretching the point) – as well as your miserable little career, Troy – that you have a Dictaphone handy in your five-star f***ing paradise island retreat… [FKN expectorates, noisily – for a second time – into what sounds like a sink]

  So you’d better have a nice big sip of your Jim Beam, Troy, pay off the syphilitic ladyboy, raise the blinds, turn the volume up to max, and listen very, very carefully, because I’m only planning to say this once, okay?

  Okay?

  Right. Good. Now cast back your booze-addled mind for a moment, if you will, and try to recall how directly before you thoughtlessly buggered off to the Maldives (casually leaving all your hardworking clients – especially this one – totally in the lurch) you kindly forwarded me the first draft copy of my so-called ‘autobiography’ (working title): Frank K. Nebraska’s: Blowing The Whistle (a title which, for the record, I hate. It sounds like a coy pseudonym for the act of gay fellatio).

  D’you remember that, Troy? Gradually coming back to you yet? Yeah? Great! Fantastic!

  Well, what you might not realize, Troy, is that in your frenzied rush to catch your stinking flight, you also inadvertently enclosed the letter which the esteemed ‘scribe’ of said autobiography – Robert Pole – sent, for your private perusal, with the first draft of the book.

  Yes, Troy, the letter. Remember the letter? Remember Robert Pole’s ‘entertaining’ letter about the many ‘hilarious’ foibles of your loyal client and gullible paymaster, Frank K. Nebraska? Remember the letter, Troy? You do? Good. Excellent.

  Well, you accidentally enclosed that disgusting letter in the book.

  You sent the letter to me, Troy.

  Like I say, it was a private letter, addressed to you, personally, so just as soon as I realized the mistake you’d made, I folded it up and sent it straight back.

  [Sound of a hand slapping repeatedly against a tiled wall]

  OF COURSE I BLOODY DIDN’T!

  WHAT KIND OF A FEEBLE IDIOT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?!

  I READ IT, TROY!

  I F***ING READ IT!

  OF COURSE I F***ING DID!

  [Heavy panting]

  I read the letter, Troy… [Slightly calmer, now]

  I read every damn syllable of it!

  You forwarded the letter to me, Troy – is this actually sinking in yet? Is it?! – and I have read the letter, Troy. [Dramatic five-second pause]

  So thanks very much for that [Insincere]. No, I mean it. Thanks a f***ing bunch for that, old boy. [Sound of heavy, plastic lid being lifted]

  You’ve done me a great service there, my friend. I really mean it: a great service. It was just what I needed – exactly what I needed. It was a gift, Troy – a gift – to finally find out what that repulsive, cock-eyed, snivelling little secretary you hired (and generously paid over 10 per cent of my piddling advance to) actually thinks of me.

  That was great, Troy.

  That was very, very special.

  Merry Christmas to you, too, Troy.

  That was just… just f***ing wonderful.

  It really was.

  [Sound of zipper being unfastened]

  I call him a ‘secretary’, Troy, because that is exactly what he is. A secretary. A glorified f***ing secretary. Nothing more, nothing less. And – for the record – I don’t give a flying f**k how many other books he’s co-written. He could’ve co-written War and f***ing Peace for all I care. He could’ve co-written Katie Price’s f***ing Pony novels for all I care… Bollocks to him!

  He’s just a secretary, a pointless, gibbering, insignificant little secretary. He took dictation. That’s all the slimy, self-important little turd did in my case.

  So maybe he indented the odd paragraph or two… Maybe he added the occasional comma and full stop… Maybe he did a smattering of entirely gratuitous editing… I mean where’s all the fascinating stuff about the development of my political philosophy gone? That was gold dust, f***ing gold dust! Why’d he get rid of it all?

  Huh?!

  I mean I told you how I didn’t want…

  [Straining]

  I told you, right from the start, how I didn’t want anyone ghosting the autobiography for me. I was determined, from the very off, to write the damn thing myself.

  And why was that, Troy? Eh? Why was that? [Expectant pause]

  Because I’m a famous storyteller, you bloody moron! It’s what I do. I have a special genius for telling stories! I was kissed by the f***ing Blarney Stone! It’s in my blood! And we both know that if I’d had even so much as a minute to f***ing spare I would’ve put pen to paper myself – or I’d’ve got Kizzy to put pen to paper for me – and I would’ve written one of the best autobiograp
hies of ALL TIME, Troy. Absolutely no f***ing doubt about it.

  But the turnaround was way too tight, Troy. You bungled the contract, and I ended up with only a paltry three years in which to deliver the stupid thing, and by the third year I was still gestating, Troy! I was still cultivating my ideas. I was still marinating my themes.

  I just didn’t have the f***ing opportunity to get this project fully operational, Troy, because – unlike our wonderful Mr Pole – I actually have a flourishing and viable career to manage. I have a profile to maintain. I have a hungry – an insatiable – f***ing public to entertain.

  [Straining]

  I mean this thing is a f***ing outrage, Troy!

  It’s a f***ing outrage!

  [The noisy flapping of what sounds like a piece of paper]

  The sheer cheek, the gall – the downright effrontery – of the man! It’s an absolute bloody scandal!

  [FKN adopts pantomime, nasal, upper-crust accent]

  ‘There was obviously a certain amount of work involved in trying to depict Mr Nebraska as a sympathetic character. I tried, on more than one occasion, to explain to him that the average reader – even the die-hard fan – needs to find something likable about the book’s protagonist, something to empathize with. The odd – even slightly disingenuous – display of humility, modesty or self-awareness goes a very long way in this respect, and a gentle touch of humour often helps.

  ‘Unfortunately, Mr Nebraska didn’t appear to understand this approach (“Why mollycoddle the f***ing idiots?” was all he’d volunteer on the issue), so, for the sake of the book, I took the necessary liberty of adding these small touches myself.’

  D’you hear that, Troy? Pole added them himself! D’you hear that?! The little shit ‘took the liberty’. He acted entirely against my wishes! He stuck his oar in and made me ‘sympathetic’ without my permission, for the sake of the book! For the sake of the f***ing book, Troy!

  But I told him – till I was blue in the f***ing face, Troy – that I didn’t want to be ‘sympathetic’. I don’t want f***ing sympathy, Troy! I’m an artist! All I want – all I desire – is to be true to my muse! My muse, Troy! My creative imagination, Troy! But how the hell is some grubby, slimy, inconsequential little hack meant to understand a concept as pure and unblemished and lofty as that? Eh?

  F***ing sympathetic?!

  What absolute, bloody b*lls**t!

  [FKN blows his nose, forcefully]

  I mean is Bob Dylan sympathetic, Troy? Is Jerry Lee Lewis sympathetic? Is Little Richard sympathetic? Is Neil Young sympathetic? Is Janis Joplin sympathetic? Is Frank Zappa sympathetic? Is Captain Beefheart sympathetic?

  Well?!

  [Suspenseful pause]

  OF COURSE THEY F***ING AREN’T!

  THEY’RE F***ING ARTISTS FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!! GENIUS DOEN’T DEMAND SYMPATHY, TROY! IT

  DEMANDS RESPECT! RESPECT!!

  UNDERSTAND?!

  [Interlude of quiet panting, enlivened by a small fart]

  And this isn’t even the half of it, Troy!

  I’ve barely scraped the surface, yet!

  Just listen to…

  [Scuffling of piece of paper, throat clearing, re-adoption of nasal whine…]

  ‘Of course he would then invariably go off on one of his typical, ten-minute rants about how Bob Dylan wasn’t ‘sympathetic’ (because he was a poet and therefore didn’t need to be) and I was then obliged to have to try and explain to him – in the kindest possible way – that a couple of novelty hits in the nineties, a catchy nickname, a scandalous private life and a green straw hat do not – I repeat, do not – a Bob Dylan make.

  ‘I mean, if the producers of Britain’s most brilliant and long-running comedy sit-com hadn’t used one of Nebraska’s songs for its theme tune five years ago (and purely out of a sense of irony, to boot!), then that huge American Emo band hadn’t done the dreadful cover version of it which was then promptly snapped up by those tone-deaf film people – he’d be pretty much on his uppers right now and there wouldn’t be a musical career, or an autobiography for that matter!’

  Good GOD, Troy! D’you hear that?! The unbridled cheek of the little c**t! ‘Green straw hat?!’ I haven’t even worn the hat since 1999! I ditched it for the Millennium. I burned it, live, onstage, at that pub in Bedford! The Little Wren died that night – he was immolated that night, Troy, and Frank K. Nebraska arose, phoenix-like, from the ashes (you were there, Troy, as I recall. You had to pay off the fire department).

  A legendary moment in my career, Troy! A critical moment in my career! A turning point! The cuddly and lovable Little Wren – Great Britain’s favourite tabloid cheeky-chappie – commits public seppuku so that the Nietzschean Superman, the sleek, intellectual monolith that is Frank K. Nebraska, can finally come bursting into life!

  Yet how many pages does this astonishing turn of events warrant in the book, Troy? How many?! Three! Three piddling pages! Pole gives at least as many pages to that insignificant episode at The Royal Variety Performance where I was arrested and sectioned for trying to hand the Queen a secret message about f***ing radishes! It was a message about radishes, Troy! Utterly insignificant! Ludicrously over-mediated at the time! Has no bearing at all on my creative output! In fact I actively avoided mentioning the stupid interlude in our discussions because I didn’t want it featuring too prominently in the book.

  And for the record – the hat wasn’t f***ing straw, it was felt! It was f***ing felt! A felt hat! My infamous green felt hat, for f**k’s sake! And the arrogant slime-ball calls himself a ‘professional’?!

  Huh?!

  [Yet more nasal whine] ‘I also told him that there needed to be a sense that the subject of the book had been on a “journey” of some kind (a cliché, I know, but the arc of the narrative usually demands it), and that his “experiences” had taught him something valuable – about both himself and the world he inhabits. Unfortunately, in the case of Mr Nebraska, they hadn’t, so once again I was obliged to…’

  A journey, Troy! The little pri*k wants a journey? I’ll give him a f***ing journey all right! I’ll give him a swift kick up the arse all the way down to his local Accident and Emergency! That’s what I’ll give him! I’ll give his winking anus a journey it’ll never forget into deepest recesses of his strangulated throat!

  [FKN readopts nasal voice]

  ‘One of the major problems with our sessions was that Mr Nebraska cancelled most of them, and refused to reschedule, preferring to tape his “recollections” on that infernal malfunctioning Dictaphone of his, which seems to record his voice at twice the normal speed and makes any benighted soul lumbered with the task of deciphering it feel like they’re listening to the hyperactive rantings of a foul-mouthed, deeply demonic Pinky or Perky…’

  [This is absolutely true, Sergeant Everill – H.G.]

  What guff, Troy! What arrant, f***ing bull***t! Is the fool on acid or something?! Is he hallucinating?! Something wrong with my Dictaphone?

  Boll**ks!

  He was just smarting, because by deftly employing my handy Dictaphone I cunningly redirected the course of the narrative! I excluded him from the creative process! His fragile ego simply couldn’t handle it!

  [FKN commences reading again]

  ‘A major downside of Mr Nebraska’s refusal to see me in person – and answer my many questions about his life – was the fact that it allowed him to avoid interrogating his past (his “history”) with anything amounting to a critical – or dispassionate – eye. This rendered him wholly incapable of seeing any of the situations in his car crash of a personal life from any other perspective apart from his own. To “bulk out” the details of these segments of his life (the “missing years” between 1989 and 1996 being a case in point) I was often obliged to mine other sources.

  ‘Mr Nebraska has that rare and wonderful ability to be completely self-involved and yet not remotely self-aware (quite incredible, really, when you consider how many idle hours he’s frittered away in rehab over the years)
…’

  [Long pause]

  So that’s how he came up with the section about my mother’s early vaudeville career, Troy! And the whole chapter about the cottage in Aylesbury I shared with Luella! I wondered how he managed to get all that detail about the blue Dalton crockery she kept arranged on her old dresser… I thought he’d just made it up and struck lucky!

  God! The little sneak actually spoke to Luella?

  Well, no wonder I’m so nice about the thieving cow in the book!

  Now it all makes sense!

  How many other of my exes did he buddy-up to?

  [Shocked pause]

  Holy f**k! He contacted Mel! He visited the asylum! That’s how he knew it was a teapot I threw at her when she told me she was up the f***ing duff again in ’89, and not a slice of parkin!

  Christ!

  And all the pointless filler he put in there about my sister’s kleptomania, and how her relentless shoplifting as a kid got us all put into care… And Anthony’s breech birth in the back of my Reliant Robin… And how I originally got the ‘Wren’ moniker from a barman in Llandudno…

  He f***ing researched all this rubbish behind my back?! Without even telling me?! The sneaky, conniving, two-faced, little c**t! I knew it! I knew he couldn’t be trusted, Troy! My instincts were right all along! My instincts were spot-on!

  I mean I told you how I didn’t want some jumped-up little nobody, some hack, putting his mark all over my life… [More straining]

  Well, there’s absolutely no question about it, Troy, the whole teapot section will have to go. And anything favourable I say about Luella. We’ve got to delete it. And we’ll need to reinsert all my ideas about astrology and political philosophy. And the stuff he didn’t include about how that thieving b**tard Robbie Williams ripped off my entire act.

  I need to wrest this book back from his filthy clutches, Troy. I need to wrest my f***ing life back – because what remains is all me, it’s mine, by right. It’s the stuff I recited, verbatim, into the Dictaphone. It’s 100 per cent Frank K. 110 per cent Frank K…

  Point of fact: I don’t know why we even hired the little turd, Troy. I mean I effectively wrote the damn thing myself, didn’t I? I am The Little Wren, after all, and The Little Wren is a storyteller… ergo… well, that’s what he does, Troy. That is his gift. That’s what he’s celebrated for, what he’s loved for: he tells stories. He weaves stories…