Please

by Peter Wild

  ‘I love you anyway,’ he says–the perfect and only thing he can say.

  And, as she sits there, the green sleeve of her sweater still unreeving, she is schooled in an old lesson she had long ago forgotten: how it is with such simple words love finds us, finds us in spite of our calculations and unswerving devotion to childhood myths. Finds us and splits us wide open along our fault lines. Finds us and asks us to make allowances for those faults and failings, unsmoothed edges, to find beauty in the imperfection and call it love.

  This Charming Man

  Mike Gayle

  Relatively speaking, I was late to the Smiths. Most people had been into them for years by the time I purchased the tape of Hatful of Hollow from Woolworths in Bearwood in Smethwick back in 1987 at the age of sixteen. A few months later they split up. The two events were not connected. Question is why did I buy Hatful over the other album I really wanted at the time (Whitney Houston by Whitney Houston)? The answer, of course, is because as undoubtedly great as ‘The Greatest Love of All’ was, ‘This Charming Man’ completely knocked the spots off it.

  The launch party for my debut novel This Charming Man is being held on the top-floor bar at Soho House. I arrived at just after 7 p.m. with Ashley and, when I gave my name at the reception, the girl behind the desk gave me a little smile of recognition and said, ‘So you’re the Keith Richards.’ How am I supposed to answer a question like that? In my head I wasn’t the Keith Richards. I was just plain and simple old Keith Richards (albeit a plain and simple Keith Richards wearing a very expensive black Kenzo suit and a matching shirt that I’d bought from the Bond Street branch of Gucci only three hours earlier). In the end I decide the best thing to do with a question like that is just to smile awkwardly and give the impression that I’m acutely embarrassed, which was easy as that was exactly how I felt.

  ‘This is too weird even for me,’ says Ashley, my hot new publishing girlfriend, as we walk hand in hand up the stairs towards the top bar. ‘You do realise that you’re famous?’

  ‘I’m not famous. I think notorious would be the better word. It’s not genuine fame. It’s more like being flavour of the month.’

  ‘Well, flavour of the month or not, I think you should brace yourself for a few ladies trying it on with you tonight.’

  It hadn’t actually occurred to me that any of what had happened would make the slightest difference to how women saw me. It hadn’t made the slightest difference to the women who frequented The Griffin or The Cross Keys; it had made no difference to any of the women at my local gym; and it certainly hadn’t made any difference to the women on the check-out at my local supermarket. But it does make a lot of difference here in the media world–a world that right now I pretty much own. I pause for a moment and ask myself the question we all ask ourselves sometimes: do I have any regrets?

  How I got here is a long story. It started on a Monday morning. Just before ten. Standing in front of me were Mr Blake and Ms Fowler, a couple in their late teens, and their sixth-month-old baby girl, Kayla. They were really nice kids and, as usual, we were doing our utmost to make their already miserable lives just that little bit more miserable. They wanted to know when their new bathroom was going to be installed as apparently they’d been promised it would happen four months ago and they had been waiting patiently ever since. I asked them what was wrong with the old bathroom but it would’ve been quicker to have asked what was right with the old bathroom, to which they could’ve answered succinctly: nothing. Everything was cracked or leaked, cold water taps had no pressure, the hot water tap on the sink dripped continually and the toilet could only be flushed if Mr Blake took the lid off the toilet cistern and pushed down the ball cock mechanism with his hand. I promised them that I would call up Maintenance again and also flag up their case on the computer screen as being ‘Very Important’. Mrs Olsen, who was next in line, provided my morning with a brief moment of light relief. She wanted to know whether it was possible to get someone to change the batteries in her front doorbell again because she couldn’t reach the box and still wasn’t allowed to stand on a chair in order to do so in case she had a funny turn again. Last time she told me this story, rather than bother Maintenance (who would never have gone anyway) I popped round to her flat myself and changed the batteries for her. As a thank-you for a job well done, she made me a cup of tea with milk that had long since soured and showed me photos of her family.

  It was pretty much the same all morning. Hopeless cases followed by more hopeless cases and, all the while, there was me suffering from a constant feeling that I wasn’t part of the problem or the solution…I was just there breathing air, shedding skin…wasting space. It occurred to me while I was dealing with my next client, Mrs Anifowose, that what really needed to happen to the housing association in order for us to stop letting people down was for the entire building to be blown up along with everyone in it, including myself. Only then, I concluded as Mrs Anifowose drew her kitchen cockroach infestation story to a close, would the people in power begin to listen. In the meantime, I took down all of Mrs Anifowose’s details and promised her that I would do all I could to sort out the problem.

  Then the phone behind me rang and everything changed.

  I picked up the phone. ‘Starlight Housing Association.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to…’ The speaker paused. They all do when they say my name. ‘…Mr Keith Richards.’

  It was the bank. It had to be. I’d been well over my overdraft limit for months now and had been expecting this call for some time.

  ‘I’m afraid Keith’s not been in for a while,’ I said. ‘I think he’s been a bit ill. Not very well at all. It could be touch and go, so I hear.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘And you say he’s been off for a while?’

  ‘Months.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Well, if that’s—’

  ‘—just that Keith sent me his novel and—’

  ‘—what did you say your name was?’ I knew who it was. I couldn’t believe it. But I knew.

  ‘Christian. Christian Kennedy from JPA.’

  ‘Mr Kennedy. It’s me. I’m Keith. Keith Richards. It’s me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  Christian laughed. ‘Well, I can guarantee that you won’t have to worry about that any more. Because I’ve just finished reading This Charming Man. And I love it.’

  ‘You love it?’

  ‘Yes, I love it. Every single word of it.’

  ‘You love every single word of it?’

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘This isn’t making any sense to me.’

  ‘I’m telling you that I think your book is the best thing I have read all year. It’s funny. It’s got pace. It works on all kinds of different levels. In short, it’s going to be a hit.’ He paused. ‘Here’s the plan. You come to the office. I’ll take you for a drink. Have you been to the Groucho?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Excellent. I’ll take you there, then. We’ll have a few drinks, sign the necessary paperwork and then talk over the changes that need to be made to the manuscript before we can send it out to publishers.’

  ‘I thought you said it was perfect?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So what about the tweaks?’

  ‘Just making the perfect even more perfect.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Also we need to talk about film rights.’

  ‘Film rights?’

  ‘To This Charming Man. The film department is looking at the manuscript as we speak. I’ve told them that I think it’s an absolute winner so, fingers crossed, we could possibly be looking at an option from a producer or a studio by the middle of next week. Have you thought about casting yet?’

  ‘For the film? Are you joking?’

  Christian laughed. ‘OK, we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves here. But, even so, I was thinking it would make a great
little Brit flick in the hands of those guys that made How Soon Is Now.’

  ‘Working Title.’

  ‘Yeah. Those guys. I was thinking maybe someone cool like Ewan McGregor as the hero Danny, then maybe Minnie Driver as the love interest Kate and Jonny Lee Miller as the best friend Adam.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  Christian laughed. It sounded sinister. ‘One thing you should know about me, Keith, is this: I never kid around about anything.’ He laughed again. It was even more sinister than before. ‘So, do you want to sign on the dotted line?’

  I wanted to say now. Right now. I will sign anything you say right now. But I knew I couldn’t. Because I knew I had a problem. A big problem. A huge problem. I needed to check things over with my girlfriend.

  Becky threw down my manuscript on the bed. ‘There’s no way you can publish this.’

  ‘So, it’s as bad as I think it is?’

  Becky nodded. ‘You didn’t even do it very well. Jason in the book is quite clearly Tim. At one point you describe him as being “the tightest man in Britain”.’

  I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘But Tim is the tightest man in Britain.’

  ‘But it doesn’t stop there. You go on about the fact that he’s got a bad breath problem and how his girlfriend always bosses him about.’

  ‘Which is all true.’

  ‘But it’s really unflattering.’

  ‘But he knows that I’m his mate, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Let’s move on to your character “Leon”,’ said Becky without looking at me. ‘It’s Jakey, isn’t it? Do you think that Jakey will mind you referring to him as “an ugly bird magnet” or pointing out that Sarah, his girlfriend, is so ugly she ‘makes small children cry”.’

  ‘It was meant to be funny.’

  ‘Well, let’s not stop there when we have so much farther to go. Next up your character “Mike”, who is quite clearly Graham. In the book you describe him as being so dull “that even his parents cross the road to avoid speaking to him…” Then there’s “Marco”, who you cunningly made half Italian in the book so that people wouldn’t realise it’s Alan, who is half Portuguese.’ Becky shook her head in disbelief. ‘You even gave him a job in computing. Alan works in computing!’ This time it was my turn to shake my head in disbelief. I couldn’t quite believe that I had been so crass as to do this to my friends. At the time it made sense to use them as templates but now it didn’t seem quite so clever. ‘You describe Alan as being on a seafood diet–“He sees food and he has to eat it.” Not only is that the oldest joke in the book but you’re telling the world that Alan has a weight problem.’

  ‘This is terrible,’ I said, wincing. ‘You’re right. I’ve made a huge mistake.’

  ‘Yes you have,’ replied Becky, ‘but before I get to the worst bit you do manage to redeem yourself with the character “Kate”, who works as a dentist in Manchester. You describe her as being “too beautiful for words”, and point out that the hero “Danny” who works for the Heartlands Housing Association doesn’t deserve to have such a wonderful girlfriend.’ Becky paused. ‘Saying all of that, I was surprised to hear that “Danny” had a crush on “Christina”, a barmaid in his local pub.’

  ‘That bit’s completely made up,’ I replied quickly. ‘There is no Christina.’

  ‘I know,’ said Becky. ‘You wouldn’t be in one piece if I thought there was.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she replied. ‘But now I’m getting to the worst bit. Your book’s big finale—’

  ‘—I know what you’re going to say.’

  ‘Well, if you know what I’m going to say didn’t you think for a moment what Phil and Liam–or should I say “Adam” and “Jason”?–would say when they read it? And, of course, let’s not forget the really important person in this triangle: “Stephanie”, aka Steph, aka Liam’s fiancé.’

  ‘I know,’ I replied, not looking at her.

  ‘You keep saying “I know”, Keith, but if you really did know then you wouldn’t have done this, would you? It’s not going to take a genius for Liam to work out who’s who. And when he does he’s going to know that Phil had an affair with his girlfriend when we all went to Amsterdam for your thirtieth.’

  ‘But that was made up,’ I lied.

  ‘Don’t lie,’ said Becky. ‘It’s so obviously not made up. It all makes perfect sense now. Phil was in a funny mood all that weekend and Steph wasn’t herself at all and, ever since, they’ve barely said two words to each other. Which is weird because they used to talk all the time.’

  Becky was right. It was all true. We’d all gone to Amsterdam to celebrate my birthday and stayed in a posh hotel not far from the station. Most of the weekend had been taken up with eating out, seeing the sights, visiting museums and going out in the evening. As far as I was concerned all that had happened was we’d all had a great time–yes, Phil had been a bit moody but I’d barely seen him speak to Steph that weekend, let alone anyone else. The evening after we got back, Phil and I went for a drink at the Cross Keys on our own. I could tell he wasn’t himself and, as his dad had been quite ill of late, I thought he might want to talk about that. So, I asked him straight out whether he was OK. He said no and so I asked, ‘Is it your dad?’ and he said quietly: ‘No. The problem is I slept with Steph.’ It turned out that, unbeknown to any of us, Phil and Steph had had some sort of flirting thing going on between them and, in Amsterdam, things had gone too far. On the Saturday afternoon, Phil had claimed that he was feeling tired and so had gone back to the hotel. Steph, meanwhile, had told Sarah and Becky that she wanted to do some shopping on her own. With their cover stories straight, they met up in Phil’s room where it all happened. Phil was really upset when he told me. He added he regretted it more than anything he’d ever done, especially as he loved not only Liam but all of us like brothers. He asked me what he should do. Whether he should come clean or keep it to himself. ‘What’s done is done,’ I said. ‘Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

  ‘It wasn’t really an affair,’ I said, trying to explain to Becky. ‘It was more of a fling and—’

  ‘—Do you really think that is going to make the slightest difference to Liam?’ snapped Becky. ‘Or, for that matter, Phil? If you publish this book, it’s all guaranteed to kick off like it does in the book. There’s no way that Liam will ever talk to either you or Phil again. And, once it’s all out there, Phil will be so angry with you, I’m not sure he’ll ever forgive you. You were the only person he told about what happened with him and Steph.’

  I found myself about to utter the words ‘I know’, but managed to stop myself before the words left my lips.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ asked Becky. ‘I know how much you care about your mates. I don’t understand why you’d do something like this.’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ I replied. ‘The best I can come up with was that I wasn’t really thinking at all. I was sort of on autopilot. When Christian rejected Bengali in Platforms, he said it was because he didn’t believe in the characters. I think I must have taken that comment to heart. All the novels I started after that were terrible. Which was why I never finished them. I could see what he was saying. I really was terrible with character. So then, when Amsterdam happened, I just got this idea in my head to use it as the basis for a story. I never thought I’d get any farther than a few chapters but, when it started to flow, I just knew that I finally had the right story…’ I paused and thought for a moment. ‘I believed in all the characters and the situations they were in…because I suppose it was about us…well…me…and my mates and the things that were going on in our lives.’

  ‘But that’s because they were things that were going on in your life.’ She paused and handed me back the manuscript. ‘There’s no way you can let your agent sell this book. You’ll just have to call him up and tell him that he won’t be able to send the manuscript out for a while because you’ve got to make a few changes.’

 
‘I can’t do that,’ I replied.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he loves the book as it is. He wants me to make some changes but they’ll be his changes not mine. I know what he’s like.’

  ‘Don’t you understand what’s at stake here?’ asked Becky.

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘There you go with that “I know” stuff again. There’s no point in knowing anything at all if you’re not going to do anything with the information.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Do you think I’m going to go to hell for this?’

  Becky rubbed her eyes and stretched out her arms. ‘Probably.’

  ‘I’ll call Christian first thing in the morning and tell him I need to make some changes.’

  ‘No,’ said Christian. ‘Absolutely not. Every writer’s first novel is based on their friends. It’s just a fact of life. You’ll move on and develop your craft in Book Two.’

  ‘What if they read it?’

  ‘They’ll be flattered.’

  ‘But the portrayals aren’t exactly flattering for some of them.’

  Christian sighed. ‘This happens all the time. I had one of my authors base his whole novel on his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. It wasn’t a flattering portrayal at all. He used real events with an added twist here and there but it was all pretty much as it happened. Do you know what happened to my author?’

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Christian. ‘Nothing happened to him. His ex whined for a while about how she was going to take legal advice and then it all went quiet until last week I received her manuscript in the post. She’s written a novel about her side of the story and I’ve got quite a few people interested in it–but, just to put your mind at ease, with my hand on my heart, I have never heard of anything like this going to court. So. You’ll be fine.’

  ‘It’s not just the legal thing, though. The thing is I could upset quite a few people if this did get published…So I was thinking…How about I take back the manuscript and I change a few things?’