by Kim Newman
For a moment, he thought the Echo hadn’t printed his letter. Then, crammed between a stack of ads for lawnmowers and fanbelts, he found it. Headlined ‘I’m Not Crap, Author Writes’, his letter was reduced to ‘Dear Sir, while Gary Gaunt is entitled to his opinion of my novel Ken Sington (Real Press, £17.99), I should like to point out it has been enjoyed by many. Sincerely, Michael Dixon.’ His original had been three pages of close argument.
‘Our Reviewer replies,’ the paper continued in italics, ‘Bestsellers are a funny breed. Mike (Friend of Basildon) Dixon regularly tops charts but have you met anyone who admitted to reading his books? He sells because he’s on telly, especially around Christmas when people buy books they don’t have to read themselves. As a critic, I did have to read Ken Sington. Anything I do to spare others undue suffering is worthwhile.’
Michael hated being called ‘Mike’.
* * *
Fuming, he prowled through the house. For Christmas, his sister had given the family a set of six ‘unbreakable’ mugs. Now, he decided, was the time to put them to the test.
They bounced cheerily off the tile kitchen floor with no ill effects. He went upstairs and pitched one out of the window, aiming for the wall at the end of the garden. The mug ricocheted intact into Ginny’s roses. Venturing outside, he unlocked the shed and selected tools.
He took out his workbench and, after anchoring its legs with bricks, put a mug in the vice. He spun the handle and the vice exerted its grip. He imagined Gary Gaunt’s albino toad head in it. His wrist hurt, but after as many turns as he could manage the mug still wasn’t cracked. With a hammer, he battered. The handle snapped but the main body of the utensil would not be breached. Blows resounded.
Finally, he took out the heavy firewood axe. He swung it and missed. The blade caromed off the iron lip of the vice. With his second try, he scored a direct hit. The faux unbreakable mug crunched into fragments. He hadn’t even had to use the chainsaw.
If Candace still had the receipt, she could get a refund.
* * *
After five phone calls, he obtained a number for Tom Sharpe. Newspapers, publishers and agents were all willing to help Michael Dixon. It was one of the advantages of being well-known.
As he stabbed out the number, he felt a crescendo of triumph. He was really achieving something. To his frustration, a machine answered. He left a long message, humbly asking Tom to put his thoughts on Ken Sington in a letter and send them to the Basildon Echo to counter vile slanders issued by said nauseating rag. He didn’t assume to put words in the mouth of an accomplished wit, but ventured to suggest a few choice phrases that came to mind.
Though the machine beeped and cut him off before he’d quite finished, he felt satisfied. Gaunt could hardly argue with his idol, Tom Dickens-of-the-Day Sharpe. That should settle his smug little bunny-eyed hash. Yes indeedy. And it’s a big goodnight from Al Bino.
Actually, Sharpe was over-rated. The comparison kept coming up and Michael resented it. If he weren’t a familiar TV face, he’d be reviewed better. If he were just a novelist, he’d be held as at least Sharpe’s equal. The cosy critical community that ruled the literary world had a prejudice against television, a greater prejudice against anything popular or successful. In Britain, they hate people who are too bloody clever. Doing one thing well was bad enough, but doing two or three was showoffy. Liliputian intellects like Gary Gaunt always gathered to pull down giants.
He must press on, show them all up, put them in their place. The next book, Mai DaVale, would show them all.
* * *
After lunch, he turned on the PC. As the disc drive hummed, ideas surged. Prose was backed up, ready to come out. His characters had been waiting in the dark of his head, frozen where he’d left them, eager to get on with their lives. He looked at the last page he’d written. Like Graham Greene, he always left off in the middle of a sentence.
Maybe in this book Colin Dale, world’s greatest loser, should get a job on the Basildon Echo? Perhaps he’d wake up one morning and find his hair turned white overnight?
He chuckled.
Then he had a thought. He exited the novel file and opened one with his letterhead template. He should bang off a reply to the Echo himself. This shouldn’t be dropped. They’d be flattened by Tom Sharpe, but in case Sharpe was out of the country, a backup wouldn’t go amiss. No siree-bob.
It was a delicate thing of wit and bile. Deliberately, he misspelled his nemesis’s name: Gray Gaunt. It sounded better that way. A gray gaunt presence: stifling and deadening, a walking dead thing, hideously ancient and withered. After a few terse sentences, he printed out.
* * *
Having faxed his perfectly polished sting to the Echo, he smashed another supposed unbreakable mug. This time, he set the mug on a flagstone and bashed it with a hammer. China shards sprayed, stinging his legs. The flagstone itself cracked into four irregular pieces. He imagined it was Gary Gaunt’s chalky face.
Back in the house, he left a message on Sally Rhodes’s machine. He wanted to delve further into Gary Gaunt. He sniffed a conspiracy. Behind the grey gauntness was a faceless committee. All those who denied him prizes and accolades were involved. Even the critics who doled out grudging praise probably subscribed. They were lulling him, trying to seduce him with less than he merited in the hope he wouldn’t notice what was being withheld.
They met monthly in a dank dungeon, masked and robed, chortling over their deliberate and malicious suppression of all that was Michael Dixon’s due. He had offended the Great British Mediocracy, and was marked for marginalisation. The worst thing was that they knew he was deserving, brilliant, audacious. By lying consistently, they created the fiction that he was derivative, second-rate, competent. It was all envy, poisonous bile chewing at their white livers. The public was stupid: if enough reviewers told them tea was coffee, they’d believe it.
How many times had he shook hands with members of the Gray Gaunt Conspiracy? How many smiles concealed razor-edged malice and murderous glee?
It couldn’t just be one pathetic nobody. It had to be a national - nay, international - affair. Gray, Gaunt and Ghastly.
There were four mugs left. And the chainsaw was still unused.
* * *
‘Dixon’s here,’ he snarled into the telephone, answering a call.
It was Richard Pierpoint from the BBC, producer of the Colin Dale serial. The last episode would be transmitted next Sunday, and they were planning a testimonial dinner that evening.
‘There’s something the whole cast and crew would like to give you, so keep your diary free.’
He made a space. His peers at least recognised his worth.
‘A car will be sent. It’ll be a bash.’
After chat, he thanked Richard and hung up.
If the Echo ever held a testimonial dinner for Gary Gaunt, it’d be with takeout from the local chippie and cans of perished lager.
He spared the remaining mugs and returned to the word processor.
In the book, Ken Sington was receiving an award for saving Mai Da Vale from an escaped tiger. Actually, Colin Dale had rescued the girl, but, as usual, Ken took credit for Colin’s efforts.
Everybody misunderstood the series, so he planned an explicit passage. The reason Ken prospered while his friend foundered was that he was more deserving; his amorality and charm were at least honest, his eye for opportunity marked him as a survivor. Colin was so hung up on what others thought, so timid and meek in a disgustingly British manner. He represented every whingeing thing Michael detested about Britain. At the end, Mai would marry Ken. In his Best Man speech, Colin would acknowledge he had lost to the real best man. The Mediocracy would be cast down and shat upon.
Colin was scoring high in the TV ratings. Richard was already well into pre-production on Ken and talking as if Mai was a sure thing. The gray gaunts could do nothing to inhibit the steamroller of genius.
His agent called to report several hard film offers for the first two
books. The scripts would be altered for Hollywood, set in New York rather than London. Less dialogue and more physical comedy.
‘We’re holding out until Eddie Murphy’s people get back to us.’
The news warmed him. He returned to the screen. The award scene continued. At best, it really was as if books wrote themselves. For a moment, he forgot the name of the tiger. He’d have to look back and check. A print-out was on his desk somewhere. He lifted the Echo and something hooked his eye.
In a box on the back page called ‘Snippets’, listing which famous people were born today and other trivial facts, was a snide item. ‘Has anyone else noticed Michael (My Heart Belongs to Basildon) Dixon is so busy counting profits that he’s been getting sloppy? In Colin Dale, his character Ken Sington is clearly described as green-eyed, but in the sequel Ken Sington, Ken’s eyes have mysteriously turned blue-grey. Tut Tut.’
The ‘Snippets’ column was unsigned. But that didn’t fool him. The compiler could only be Gary Gaunt.
Rage boiled. He turned his attention to the WP and exited the current file. Accidentally, he punched ‘Abandon Edit’ rather than ‘Finish Edit, losing the work he’d done in the last hour. It didn’t matter. He was bleeding from a mental wound. He’d have to return fire. Immediately.
* * *
It was not medically impossible for eye-colouring to change spontaneously, he thought. He had no reference books to hand and the high-street optician he telephoned with the query rang off in rude bewilderment. He looked up a Harley Street eye specialist but when he made it clear to a secretary that he wasn’t booking an expensive consultation, he was put on hold and played light classical music.
After hanging up, he calmed down. With amusement, he realised he’d been tricked. He’d believed something he read in the Basildon Echo. Even Colin Dale wasn’t that gullible.
Such a major howler could not escape the team of loyal copyeditors at Real Press. Pippa, Mark’s girlfriend, had been through both manuscripts and come up with a list of minor queries. Most had been useless quibbles which he ignored, but at least she was paying attention.
He took down hardback first editions of both books. Paging through Colin, he sought out references to the colour of Ken’s eyes. On page eighty-seven, ‘Ken’s glance flashed green’. Turning to Ken, he found a passage on page 308 mentioning ‘the steely grey flecks in Ken’s piercing azure orbs’.
He thought of his chainsaw and the remaining mugs, but that was a distraction.
* * *
Forcing himself to be cool, he considered options. Perhaps he could drop in Mai a reference to an unprecedented medical phenomenon. It had little to do with the story, but was the sort of bizarre thing that happened in his books. It would balance Colin’s turning albino if Ken miraculously grew handsomer. But why hadn’t it been mentioned in Ken? If it had already happened, why wasn’t it already explained in detail? Why, why, why?
He called Pippa but she wasn’t in the office today. He called her at home but got Mark’s answering machine.
A headache started in his temples and spread through the rest of his skull.
Somewhere, an albino was laughing. His terrible chortles resounded through the vaults. Mockingly, Gary Gaunt sang ‘Don’t It Make My Pink Eyes Green?’
Michael could alter the blue-grey eyes to green in the paperback of the second book, but the first edition hardback would never disappear from library shelves.
Pain settled in the back of his neck. His own eyes ached, and he saw dancing red dots.
He returned to the novels and reread. On page eighty-seven of Colin, Ken was being seduced by Barbi Can, the saintly social worker Colin idolised in silence. Under Ken’s influence, she turned out to be somewhat less saintly than Colin believed. It was a funny scene, badly muffed in the TV version. Josie Lawrence was all wrong for the part.
It occurred to him that the phrase ‘Ken’s glance flashed green’ was ambiguous. It mightn’t refer to his eye colour, but simply mean he gave a ‘go’ signal, like a traffic light, to Barbi. He practised an expression, using his screen as a mirror. A slight narrowing of the eyes, a tiny downward look and an almost subliminal nod: that could easily be a non-verbal green light.
It wasn’t ambiguous. It was obviously what he had meant. He remembered now, with a clarity that made him angry with himself for ever having forgotten, for ever having succumbed to the wiles of the gray gaunts. Ken’s eyes had been blue-grey from the very first. It was established, he was sure. He formulated another blistering fax and printed it out. He would make the pestilential Echo print a grovelling retraction or else sue the shitbags into the Stone Age.
5
15 JANUARY, 1993
It was hard to believe this was the Mark Amphlett she’d last seen secure in his Soho office. The face was the same but something was broken. A weekend in the cells will do that.
After formally identifying the prisoner and signing him out on her recognisance, she escorted him out into the street. The police would be in touch if charges were preferred. Had he done anything for which he could be prosecuted? In Cardinal Wolsey Street, the Deal had seemed on a level so far beyond human law as to be actionable only in terms of forces of nature or destiny.
They were in Tottenham Lane, a nebulous area between Hornsey and Crouch End. A prosaic, remote location; it could have been a street in any provincial town. An off-licence, a gone-out-of-business video shop, fish and chips, a bicycle business. Only a passing red bus identified it as London.
Mark blinked in the cold daylight. He had an earthworm pallor and his unshaven face was grimy. He held his belt and bootlaces but had no idea how to put them on. His loose shoes flopped as he walked down the steps.
‘I’m here against my better judgement,’ she told him.
She was lying. When the policewoman called and asked her to collect him, she hadn’t hesitated. Knowing what she knew, she needed to look him in the face again.
‘It wouldn’t break my heart to leave you in prison.’
In her imagination, she delivered a stinging speech, puncturing his inhumanity, stripping him of his hypocrisy. At the end, he was left skinless and sobbing in the gutter.
Only this morning he was too pitiful. The spine had gone out of him, leaving a dizzy, lost soul. Nothing she could say would make things worse. Just as nothing she could say to Neil would make things better.
‘I’m giving notice. As of now, I don’t work for your Quorum. You can pay me for what I’ve done or not. It doesn’t matter. The two grand I’m keeping. You specified non-returnable, so I’m not returning it.’
He shook his head as if he didn’t believe her. She thought he hadn’t heard. At this moment, he looked like the one who had been sacrificed.
‘Understand?’
She should leave him to make his own way home. Only he didn’t have any money. The WPC with his paperwork told her he claimed his wallet had been stolen. He had car keys but must have parked miles away. It was possible his car had been clamped or towed away over the weekend.
Mark was breathing slowly, tasting freedom. He slid his belt through the hoops of his jeans and did up the buckle.
Putting pieces together, Sally realised Mark had been in Cranley Gardens when everything went up in flames. She’d concentrated so much on the screwdriver in the corner of her eye that she missed a lot. Saturday seemed as long ago for her as it must for him. Over the weekend, they’d both been forced to reassess their relationship to the real world.
‘Leech told me about your Deal,’ she said.
‘The Deal?’ He shook his head, disbelieving.
‘You bastards.’
With his hair untidy, his premature baldness was more obvious. If he had a hat, he’d lost it days ago.
‘Sally?’
He looked at her forehead. His eyes were empty. They had almost no colour.
‘Thank you,’ he said at last.
She wished there were villains and heroes. This ambiguity was confusing and hurtful. Leech said
it could as easily have been Mark as Neil. Would she then be working up warmth for Mark the victim and despising Neil the monster?
In this picture, who exactly is the victim?
He reached out and let his hands fall lightly on her shoulders. She flinched. His touch was cold through the wool of her cardigan and the cotton of her shirt. He might have been about to collapse but she didn’t put her hands on his hips or ribs to hold him up.
‘Sally?’
‘Are you ill?’
He shook his head but it was hard not to think he meant yes. His eyes wouldn’t focus.
‘I’m cold,’ he said.
Her back was against the brickwork of the police station. He lightly pinned her there. She cringed, holding her body away from his. Looking down, she saw his belt was threaded backwards and upside-down.
If she bunched her fingers into a point and jabbed him below the adam’s apple, he’d leave her alone.
‘Cold.’
She couldn’t give him sympathy. Not after what she knew. Not after what he had made of Neil’s life. Yet something invisible was leaking out of Mark. He’d been as seriously hurt by the Deal as Neil. It was possible the others suffered too.
Leech had sold them all ashes.
Mark was on the point of crumpling. His body bent sideways and his head loomed close to her face. Her jaw and neck muscles contracted, as if threatened with an injection. Cold lips brushed hers. She kept her mouth firmly shut and her eyes wide open, wishing him away.
He withdrew and turned his back. His shoulders were shaking. When he couldn’t see, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She hadn’t worn lipstick. A strange taste was in her mouth. Sweet and sour. She tried to lick it out onto the back of her hand.
Mark’s head was hung, almost below the level of his shoulders. His scarf fell away loose from the back of his neck. She saw his hackles, once neatly shaved and now stubbled. There was a point she could strike which would cut his strings and drop him on the pavement.
