‘Role play, Douglas, role play. Who’s been giving you advice? Not Sonya, I sincerely hope. Delightful girl though she is – to look at, anyway – she wouldn’t know a potential bestseller if it bit her ankles.’
‘No, not Sonya. Do you want to hear an outline of the story or not?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Well, it’s about a man who goes on a journey. He is sent to a place he’s never been before, on a mission which looks straightforward enough, but unexpected things happen to him along the way. You wouldn’t know this from the opening, though, because everything seems so normal. In the opening scene this fellow is sitting on a bus, thinking about the fact that it’s his birthday and he doesn’t care and neither does anybody else. He’s having a kind of existential crisis, haunted by doubts about whether there’s any purpose to life and so forth. He’s male and middle-aged, which is what has triggered these morbid thoughts. He realises that he has less time left than he’s already used up. His immortality warranty is about to expire. You get the picture. Anyway –’
Ollie raises a hand like a policeman on point duty. ‘Hold it there.’
‘What?’
‘What was that thing you mentioned just then?’
‘His immortality warranty.’
‘Right you are.’
‘Anyway –’
‘Sorry to interrupt you in mid-flow, but it all sounds quite Kafkaesque.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s not a compliment, it’s a nightmare. Did you say this all takes place on a bus?’
‘That’s correct. A number 11 Lothian bus, as it happens.’
‘Oh dear God, no. You’re off entirely on the wrong foot.’
‘How so?’
‘A middle-aged man on a bus, having morbid thoughts about his birthday? How many pages does this go on for?’
‘Quite a few. I know when you put it like that it doesn’t sound –’
‘Quite a few? You mean more than one? What’s keeping him there? Has he committed a crime? Robbed a bank, perhaps? He’s given the police the slip for the time being but he has this sack full of money and now he’s sweating over what his next move is going to be – is that it? Or is he a good guy on the run, and if so who’s after him? Is there a bomb on the bus? Has he put it there and now can’t get off because his foot has become trapped under the seat in front? That would be something to worry about. What’s happening, Douglas?’
‘Actually the bus is stuck in traffic and it’s going to make him late for a funeral.’
‘Aha!’ Ollie strikes his forehead with his fist. ‘I see where this is coming from. You’ve fallen for that old trap set by teachers with no imagination: “Write about what you know.” This isn’t fiction, Douglas, this is autobiography disguised as fiction. Quite different.’
‘Some would say that’s what fiction mostly is.’
‘Well, they’re idiots. Fiction is heroes and villains, explosions and car chases, and sex in high places – aeroplanes and the Oval Office, that is, not trees.’
‘Oh, like Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope?’
‘I’ll ignore that. Fiction is the places most of us never get to go, the things we only ever dream of doing. It isn’t sitting on a bus feeling miserable about the ageing process.’
‘That’s your view. Somebody else would say the precise opposite, and that if I go along the populist lines you’re describing I’ll be a laughing stock.’
‘Well, you’ll never please a snob.’
‘Who’s a snob?’
‘You tell me. This fount of wisdom you’ve been consulting.’
‘I’ve not been consulting anyone.’
‘Protecting your sources, eh? Well, whoever they are, they sound like they’ve got a ramrod up their respectable arsehole. It’s up to you, of course, whose advice you follow, but I’d have thought the views of a dear old colleague such as I might count for something.’
‘Erstwhile.’ I am not expecting this. It pops out by accident, and not a drop of Glen Gloming in sight.
‘What’s that?’
‘Worthwhile. Your views are. Very much appreciated. What I still don’t understand is why you’re interested now.’
‘I just want to help,’ he says, demolishing another digestive. ‘What strikes me most about your protagonist is his banality. He needs livening up. As you’ve just admitted, you’re harbouring a misconception as to what this fiction game is all about. Autobiography in disguise, I think was how you put it.’
‘No, that’s how you put it.’
‘Well, let’s not split hairs over who said what. Now listen carefully, and don’t take this the wrong way. As a fellow human being, Douglas, you’re one of my favourites, and I’m seldom happier than when in your company, but – how can I put this? – you don’t exactly fill a room with your presence when you walk into it. An author whose preferred mode of existence is loitering in the wings can’t just take his own personality, dump it centre-stage in a false beard and expect it to sparkle. And an author is what you’re aspiring to be, isn’t it? Your readers are going to see the failings of this character straightaway, and they won’t sympathise with him, they’ll despise him. Whereas if you have someone with a bit of panache as your main attraction, someone who thrills the readers, keeps them guessing as he leaps from one sentence to the next, someone larger than life who’s roaring drunk one minute, single-handedly foiling an international consortium of arms dealers the next, then rushing off on his bike to rescue some children from a burning building –’
‘Ollie?’
‘It is I.’
‘You want to be in my novel, don’t you?’
‘What? Why would I want to be in a novel? I despise modern fiction. My life is overflowing with excitement as it is. Mhairi keeps begging me to ease off on the high achieving. Less is more, Ollie, she says. Only this morning she was warning that if I didn’t pace myself I’d burst. “You big balloon” – those were her very words. However, if you thought there might be mileage in using me as some kind of model for your hero I’m not going to stand in the way of your art. I won’t sue you for libel or plagiarism – not unless you say something really offensive. I won’t even object if you give him my name.’
‘Oh, that’s a relief. For a moment there I thought I would have to come up with something original. Any other reason for your visit this morning?’ I am, it is fair to say, a little pissed off with Ollie.
‘Loyalty, Douglas, loyalty, which I’m sorry to say seems to be in short supply on your side of the relationship.’ Somehow he manages to say this in an Ollie-like way that I don’t find offensive. There is a twinkle or a strobe effect or something happening in his eye. ‘Actually, there is something else. Has John Liffield been in touch with you about your interview with La Munlochy?’
‘Not since I saw him, no. Why?’
‘He said that he forgot to discuss pictures with you. He can’t afford to send a photographer all that way, so would you ask for a couple of historic images of her – as an MP or author or local laird or whatever. If nothing doing, take a few snaps with your phone and we’ll do what we can with them. How antique is your phone?’
‘I believe it can take photos, but I’ve never tried it.’
‘Well, see what you can get from her or her minders.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. Liffield said if I happened to bump into you to mention how essential it is to get a particular bit of information out of her. In the course of a comprehensive, in-depth, wide-ranging review of her life and achievements, you’ve to find out how she voted in the referendum.’
‘Liffield said that?’
‘Absolutely. And I was to make sure you understood it before you headed off into the wilderness. If I happened to bump into you. Which I have now done.’
‘That’s not what he said when he offered me the work. He said that was all over. The referendum was history and he wasn’t interested in whether someone had voted Yes or No.’
&nb
sp; ‘Well, don’t shoot the message-boy. That was Thursday. Things move fast in the media world, you know.’
‘I’ll need to check with him.’
‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘It’s not that. For a start, Mrs Munlochy might not be willing to tell me.’
‘Why wouldn’t she?’
‘Sanctity of the secret ballot?’
‘Your arse. What’s she got to lose? She’s ninety-nine, isn’t she? It’s hardly going to damage her reputation if she lets the cat out of the bag now, since she doesn’t appear to have one. A reputation, I mean, not a cat. She might have a cat.’
‘Do you reckon in today’s Scotland the way you voted in the referendum can do you reputational damage?’
‘Good question. Let’s examine it. Being pro-independence used to be fruitcake territory, but now it’s mainstream. It’s about public perception, isn’t it? How will Rosalind Munlochy want people to think she voted? Suppose she voted Yes. That makes her a gallant loser, a proud Scot dignified in defeat. Then again, suppose she voted No. She’s on the winning side. No harm in that. Hanoverian pragmatism wins out over Jacobite romanticism. On the other hand, it’s a bit shameful, isn’t it, voting against your own country’s freedom. It’s like being a Scottish soldier on the government side at Culloden: you’ve come through the battle alive and intact, for which you are mightily grateful, but then you’re ordered to bayonet the wounded. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth, quite apart from blood on the bayonet. So why would she admit to voting No at her age, and with her political past? She wouldn’t. Even if she did vote No, she’ll tell you she voted Yes. That way she gets the right pragmatic result but can still bask in the glory of her own romantic sunset. The only scenario I can’t envisage is if she voted Yes but lies to you that she voted No. Nothing to be gained there, as far as I can see. On balance, then, it’s almost a certainty she’ll say she voted Yes. So, since we already know the answer, where’s the difficulty in asking her?’
‘It’s not what I was asked to do.’
‘You’re a journalist. You have to seize the opportunity. It’s not as if anybody’s being coy about how they voted. I voted Yes, but then where I come from we don’t have any of your Caledonian hang-ups about separation from England.’
‘You’re from Ireland, for God’s sake.’
‘Yes, but there’s Ireland and then there’s Ireland. Anyway, I’m from Dublin, which is different again. My point is, Grant voted Yes. Roy voted No. We’re all still the best of chums. How did you vote?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘What?’ Ollie looks genuinely surprised. ‘You’re not going to tell me?’
‘Maybe I’m coy.’
‘Dougie, this is Ollie, your old mucker.’
‘Like you said, I’m a journalist, after a fashion. I’ll certainly be a journalist when I do the Munlochy interview. It’s not appropriate to say how I voted.’
‘Not appropriate? Bollocks. You don’t have to tell her, but you can tell me.’
‘Why? Maybe I want to keep my opinion to myself. Maybe, being the writer, I’m the best judge of how to write this thing.’
This is not meant to be a dig at Ollie’s critique of my novel, but it sounds like one, even to me. Our stares meet and grapple for a few seconds, then he drops his.
‘Can’t force it out of you,’ he says. He looks hurt, and falls into silence, reaching for the last of the biscuits to ease his troubled soul. That’s the whole packet he’s gone through. I don’t think he even realises it. Yet I’m the one who feels guilty.
The thing about Ollie is, you can’t keep him down for long. His vision drifts around the kitchen and settles on the bowel-screening kit and accompanying literature on the worktop. He stretches for it with glee.
‘Ah, you’ve joined the dreaded catch-your-own-crap club.’ He sifts through the instructions and finds the sheet of six cardboard sticks. ‘But I see you’ve not started the test yet.’
‘No, I thought I’d wait till I get back from Argyll. Looks like it might be easier in the sanctity of your own bathroom.’
‘No question. My second test came round just a few weeks ago. They ask you to do one every two years, did you know that? I tell you what, it doesn’t get any easier. The whole concept is totally counter-intuitive. All those years of potty-training and toilet-flushing and then in your fifties they say, forget all that, put your hand under your arsehole and shite in it. I know they also tell you to fold up some toilet paper and catch it with that but it’s the principle of the thing. Then you’ve got to dabble about in it with a stick. It’s unnatural.’
‘You’re not making it sound easy.’
‘It isn’t easy.’
‘The leaflet says it is. “Quick and easy,” it says.’
‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it? Tell me what animal in its normal habitat behaves like that? The only time I ever saw that trick was when I took the kids to the zoo once, and the chimps were at it, but they had a purpose, which was to chuck their doings at us to show what they thought about being locked up and gawped at. A kind of dirty protest.’
Sounding a bit like a public-information announcement on the telly, I remind him that the purpose of the bowel-screening test is to detect early-stage cancer.
‘Yeah, well. You can line up all the rational arguments you like but none of them trumps basic human instinct. I just couldn’t do it the first time, especially with the size of my arse. I find it hard to get round to physically. Even when I thought everything was in place and I was ready to release, my sphincter muscles went into protest and clammed up. Not natural, you see? I would have given up but Mhairi kept on at me. “You have to do it,” she says, like it was a civic responsibility. I must have been on holiday at the time because I was in the house a lot and she was out at work. One morning I look out and here’s this giant Alsatian dog having a steaming crap on our garden path. I bang on the window and he gives me this challenging look back and carries on, coils and coils of it, so I go out to the doorstep and ask him to take his business elsewhere, in fact I don’t ask him, I tell him in no uncertain terms and what does the bastard do? He growls at me. So I says, “Don’t you fucking growl at me,” and the dog says, as he squeezes out a final question mark, “Right, so what the fuck are you going to do about it?” and I think to myself –’
‘The dog said that?’
‘In a manner of speaking. That was when I had my idea. I waited till he’d buggered off, then went and got the testing kit and took a couple of samples before I cleared his mess away.’
‘You put dog crap on your bowel-testing kit?’
‘Well, I was desperate, and Mhairi was nagging me, and it was such a relief to have Day One ticked off. The next morning when I go outside there’s another enormous load sitting on the path, which had the same features and which I therefore concluded had come from the same Alsatian. I don’t know what he was eating but he wasn’t going hungry, that’s for sure. So I go back for the gear and collect Day Two’s samples. On the third morning I’m waiting for him, and sure enough the Alsatian turns up and leaves me my third lot of samples. He thinks he’s insulting me but in fact he’s saving my life. So I date and seal the kit and stick it in the envelope and post it, and that’s me done. Funny thing is, I’ve never seen that dog again from that day to this. Sometimes I think he must have been an apparition or a miracle or something.’
‘Jesus, Ollie, that was totally irresponsible.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Ollie says. ‘No lead, no muzzle, and he looked like he could tear your leg off in a moment. The owner should have got a hefty fine at least.’
I give him a look. He gives me a sheepish one back.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he says. ‘So ask me what happened when the test results came back.’
‘What happened when the test results came back, Ollie?’
‘Well, two envelopes arrived on the same day about a week later. One was a letter and the other was a little Jiffy bag. The letter said
there seemed to be some problem with my samples and they’d like me to do the test again. I put that in the bin. The letter, I mean. In fact I burned it so Mhairi wouldn’t find it.’
‘And what was in the Jiffy bag?’
‘A bottle of de-worming tablets.’
‘What did you do with them?’
‘I flushed them down the toilet. What the fuck was I supposed to do with them? We don’t have a dog,’ Ollie says, and he starts laughing, and I can’t help joining in. I really haven’t a clue whether he’s been telling me the truth or not – anything is possible in the world of Oliver Brendan Buckthorn.
‘The thing is, though,’ he says, getting serious again, ‘Mhairi thought I’d done the test, so when it came round again this year I couldn’t get out of it. I just had to knuckle down and do it properly. That was about a month ago, and would you believe it, they sent me a repeat test. Nothing to worry about at this stage, they said, but they’d found blood traces, so could I do it again? It was like I was getting punished for fucking them about the first time. So I did it, and now I’m waiting, and what I’m saying to you, Douglas, is – do the shite and do it right. Because you never know.’
From having been irritated five minutes earlier, suddenly I am concerned for him. ‘Are you okay? Do you feel well?’
‘I don’t feel any different than usual, but that’s the point, isn’t it? How would you know? This way, if there’s anything wrong, they find out early. Do the test, my man, that’s what I’m telling you.’
He scrabbles about in the packaging for another biscuit, without success. Then he stands up, towering over me, and adopts a quavery, Mr Chips kind of voice.
‘Well, Elder, I’m glad we had this little chat. I hope you’ll bear in mind everything I’ve said. Now I must be getting on – Third Form Latin beckons. And remember’ – he wags a fat finger at me – ‘the three rules of good literature: write about something of which you are utterly ignorant, don’t split your infinitives and, most importantly, no self-abuse after lights out!’
To Be Continued Page 16
