Men from Boys

by John Harvey

‘He says you just laced into him, no reason.’

  ‘There was a reason.’

  ‘Dean,’ the man called back over his shoulder, ‘turn that fuckin’ thing down.’ And then, ‘All right, then, let’s hear it.’

  Kiley told him.

  The man sighed and shook his head. ‘That mouth of his, I’m always telling him it’s going to get him into trouble.’

  ‘I should never have lost my temper. I shouldn’t have hit him.’

  ‘My responsibility, right?’ Dean’s father said. ‘Down to me.’

  Kiley said nothing.

  ‘What you did, maybe knock a bit of sense into him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kiley said, unconvinced.

  ‘There’s nothing else?’

  ‘No.’ Kiley took a step away.

  ‘Tommy Duggan, what happened to him. It was wrong.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now that he’s, you know, you think you might take over the team, the coaching?’

  ‘For a bit, maybe,’ Kiley said. ‘It was Tommy’s thing really, not mine.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s right, I suppose.’

  The door closed and Kiley took the stairs two at a time.

  When he phoned Kate, she began by putting him off, a piece to finish, an early start, but then, hearing something in his voice, she changed her mind. ‘Come round.’

  The first glass of wine she poured, Kiley finished almost before she had started hers.

  ‘If you just wanted to get drunk you could have done that on your own.’

  ‘That’s not what I wanted.’

  He leaned against her and she held him, her breath warm on the back of his neck. ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a waste.’

  ‘It always is.’

  After a while, Kiley said, ‘I keep thinking there was something more I could’ve done.’

  ‘It was his life. His choice. You did what you could.’

  It was quiet. Often at Kate’s there would be music playing but not this evening. From the hiss of tyres on the road outside it had started to rain. At the next coaching session, Kiley thought, he would apologise to Dean again in front of everyone, see if he couldn’t get the lad to acknowledge what he’d said was wrong: start off on a new footing, give themselves a chance.

  THE BOY AND MAN BOOKER

  Reginald Hill

  Boy Ansell awoke, had no idea where he was except that it wasn’t his flat and for a moment felt afraid.

  Then he remembered and joy washed away his fear.

  Cautiously he raised his head from the soft bank of pillows. A slight muzziness, nothing more. It was true what they said, the best champagne leaves little trace of its passage and last night he had drunk nothing but the best.

  He slipped his hand under the pillow. Another moment of panic, then his fingers touched paper. It was there, but he needed to see it. He groped for an unfamiliar light switch. A golden glow touched his surroundings like sunlight. A hotel room. But what a room! You could fit all of his Brighton flat in here. Furnished in the stately home neo-classical style with a sky-blue ceiling from whose lofty rococo cornice gilded cherubim looked down on acres of thick white carpet, it was probably costing his publishers more for one night here than a whole week at the kind of dump they used to put him in.

  But they could do better.

  They would do better now that he had this to wave at them.

  He read the magic words on the piece of paper.

  Pay David Boyd Ansell the sum of fifty thousand pounds . . . for and on behalf of MAN BOOKER . . .

  Fifty thousand. With the kind of sales now in prospect, he could afford to smile at this paltry sum. It would, after all, buy him only five or six months in a room like this. He might even never bother to cash the cheque but keep it framed on his study wall.

  Or better still, cash it but keep a convincing photocopy framed.

  He swung his legs to the floor and viewed himself in a heavy gilt mirror nicely placed to catch the wide expanse of the king-sized bed. No sign that he’d had company last night. Not that it hadn’t been there for the asking, he told himself complacently as he turned his face slowly from left to right profile. Boy David they called him, and even in his mid-thirties his face and figure still retained enough of the youthful perfection of Michelangelo’s statue to justify the sobriquet. So pussy galore on offer. But at some point during all the back-slapping, cheek-pecking, body-hugging, champagne-swilling celebration, he had decided that this was a triumph he wanted to snuggle up with alone.

  Molly had seen him safely back, he dimly recalled. Molly who was so sensitive to all his needs. Molly who, his sensual sensors told him, would not herself be averse to adding the remaining ninety per cent to the ten per cent of him she already had. But never sleep with your agent was the only useful bit of literary advice he’d ever been given.

  Happily no one had ever said anything against sleeping with your agent’s secretary.

  If Toni had been around last night, now that might have been different. Timid little Toni, a real country mouse, still wide-eyed and tremulous at finding herself in the big city, might have seemed an impossible challenge to some. But the Boy’s motto, as he boasted to his intimates, was Vidi, vici, veni. I saw, I conquered, I came. And as soon as he set eyes on this fresh young thing, a mouse in manner but a shapely pussycat in form, he’d known he had to have her.

  It had taken him a mere ninety minutes from the first time he got her alone. Molly had sent her down to Brighton with a bunch of contracts for him to sign. She claimed she’d posted the originals to him weeks back. Well, she might have done. He wasn’t responsible for the vagaries of the postal service. Now his signature was a matter of urgency, so shy little Toni got a day trip to Brighton. Tense at first, she soon relaxed under the glow of his famous charm. He could see she was ripe for plucking. It was in the stars, written there as reliably as a Fascist train timetable, a judgement confirmed when the phone rang and it turned out to be Molly with the news that her Booker mole had just given her the nod that Boy was on the shortlist. Pop! went the bubbly, and not long after, pop! went everything else, and as he put her on to the London train a couple of hours later, he was already looking forward to the next time.

  But there hadn’t been a next time. Enquiring after Toni when he turned up at Molly’s office a couple of days later, he was told that family illness required her presence at home in the Midlands. Then, in the weeks that followed, he’d been swept up in a whirl of pre-Booker publicity, cashing in on being on the shortlist. You had to do it, Molly explained. Literary prizes were a lottery. Being odds-on favourite was no guarantee of success. Indeed, given the self-regarding vanity of some of the plonkers who did the judging, it could be counter-productive!

  But this time they had been unable to resist the overwhelming evidence. In his mind he savoured the chairman’s words once more.

  ‘This was a shortlist of the highest standard. Each of these novels deserves superlative praise. Yet in the end we had no difficulty in choosing our winner. The Accelerant is a profound and moving modern fable. Superficially the story of a sexual predator who claims he never sleeps with any woman unless certain she wants to sleep with him, and who uses that certainty to justify all the short cuts both moral and chemical which he takes, at a deeper level this is a powerful parable of political degeneration, mapping the path from idealistic, altruistic beginnings to ruthless and bloody dictatorship, both in its blatant forms in Africa, the Middle East and South America, and in its subtler manifestations in our own Corridors of Power. Covering four continents and two decades, this is not easy material to deal with. But David Boyd Ansell has such a sharp eye for detail, such a keen ear for nuance, such a fine sense of balance and proportion that he keeps everything under perfect control. Truly here is a writer we can rely on to keep his head while all around are losing theirs . . .’

  And so on, and so on. He’d stifled a small yawn at this point, ironically underlining on all th
e TV close-ups his indifference to such paeans. But oh! how the memory of them warmed his being like the memory of good sex.

  He stood up, made the long journey to the window and drew the heavy damask curtains. Autumn sunlight streamed in, strong enough to make him blink. The view it lit up was undistinguished, anonymous rooftops mainly. But at least he could see a fair chunk of sky. London hotels charged for sky by the square inch.

  A telephone rang. He found it, said, ‘Yes?’

  It was Molly.

  ‘Good morning, Boy,’ she said breezily. ‘Just checking you’re conscious and mobile.’

  Sometimes her breeziness irritated him.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he said. ‘I’ve been up for ages.’

  ‘Excitement kept you awake, eh? That’s good. We need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the press call.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Come on, Boy, wake up, do! At last we’re an overnight success and that means we’ve got a busy day. Conference suite, second floor, 11 a.m. Pics and a few questions from the mob, then an hour for The Times supplement piece. One o’clock we lunch with the Japs. This afternoon, there’s a couple of telly things, then this evening Front Row. I’ll give you a knock at quarter to. Don’t wear that houndstooth shirt, by the way. You may not have time to change after lunch and it can look funny on the box. And dump that grotty leather jacket. We need to show the world that being a successful author doesn’t have to mean dressing like Worzel Gummidge. Bye.’

  She really did go too far sometimes. And what was all this we stuff? Okay, in the five years since he’d used her, his sales had risen steadily, but what real part had she played in his success other than fielding the bids for his books? By rights, all this media crap should be the responsibility of those nice young publicists from his publishers, sexy young Emma, for instance, whom he’d teased to distraction on the last tour. Or roly-poly Clare with the huge knockers from the tour before. Molly needed to be reminded exactly who she was. It wasn’t just a question of responsibilities, it was also a question of manners. He didn’t expect deference, just a modicum of respect. But his appearance on the Man Booker shortlist, far from screwing him up a notch or two in Molly’s estimation, seemed to have been the signal for a marked increase in that offhand deprecatory familiarity which she liked to think of as her trademark. In the past he’d heard her refer to her distinguished client list as my performing fleas. Up till now, like the other fleas, so long as she did the job, he’d opted to grit his teeth and affect amusement. Now, though, he was past all that. Yes, it was time for a serious talk. Or perhaps more than just a talk. There was that flash Yank who’d assured him he could get double his American advance, no sweat, and that was before he’d joined the Booker pantheon. Maybe it was time to part company completely. He pictured doing it over a candle-lit dinner in a room like this. Good food, fine wine, soft music. Then, just as she was relaxing into the certainty of at last enjoying that part of him she’d clearly so long desired, he’d reveal that the only hard and pointed bit of his anatomy she was about to get was the elbow!

  He was brought out of this pleasing fantasy by a gentle tap at the door.

  He went to open it.

  A large trolley stood there. It bore an elegant coffee pot, two plates covered with silver domes, a selection of breakfast cereals, a fresh grapefruit, a basket of croissants, a jug of orange juice, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a vase of orchids. Pushing it was a dark-haired young woman in a fetching black skirt and bolero jacket.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Ansell,’ she said with a smile. ‘Your breakfast.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Did I order this?’

  He couldn’t recall filling in a breakfast card last night. Such trivialities had not been on the agenda.

  ‘Compliments of the management, sir. And may I add my personal congratulations?’

  She pushed the trolley into the room alongside the table in the window bay.

  Then, running what looked like an appreciative eye over his classical features and an even more appreciative one over his pyjama’d torso, she said, ‘Don’t let it get cold, sir. Enjoy your breakfast.’

  And left.

  Nice arse. Reminded him of Toni. Or perhaps it was just association of ideas. They all had nice arses.

  Missed chance there, old son, he told himself. Should have asked her if she’d like to stay and serve me.

  Still, there were other appetites which the smell of the fresh croissants had awoken.

  He seized the handle of one of the silver domes and lifted it.

  To his surprise, instead of the expected bacon, eggs, etc., he found himself looking at a white envelope with his name typed on it.

  He picked it up and tore it open.

  It contained a single sheet of paper.

  He began to read what was typed upon it. After a few moments, he sat down on an elegant chaise longue and began to read again.

  And so at last the Boy Wonder has scrambled to the top of the dung-heap!

  Or to change my metaphor, the croaking frogs have gathered to cast their vote and once again come up with King Log.

  What interests me is, as you listened to that etiolated idiot singing your praises last night – ‘such a sharp eye for detail, such a keen ear for nuance, such a fine sense of balance and proportion. Truly here is a writer we can rely on to keep his head while all around are losing theirs . . .’ – how much of this crap did you believe? One per cent? Ten per cent? Fifty per cent?

  Not all of it?

  Surely even you cannot believe all of it?

  Or if you allowed the intoxication of the occasion to delude you into believing it last night, surely now in the cold light of morning you blush with embarrassment as the words come back to you? Or perhaps laugh with manic glee at the thought of how much wool you have pulled over all those stupid sheep eyes?

  I should like to think so. I should like to believe that you are completely aware that you have done an emperor’s new-clothes job on the baa-ing classes, and that your sharp eye for detail and keen ear for nuance have left you gently amused at the yawning emptiness of it all.

  But somehow I doubt it. I think it would take a very loud explosion indeed to blast such self-awareness into that classical head of yours which resembles Michelangelo’s statue in one respect at least – it’s as hard and dense as marble.

  Talking of large explosions, I assume if you’re reading this, you lifted the larger of the two plate covers first.

  Enjoy your breakfast, Boy.

  For a few seconds indignation overcame all other emotions. Then his gaze went to the breakfast trolley and fastened on the second silver dome.

  ‘Oh shit!’ he said.

  Five seconds later he was running down the corridor. He didn’t stop till he’d put several other rooms and a right angle between himself and his own door. None of the few people he met showed much interest in the rapid passage of a man in pyjamas which said something for the class of guest you still got at an old-fashioned five-star hotel. He came across a cleaner talking into a telephone. He took it off her without apology and barked into it, ‘Security. Get Security to the fifth floor.’ From the look on the woman’s face, he saw that she thought this was a good idea too.

  Half an hour later he was sitting in the manager’s office, wrapped in one of the luxurious bath robes which you would be billed for if you ‘accidentally’ removed it, drinking coffee laced with whisky, when Molly came in, looking anxious. ‘Boy, are you all right? I went up to your room but it’s like a war zone up there. What’s going on?’

  He told her the tale and her thin intelligent face was expressing just the right mixture of concern for his safety and admiration for his sang-froid, which was becoming plus froid with each telling, when the door opened to admit a small man wearing a grey suit and an expression that said I may be tiny but I’m important.

  In his hand he held a transparent plastic bag.

  ‘Mr Ansell,’ he said. ‘Commander
Hewlitt, Special Branch. The bomb squad chaps found this.’

  He held up the bag. It contained a white envelope and a sheet of typewritten paper.

  Boy peered close and said, ‘Yes, that’s it. The letter I told your people about.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Hewlitt. ‘The bomb squad passed that letter straight out to us in case things went wrong and it got destroyed. It’s on its way to the lab now for examination. This letter they found on a plate under the other lid.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Boy, peering once more at the plastic bag. ‘Are you sure there hasn’t been a mistake? It looks like the same letter.’

  ‘It is, sir. Except for one word in the penultimate sentence. Large has become small.’

  Molly got there before he did. ‘You mean, whichever lid Boy lifted first, he was going to find a letter making him think there could be a bomb under the other one?’

  ‘Exactly, madam. The bomb people are checking the rest of the room but I don’t think they’ll find anything. So, a silly time-wasting jape.’

  ‘It didn’t feel like a jape to me!’ said Boy indignantly.

  ‘No, sir. Which is why we take such things seriously. Do you have any idea who might have perpetrated it? I gather from the letter that you won some kind of award last night?’

  ‘Yes, the Man Booker.’

  ‘Man Booker? That would be for a book, then? You are a writer?’

  Molly tried unconvincingly to turn an involuntary guffaw into a fit of coughing.

  He glowered at her and snapped, ‘Yes, I’m a writer.’

  ‘There would be other contestants for this award?’ said Hewlitt. ‘Good losers, would you say? Or might one of them have been disappointed enough to seek a stupid revenge?’

  ‘I shouldn’t imagine so . . .’

  Then he hesitated. Why wouldn’t he imagine so?

  ‘Yes, sir?’ prompted Hewlitt.

  ‘Look, I’m not accusing anyone, you understand. But one of the writers on the shortlist’s an Irishman and you know what they’re like with bombs. Then there’s that gay Australian, I wouldn’t put anything past him. And that little shit from up north, I expect this kind of thing passes for sophisticated humour up in Heckmondwyke.’