Burley Cross Postbox Theft Page 8

  It never ceases to amuse me how little practical information about the caretaking trade is present in your fiction. I suppose I must just accept that this aspect of the narrative is probably more interesting to me than to the average reader because I have so much technical know-how and a personal knowledge of ‘the business’, so to speak.

  This is not to imply that I am a caretaker myself – heavens no! I was lucky enough to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a member of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy where I trained as an electrical engineer. Since leaving the forces I have made an excellent living in the security industry (running a company that manufactures burglar alarms. My son, Nick, has continued this upward gradient and is currently working in astro-physics).

  While I’m about it, I suppose I should make a glancing reference to your latest novel, Fast Track, where failed policewoman turned British Rail Station Manager Hilda Fisher is horrified to find a number of her regular passengers (or ‘customers’) dying in a series of lethal ‘accidents’ and is obliged to step in to stop clod-hopping local detectives (and BR big-wigs and PR gurus) from botching up the investigation.

  I haven’t read the book myself (it’s way out of my ‘comfort zone’), but my wife Moira did after it was selected by her local book group (I think their interest was piqued by the Harrogate setting).

  The novel was systematically ripped to shreds, Moira said, because most of the group (all women) said the female lead ‘thought and behaved just like a stupid man’. I wouldn’t let this get you down, though. Moira said most of them didn’t know what they were talking about, having cast the book aside, in disgust, after only the first chapter.

  On a more personal note, I have long been fascinated by your unusual name. It’s a strange combination of Vespers (evening prayer) and Vespa (the Italian scooter manufacturer). I looked it up recently in my Encyclopedia of Names (I’d been considering giving the name to the hero of my first novel, a reformed sex abuser who has been made sole custodian of a small Romanian boy – I won’t bother you with the backstory, but it’s all perfectly credible – and is then obliged to go on the run with him to keep him from the clutches of a Russian crime syndicate).

  Your name wasn’t actually listed in the encyclopedia (the closest it came to was Vesta – the Roman goddess of the hearth, used in the UK during the 1850s). When I looked in my dictionary, though, it said: Vesper n. [L.] 1. a) orig., evening b) {Poet.} [V-] same as EVENING STAR.

  In the end I decided it was simpler just to call the character William (after my paternal grandfather).

  The aforementioned novel, tentatively entitled Ceaucescu’s Child, is still very much in its infancy, but I am hoping that you might do me the honour of casting your eye over a couple of pages from the opening chapter to see if you think I’m heading in the right direction (also whether the characters and language have the right kind of ‘feel’ to them).

  I have provided you with a brief summary of the plot (above), but do bear in mind that I am planning an extremely shocking and dramatic denouement towards the end which I won’t describe here on the off-chance that you end up using it in your own work (inadvertently, of course!).

  As a ‘famous’ writer I fully understand that you must get pestered with requests like this all the time, and so will appreciate any input or advice you can offer me, however sparse (although the sooner you can manage to get back to me the better; it would be irritating to do too much new work on the rest of the book only to discover that you feel a certain amount of ‘tweaking’ is needed in the early stages. I’m hoping to get the whole thing done before Easter, when Moira and I are heading off to Madeira for a month).

  Wishing you well over the festive season (if you are an adherent of the Christian faith),

  All the Best,

  Matthew Endive

  an exclusive excerpt from

  CEAUCESCU’S CHILD

  BY MATT ENDIVE

  ‘NO WAY, MAN! FUCK YOU, WHITE BOY!! I IS HAD E’NUFF!!’ THE BLACK GUARD SCREAMED.

  WILLIAM LAY ON THE FLOOR, SHIVERING, LOOKING UP INTO THE SEEMINGLY-INFINITE TUNNEL OF HIS TORMENTOR’S RAGE-DISTENDED NOSTRILS. HE WAS DOWN, YES, FOR THE MOMENT, BUT HE KNEW HE WOULD NOT BE BROKEN BY THIS VAINGLORIOUS JAMAICAN THUG – HE COULD NOT BE BROKEN. NOT HERE! NOT NOW! HE HAD COME TOO FAR! HE HAD SUFFERED TOO MUCH!

  AND HE HAD LEARNED – OH YES! THE PRIMITIVE DISCIPLINE AND RANDOM VIOLENCE OF THE CARIBBEAN PENAL SYSTEM HAD SEEN TO THAT! WHAT LITTLE DIGNITY HE’D ONCE POSSESSED WAS NOW VANQUISHED. THE ARROGANT CONFIDENCE AND POLISH HE’D ONCE EXUDED – THOSE INDELIBLE MARKS OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM – HAD BEEN ALL-BUT SCRUBBED AWAY.

  WHEN SOMETIMES HE CHANCED, IN AN IDLE MOMENT, TO PONDER THE ISSUE (LOOKING BACK, SADLY, ON HIS SCHOOL DAYS, AS IF ON A DISTANT DREAM), THE IRONY DIDN’T ESCAPE HIM THAT THE RIGORS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL HAD ESSENTIALLY TRAINED HIM FOR THE DEGRADATION THAT WAS TO FOLLOW. THEY HAD ACTIVELY HELPED – NAY ACCLIMATIZED – HIM, IN POINT OF FACT!

  AFTER ALL, WAS THERE ANY CRUELLER OR MORE MORALLY-CORRUPTING PLACE ON EARTH THAN THE LOFTY INSTITUTION HIS OWN, DEAR PARENTS HAD SO TENDERLY BEQUEATHED HIM TO: ETON [I SHALL ‘MODIFY’ THIS NAME IN THE FINAL TEXT, OBVIOUSLY – TO SOMETHING LIKE‘RENTON’ OR REATON’ TO FORESTALL ANY KIND OF LEGAL REPERCUSSIONS]?

  WASN’T IT HERE THAT HE HAD BEEN TAUGHT – ALONGSIDE ANCIENT GREEK AND CHORAL CHANTS – THAT IT WAS NOT ONLY GOOD, BUT NECESSARY TO FIND PLEASURE IN THE HUMILIATION OF WEAKER AND YOUNGER BOYS? HE’D SEEN THE MASTERS DO IT, OFTEN ENOUGH, AND THEN, ONCE LIGHTS WERE FINALLY OUT ON THE DORM EACH NIGHT… THE HORROR!

  WILLIAM KNEW THAT HE HAD BEEN WEAK. JUST BECAUSE IT HAD HAPPENED TO HIM, THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT RIGHT FOR HIM TO VENT HIS RAGE ON OTHERS… NO. HE SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP AGAINST IT, HE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN A STAND (PER – HAPS EVEN SOLD HIS STORY TO THE PAPERS) BUT HE HADN’T. HE’D JUST ‘GONE WITH THE FLOW,’ AND SOON, WHAT HAD ONCE BEEN JUST AN IDLE AMUSEMENT HAD BECOME SECOND NATURE TO HIM, A DEEPLY-INGRAINED HABIT… ALMOST – HE FLINCHED AT THE THOUGHT – AN INSTINCT!

  WHEN WILLIAM CAST HIS MIND BACK OVER IT, HE REALIZED THAT ALL HE HAD EVER TRULY DESIRED – PERHAPS MORE THAN ANYTHING, EVEN A MOTHER’S LOVE – WAS JUST TO FIT IN. TO FEEL AT HOME. HE WAS AN EMOTIONAL COWARD, YES, BUT THEN HADN’T COUNTLESS GENERATIONS OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS THROUGHOUT BRITISH HISTORY BEEN EXACTLY WHERE HE HAD BEEN, DONE EXACTLY AS HE HAD DONE?

  GLADSTONE? PEEL? DISRAELI? HAD ANYBODY EVER TOLD THEM THAT WHAT THEY WERE DOING WAS SICK AND WRONG? WILLIAM SMILED TO HIMSELF, WRYLY. NO. SOMEHOW, HE SERIOUSLY DOUBTED IT.

  SURE, HE’D BEEN TO HELL AND BACK, BUT THE ONLY PART OF THE JOURNEY HE CARED ABOUT NOW WAS THE RETURN: HE HAD EMERGED FROM THIS HELL-PIT A NEWER AND A STRONGER MAN. YOU MIGHT ALMOST SAY HE’D BEEN STRIPPED CLEAN, PARED TO THE BONE, REDEEMED, NOT BY YEARS OF INDULGENT MOLLY-CODDLING AT THE HANDS OF SOCIAL WORKERS AND PSYCHIATRISTS, BUT DOWN ON THE SKIDS, ‘INNA DA HOOD’, AN UNWILLING GRADUATE OF THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS.

  ‘HANG ON A SECOND…!’ WILLIAM BLINKED – ‘THE GUARD!’ HE TRIED TO REFOCUS, STRUGGLING TO PULL HIMSELF OUT OF HIS SUDDEN REVERIE. ‘I CAN’T PLAY INTO HIS HANDS,’ HE THOUGHT, TURNING TO FACE THE WALL, ‘HE WANTS TO MAKE ME LOSE MY COOL. HE WANTS TO GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO CANCEL MY PAROLE SO THAT I END UP ROTTING TO DEATH IN THIS MISERABLE SHIT-HOLE.’

  HE THOUGHT BACK ON THE TREATMENT HE HAD RECEIVED AT THEIR BEHEST OVER THE SEVEN YEARS HE HAD BEEN INCARCERATED. THEY HAD TRIED TO DESTROY HIM WITH THEIR RACIST JIBES (‘YOU STUPID, WHITE MAGGOT!’ ‘WHITE DONKEY!’ ‘YOU DAMN UGLY WHITE ASS!’) AND HUMILIATING RITUALS: THE MOULD-ENCRUSTED DAILY PORTION OF ‘RICE AN’ BEANS’, THE DEGRADATION OF THE SLOP BUCKET.

  HOW THE HELL HAD HE SURVIVED IT? MORE TO THE POINT – HOW ON GOD’S EARTH HAD HE EVER ENDED UP IN THIS STINKING SEWER IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

  OH YES…’ WILLIAM SMILED, CLOSING HIS EYES FOR A MOMENT, ‘POLLY!’

  HE BRIEFLY REMEMBERED THE SWEET, BLACK-HAIRED GIRL HE HAD LOVED SO DEARLY AS A BOY. HER BROTHER WAS RUPERT, A ‘SCHOOL FRIEND’ (A NOTORIOUS REPROBATE AND SEXUAL PRE
DATOR WHO GAVE NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE ‘KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE AND YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER’). HE HAD INVITED WILLIAM TO SPEND A FEW WEEKS RECOVERING FROM HIS A’LEVELS AT ‘DADDY’S PAD IN JAMAICA’.

  WILLIAM HAD INITIALLY TURNED HIM DOWN FLAT [I’M GOING TO GIVE REASONS FOR THIS HERE, POSSIBLY CONNECTED TO THE BREAK UP OF HIS PARENTS’ MARRIAGE] BUT CHANGED HIS MIND AND AGREED TO GO, AFTER ALL, IN THE EXPECTATION THAT POLLY MIGHT ALSO BE THERE.

  POLLY… NOW FULLY GROWN, HER DARK HAIR CASCADING DOWN TO HER TRIM WAIST, THE ODD, STRAY STRAND OF IT SLITHERING INTO THE MUSKY CREVICE BETWEEN HER FULL, BROWN BREASTS WHICH WERE SPRINKLED IN PERSPIRATION, DUSTED WITH SUMMER FRECKLES… SHE WORE A YELLOW BIKINI [MORE DETAILS ABOUT HER BIKINI ETC TO FOLLOW], BUT SHE’D ONLY EVER REALLY HAD EYES FOR A LOCAL, BLOND DRUG DEALER CALLED TRISTAN – AN OXFORD GRADUATE – WITH HIS TAN, HIS MIRROR SHADES AND HIS READY ACCESS TO ‘PUFF AN’ WEED’.

  HOW FOOLISH THEY HAD ALL BEEN!

  CRUSHED BY LONELINESS AND DISAPPOINTMENT, WILLIAM HAD ALLOWED RUPERT TO LEAD HIM, BLINDLY, UNWITTINGLY, SOMETIMES STAGGERING AS HE LOST HIS FOOTING, DOWN DARK, TROPICAL PATHS HE HAD NO NATURAL INCLINATION TO TRAVEL, AND THEN…

  WHAT?! WHO?! HOW THE…?!

  HE HAD ENDED UP HERE. IN THIS GOMORRAH. ON TRUMPED-UP CHARGES. SOME THOUGHT HE HAD BEEN FRAMED (RUPERT WAS THE TRUE VILLAIN OF THE PIECE, SURELY?) BUT HE DARED NOT THINK ABOUT THAT – WHAT GOOD COULD IT POSSIBLY DO HIM NOW?

  SWEET POLLY HAD BEEN TO VISIT HIM BEFORE SHE FLED THE ISLAND, HER CHEEKS STAINED WITH TEARS. ‘THIS IS MY BROTHER’S FAULT…’ SHE’D WHISPERED, ‘IF ONLY YOU’D HAD ACCESS TO A PROPER LAWYER… IF ONLY I’D SAID SOME – THING. IF ONLY I’D BEEN BRAVE ENOUGH TO STAND UP IN COURT… OH WILLIAM, WE COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD TOGETHER!’

  AND THEN, SEEING THE IMMEDIATE, AGONIZED RESPONSE IN HIS BLOODSHOT, GREEN EYES, ‘PLEASE! NO! OH GOD! FORGIVE ME!’

  ‘IF ONLY…’ WILLIAM THOUGHT, SMILING, AS THEY DRAGGED HER, SOBBING, FROM HIS CELL, ‘IF ONLY… IF ONLY…

  (end)

  [letter 5]

  The Winter Barn

  (off Old Woman’s Lane)

  Burley Cross

  Wharfedale

  21/12/06

  Ivo,

  I just sent you a text – in fact I just sent you an email (I sent you a text about the email) – because I’d just tried to phone you to make sure you downloaded it – and printed it – tonight (all of it, mind? There’s about ten pages. I want them printed and then put into the Threadbare file, pronto – please, please, pretty-please).

  When you didn’t answer your phone I left a voice-mail (just ignore it – it was a gratuitous outpouring of hysterical waffle – although, knowing you, you’ll ignore it anyway. You never seem to get around to listening to my messages. Why is that, exactly?).

  Oh, God, God, I’m in such a crazy rush! I just want to be sure to catch the six o’clock post (does the post even go at six?). If I don’t manage to catch it then the samples – there’s only two of them, they’re minuscule – won’t reach you until the day after tomorrow and that would be a serious, serious pain in the arse (why am I telling you this? What good will it do? Balls! I’ll definitely miss it at this rate! In fact… Great. I have missed it. I’m screwed. You’re screwed. Carol-Ann’s going to throw the most monumental strop. Brace yourself).

  Hang on a minute… It’s just this second dawned on me that it’s Bengt’s Birthday Bash tonight and you’ll probably get pissed as a fart and throw a sickie tomorrow, anyway. I only…

  No. No. NO! I don’t believe this! I don’t… My bottom’s soaked! It’s… aaargh! Remember how I told you about that tiny little hole in my bike seat which sucks up water into the foam padding when it rains so that the next time you sit on it…

  NOOOO!! I just… I can’t believe I’ve gone and done it again! Tilly, the woman in Threadbare Cottage, told me – she warned me on Friday – to put a plastic bag over it (the seat, Ivo, not my head – although I’m seriously starting to wish I had).

  Damn! My beautiful chair’s all wet! It’s that wonderful, padded, red-fabric office chair I got in the Conran Shop sale last year! You told me it was all wrong for The Winter Barn! You told me! You said, ‘Jo-Jo, that thing’s completely at odds with your country aesthetic.’ But would I bloody listen? Would I hell! Well, you were right (again, you smug Teutonic swine)! It’s looked stupid here from the very outset (I was too proud to admit it). And now there’s this huge… Damn, damn, damn!

  Okay. Okay. I need to calm down. I’m having a little panic attack. It’s just all been so unbearably … urgh … stressful! I’m on HOLIDAY for Christ’s sake! I just don’t seem able to… that small switch in my head you’re constantly referring to… I just don’t…

  DEUTERONOMY!

  NEHEMIAH!

  ZEPHANIAH!

  LAMENTATIONS!

  EZEKIEL!!!

  YES! YES! YES!

  It’s come to me, in a flash, like a divine revelation! The name of the new collection! Scratch the stuff I said in the email (it was all just a pile of crap)! This is perfect! This is fabulous!!!

  ‘LAMENTATIONS: a modern exercise in old-fashioned restraint,’ The lifestyle collection in colour, textile and print by designer Jo-Jo JOnes with a little help from Ivo-wots-his-name

  (Ha ha – serves you right, though).

  ‘LAMENTATIONS: a tearful celebration of those good,

  old-fashioned virtues of

  thrift and temperance,’

  [I’ve got goose bumps!]

  The lifestyle collection in colour, textile and print by…

  It’s brilliant! I love it! So timely! So new! So atmospheric! And so incredibly appropriate to the whole ‘Threadbare story-board’ I’ve been working on all these long, hard months… you know – all the bravery and the sadness and the heartbreak and the making-do.

  (Yes, yes. I understand perfectly well that ‘Threadbare’ was always the best name for the collection – you’ve said it until you’re blue in the face! But it’s just too blatant! Call me a wimp, but I do happen to want to carry on living here, part-time, in Burley Cross after the collection comes out. Their cottage is literally around the corner! Thirty yards from my front door! It’d be like, ‘Hi, Tilly and Rhona. Yes. Yes. I totally ripped off your entire life’s work, but hey! Whatever…’)

  ‘LAMENTATIONS: a long, hard journey in

  old-fashioned patterns and well-worn threads,’

  [Oh, God, I love that! I’m flying now!]

  from Jo-Jo JOnes, the designer who brought you…

  Then, just picture it, Ivo: we’ll use all the other books as paint names, individual fabric names, wallpaper names etc. etc.

  Effortless!

  I mean, as I’m looking down the contents page, right now, I’m seeing fifteen, eighteen, twenty really, really meaty titles!

  LEVITICUS!

  OBADIAH!

  HABAKKUK!

  (Habakkuk? Hmmn. Maybe not). Have I lost you?

  Have I…?! It’s a Bible, stupid (you’re always harping on about your deep, Lutheran roots, aren’t you?!)! I’m holding this incredibly, incredibly beautiful Bible in my hands (I’m going to photograph the cover this very second and send it direct to your BlackBerry! In fact, no, I’ll photograph it and send it later, otherwise you’ll just open the document and think I’ve gone loco. Actually, no, you won’t. You’ll understand perfectly. You always do).

  I’m holding it in my hands (well, I’m not holding it in my hands – I couldn’t write if I were – it’s sitting on the table, directly in front of me, but I’m holding it in my hands, mentally, while rubbing a tremulous, slightly calloused thumb up and down its well-worn spine) and it’s got this stunning (stunning, stunning, stunning) Arts and Crafts-style design on the front cover: a mix of these three, thick, bottle-green stripes (of irregular width) interspersed with these two very, very red-end burgundy stripes, intercut with four, thin, cream lines, then this absolutely perfect black and cream Coptic-style cross in the middle – the four quarters each with altern
ating A&C-style graphics going grapes/olives/grapes/olives.

  Classic, generous, open font, in cream (I think it might be Baskerville, or something very like… I love Baskerville. There’s something so… so reliable, so trustworthy about the spacing, somehow…).

  You’ve just got to see it! I borrowed it from Rhona (it’s hers). She’s the older of the two sisters. Always dresses in grey or black. Very tall with sloping shoulders. Radiates disapproval. Hair drawn back into an unforgiving bun. Should have been a nun. Screams nun. Never smiles. (Why are religious people always so unapologetically bloody miserable? You’d think being religious was a reason to be cheerful! What’s the point of it all, otherwise?)

  Well, it’s hers. I asked if I could borrow it last week (just spontaneously). I seriously thought she was going to refuse, but then she handed it over, made some muttered excuse about ‘digging over the raised leek bed’, and left the room (I don’t think she likes me. I don’t think she likes anybody). By rights I should have returned it by now (but thank God I didn’t! Thank God I hung on to it!).

  Of course it was at that point – perfect timing, you know me – I discovered the wet bottom thing…

  I was astonished! I was horrified! I was like – Oh, my God, my bottom’s all wet! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!?!

  Tilly – the younger sister (she’s just so, so gorgeous, Ivo – you’d go perfectly wild for her if she was ten years younger. I’m quite in love with her myself, as a matter of fact. She’s got this wild mass of black curls highlighted with tiny wisps of silver. She’s thin as a pole with dark, dark blue eyes. Skin stretched over her cheekbones like strips of pale brown cow-hide. Dresses like some kind of crazed, pre-Maoist peasant refugee, or a young boy from a lost tribe of ancient Mongolian camel herdsmen; completely unintentional, mind – totally unpremeditated – clothes just look that way when she throws them on her. It’s effortless! Doesn’t have the first clue about how gorgeous she is. Product, make-up etc. an absolute anathema! Barely glances in a mirror… well, she told me… hang on… am I still…?) Hello! – well, she just gazes at my wet bottom, perfectly calmly (she’s so unstintingly practical) and says, ‘That’ll be your bike seat. There’s probably a small hole in it. It was raining earlier. Don’t worry. It happens to me all the time. Just tie a plastic bag over it… the bike seat, not… No. It’s fine. It’s an old cushion anyway. In fact it’s the special cushion we always used to try and give Glenys whenever she popped round, unannounced…’