Excerpts from lost novels
1 June, 2009
The man walking past. The one in the suit with the shiny
marks on the back of his trousers. That’s the one to watch.
Here he is, coming home at ten to eight on a Monday night,
his hands thrust forlornly into his pin-striped pockets,
his head bowed and his hair carelessly tousled. Do you
think he is sad because of what hen has left or because of
what he is going to?
I thought for a moment. I hated it when Alan put me on the
spot like that. Perhaps I would be able to think of
something thoughtful or clever, or maybe even something
witty, that would leave Alan silenced, given enough time.
But I never did. Not when he fired out those questions and
then expected me to reply without hesitation.
But hold on…Something occurred to me…
Maybe he isn’t sad because of either of those things. I
spoke with little sense of conviction, but I was secretly
delighted to have at least introduced a new concept to the
discussion for once.
True, true. Alan seemed to lose interest. What about him?
The one in the black suit striding along and swinging his
briefcase. What has he got to be so happy about? Has he
just made a killing on some deal? Or do you think he has
finally managed to screw his secretary?
I looked around and stared at the man. His hair was like a
brush and his skin looked pale and rough. I turned back and
watched a pair of runners following the path by the road.
Maybe he is just looking forward to getting home and seeing
his wife.
Seeing his wife? Hoping his kids have gone to bed and
looking forward to cracking open a beer in front of the
latest episode of The Wire, more like. Or looking forward
to a line of coke and hiring a prostitute. What is wrong
with you, Dave? Don’t you understand how the world works?
All these guys in suits. They are selfish and
self-obsessed. All they care about is the next pound in
their pocket and their next screw. They don’t love their
wives or care about their kids. They get turned on by doing
over the working man. People like you and me.
I wanted to tell Alan to give it a rest. Here we were
sitting on the park, trying to drink a couple of beers in
the last rays of sun, and he has to get all…I don’t know.
He’s just always so cynical about people. I watched a bus
trundle pass and listened to the roar of a motorbike.
Alan. I don’t think that everyone in a suit is selfish and
out to do us over. And I think that some of them love their
wives. Maybe not all, but I don’t think the world is as
black and white as you make out.
Alan tutted and turned away. The trouble with you, Dave, is
you don’t see the world how it really is.
I glanced away, picking out a fence from between the trees.
You think it is all nice and fluffy bunny, with the odd
dark cloud to give you a quick dowsing every now and again
before the sunshine comes back and the flowers dance.
Basically, you aren’t clever enough to see how people
operate, what they do. You sit there behind that stupid
counter in the newsagent, punching numbers into a machine
to line the pockets of the owner…No, not even the owner. To
line the pockets of the distributors and the copyright
owners…Smiling you stupid head off to the fat secretaries
in their Next suits and goggle-eyed glasses who go and have
a few too many with the bosses on a Friday night, hoping
that the dishy senior manager might notice them and take
them back home for a good rogering instead of their boring,
second-rate computer programmer boyfriend back home in
Reading or wherever god-awful place it is they live. And
there you are, in that stupid shop, with your mind switched
to neutral, busying yourself tidying up the counter, making
sure there are enough packets of M&Ms and Extra Strong
Mints by the till and all the Guardians have their
give-away posters of Britain’s favourite birds or some such
rubbish, gazing out without a thought in your head…
You’re just so pathetic, Dave. Sometimes I wonder why I
even bother meeting up with you and hoping that we might
have a conversation, an actual, proper conversation, rather
than having to discuss the drivel that pours unchecked out
of your mouth.
Oh, and what are you, Alan? A nobody motorcycle courier who
thinks he is the bees-knees because he knows who started
the Labour Party and reads the Socialist Worker, even
though he never, ever does anything about his so-called
radical views and would run a mile if someone actually
asked him to do something actually revolutionary. Because
he talks louder than anyone else down the pub and thinks he
makes good jokes, even though no-one actually thinks he is
funny and can’t wait for him to get drunk and go home so we
can all talk normally. Because he has a stupid girlfriend
who thinks she is an artist even though she can’t paint and
has never had anything exhibited and everyone laughs at
behind her back because she has a moustache.
I don’t really know what happened next. Well, I do. Alan
got up, hit me in the face and walked off. I staggered back
and felt as if my face had caved in. I couldn’t believe how
much my cheek hurt. And I couldn’t believe I had said all
that. I wasn’t upset at having said it. Just amazed that I
had. I knew my friendship with Dave was over, that maybe my
friendship with that whole group of mates was over, maybe
my life as I knew it, but I was still glad I had said my
mind.
So I just stood there and watched him walk away. He didn’t
look back. Not even when he reached his bike and pulled on
his helmet. After that, I was angry and upset, and wandered
around the park for hours, tramping round and round with my
head down and my hands in my pockets, long after it got
dark and cold. Towards eleven, I reached the small wood by
the railway tracks and pushed through the thorns and
tangled bushes until I reached small clearing that was
blind to the street lamps or headlights from the road.
There was an old man there, just sitting in the pitch dark
on a felled log. I didn’t know he was there at first and I
nearly jumped out of my skin when he called out in a
cracked, drunk voice. I didn’t want to speak to anyone and
just stood there while he called out a couple of times
more. He even said he could hear my breathing and he knew I
was still there. But I stood still until he quietened down
and then left, walking back towards the main path. He
shouted after me, telling me I was a coward over and over
again, but I ignored him.
After that, once I was back under the orange lights, I sat
down on a park bench for a while and started crying. I
don’t even know why, because I wasn’t bothered about Dave
and our argument anymore. I bet he certainly wasn’t,
sitting at home with his artist girlfriend. But I felt as
if my entire mind, my entire body had been pulled inside
out. My head ached and ached, and my shoulders were sore
with being hunched up tight for so long.
A woman walked past when I was crying. She didn’t saying
anything or even stop to look at me. I found that really
hurtful. She didn’t even care about a fellow human being,
wouldn’t even ask whether I was okay, when I clearly wasn’t
anything like okay.
But just as I was thinking that, I had an idea. Of course…I
don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it before. It would
make me feel better. In an instant.
Okay, so I had vowed I would never do it again. Never. And
I had meant it. But these were extenuating circumstances,
surely.
I thought about it for a second, knowing it wasn’t the
right thing, but got up off the bench anyway and started
following her.