The Writer
“Pleased to meet you, so pleased…I spend all week telling
my A Level girls, ‘you know, girls, you know…your first line…that is the most
important one,’ is what I say…”
“Is it? Where do you think my box of books is?”
Jeremy scratched his head with the sharp end of a pencil,
winced and sucked the end with a grimace. He tongue-tipped on his yellow front
teeth a couple of times. “Box of books?”
“Yeah. Box of books. It’s important. I think the Deputy Head
said she’d have them in her office.”
“Well, I can go and look if you’d like, Robin. Then maybe
we can talk about writing. I’m something of a writer myself, you know. Not in
you league, of course, but I… ”
“Yes, yes. Would you find my box?” Robin answered, bent
over and scumbling around in a dog day holdall. Like a magician down on his
luck, disparate items began appearing on the parquet flooring. A bit of plastic
in gaudy red with a black arrow, some tatty well-thumbed playing cards, and a
few coloured pencils, sharpened half way down that xylophoned cheerfully as
they bounced on the hard surface. “And a table. Normally I get a table. To
display the books, you see?”
Jeremy scowl-balled the ever-growing seedy tip of tat on
the flooring. “OK.”
“Don’t be long, for fuck’s sake. I’ll be on soon.”
So Jeremy deliberately sauntered through the wide
corridor in something of a sulk. Earlier that morning, this was not the case.
He’d arrived at school, scuttered out of the bus, fingered in and there had
been something fuckling his brain. What was it? Yes, yes, famous writer to
visit the kids in lower school.
Famous?
Well, OK, published author. More than he’d achieved, to
be fair.
Rumoured to have some connections with the BBC. And, it
had to be said, the one last year had been a hoot. He’d written screenplays for
some animated television series that Jeremy had never heard of, but, well, the
kids had, and they cheered at the name every time it came up. Not to be sneered
at given they were 6000 light years from home and in the middle of the hottest
desert on the planet.
In fact, last year’s writer had been great. He’d simply
turned up with a magic carpet and a grin full of teeth. Self-deprecating, funny
and willing to do all sorts of humiliating stunts, followed by kindly rufflings
of hair here and high fives there.
This time, to his horror, nothing had been set up.
“Famous writer. Here? In the school, you mean, and
nothing organised?” he’d Basil Fawltied at the Deputy Head, “Well, let’s just
have a computer hunt and be done with it.” And she’d smiled, shrugged and
wafted away like the scent of lavender candles at sunset, leaving him to chase
it all down, with minutes to go.
And, boxes within boxes, he now did recall the
competition, that some three months earlier they’d somehow won. ‘Young Author Gulf
Beatboxers!!’ or roughly that; high on the tacky side.
“Great stuff,” the Deputy Head had said, passing him the
flyer, “teach this and we’ll enter it.”
“What do we do?”
“Simple. Next to nothing. Five famous writers have
written the start to some short stories. All our students do is continue the
stories to a conclusion. The winning schools get visits from one of the writers,
a celebratory plaque and the stories published in an anthology.”
“I see. How do we judge these stories?”
“Eh?”
“Pick the best ones.”
“Get your teachers to mark them and choose.”
“Well, yes, I can see that, every child writes a story
and we mark them. Fair enough. We’re looking at three or four hundred pieces of
writing. Are you sure?”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yes. We don’t do it.”
“This is a prestigious, Gulf wide competition. Every
school in Kwatar will be fighting to get a famous British writer to their
school. We cannot pass over this opportunity.
So, Jeremy studied hard the list of writers and the
openings. The first one immediately caught his attention. It was called ‘The
Box’ by F. R. Leavis. In fact, he recalled, he’d read it aloud. “Oh look!” he’d
uttered, “A mysterious box! I wonder what it could contain? Shall we look?”
The second opening, titled ‘Beefburger’ went thus: “Mmm,
this beefburger is good.” “Yes, but it came from a cow.” “Did it?” “For sure it
did. Do you like killing cows, Punchy?”
By the time he came to ‘Hanging from the Cliff of Doomfulness’,
he’d had enough.
Returning to the Deputy Head the next day, he’d said: “You
know? I’m not sure any of these writers are actually that famous.”
“Not that famous?”
“Yes. Have you ever heard of ‘Duck Detective’ by James
Splooge? Or ‘Winkers Academy’ by Terry Pruck?”
“Just get on with it, Jeremy.”
Three months later, they’d won. And their star prize was
Mr Robin Blind, published writer.
Who was seconds out and stood in front of Jeremy’s
hastily sourced laptop, projector and microphone and a fistful of young boys
from Year 7. “A selection of my books.” Robin gestured at the screen and then
at the table. “Available at the end of my presentation at 45 Riyals each. Or
from the Deputy Head’s office. Just put your 45 Riyals in an envelope. Or
cheques? Do you have cheques here? I didn’t check.” And he paused for laughter
but received only polite attention. And some jeering. “Has anybody heard of
cheques?”
And the boys applauded eagerly, pinched each other,
indulged in some head swatting, glad to make noise.
They were a rowdy lot, these children. Jeremy was pleased
to note.
Robin reached for the square of red plastic he’d fished
out of the holdall earlier. Jeremy looked more closely at it – about three
inches square with a black arrow that whizzed around as he flicked it with his forefinger.
“This is my arrow of destiny.”
The boys whooped with mock delight.
The arrow spun. Jeremy wanted it to be exciting, but it
was just some tacky black plastic prick, fizzling and revolving. Robin hand-waved
his free palm above it like The Great Potato: “Round and round it goes and
where it stops nobody knows.”
“Or cares.” It didn’t come out loud.
The arrow pointed into the audience of boys. But they
couldn’t know this.
“YOU!” Robin pointed towards them. “The arrow has never
been known to lie.”
The plastic prick might have been pointing anywhere and
so might the arrow of destiny, but some kid stood up anyway. “Yes, sir?”
“You! Yes, the arrow of destiny has declared that you can
be the next great writer. Come. Approach. And so could all of you, too.” And he
waved his arms hither and thither as though they held a mighty cloak.
The 11-year-old scrap looked doubtful but approached his
garden anyway. “Sir?”
“Now, how do we write a great story?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Fear not, young sir. I can enlighten you! I was once one
such as you. A mere novice.” He waved his hands at the table of books. “Which
of these takes your fancy, my stripling?”
“Uh?”
“Which book do you want?”
The lad looked at the table. Then backed away. As though
the table smelled of rotten socks. Or a sweated shirt after two hours of toil
under the desert sun. “None of them.”
More delighted noise.
For the first time since he had begun, Robin looked less
confident and Jeremy smirked behind his back.
“None? But I’m offering you one of my books.”
“No thank you.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t say.”
“OK. But maybe you’d like to learn how to write really
great, best selling fiction?”
“Yes sir.” But the voice lacked conviction.
Nevertheless, Robin continued. “Nothing simpler,” he
boomed, arms a-flapping. The boys had their dictionaries with them and, at his
command, accompanied by a curt, cheaply made Prezzi presentation, they started
to flick through them. Noisily. “Find a word,” Robin was explaining, “Then find
another word. Give the two words a title.”
Much guttural noise accompanied some earnest page
turning. “What you mean? What he mean? What words?”
“Like…er…Commander Pipecleaner.”
Gradually hands began to pop up. Robin started to pick
one or two out.
“Lord Cocktumbler.”
“Chief Fangnibbler.”
“Colonel Titxylophone.”
Robin nodded in approval and turned the young lad. “See?
And once you have such great names as these, you can soon make up exciting
stories. I mean who wouldn’t want to hear about the adventures of Colonel Titxylophone,
eh?”
The boy still didn’t look converted, “What’s a
titxylophone?”
“A very special instrument. Very special.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. Like these.” he grunted, indicating the book
table. “Exactly how I got started, you see? Now which would you like?”
The boy reconsidered and took one of the novels. As he
picked it up and flickered it more closely with fingers, the air conditioning
caught hold of an opened page or two and the whole thing began to flap around
like a flimsy pamphlet.
A page detached itself, caught in the airstream, and
began floating high above the lad’s head; a leaf in autumn.
Robin scowled, watching it flux. “Don’t just stand there,
boy. Grab it. That cost me fifty pence!” But it was too late. An external door,
opened by a cleaner, intervened and it just slipped away. “Always bloody
happening, cheap as bloody chips,” Robin spluttered, abandoning hope. “This
book is now retailing at 42 Riyals, boys. A magnificent discount and at no
extra cost. That page wasn’t important anyway.”
More hands up and hubbub: “Was it about General Titxylophone?”,
“What’s it about, sir?”
With a flourish, Robin pushed a button on the laptop to
reveal the next slide. “Salty Pig, Pig Policewoman,” he announced. And the
slide revealed a rather fat looking porker attired in a pink dress.
In front of him, a sharp intake of air. Silence.
Mutterings.
Jeremy sniggered and poked Robin. “That is wrong in so
many ways.”
Robin was losing it.
A hand shot up.
“Yes?”
“Sorry, sir. Is that a bit like Pepper Pig, sir?”
“No.”
“It looks like Pepper Pig.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Pepper Pig is banned in Kwatar.”
“Why?”
“It’s a pig.”
“It’s haram.”
“No it bloody isn’t. Well it’s a pig, obviously. But not
anything like bloody Pepper Pig. I resent that. You think it doesn’t hurt? I
created Salty Pig a long time before Pepper Pig came along, you hear? If anyone
else insinuates that I, Robin Blind, ripped fucking Pepper Pig off to create
the entirely different Salty Pig, they can do one. Get it?”
Silence.
“Well Salty’s a detective for a start, isn’t she? When
did Pepper ever detect anything? Well?”
“What about that time she had to look for George’s
watering can in the swimming pool?”
“Yes, sir. In ‘Pepper is a detective’, sir.”
“Shut up.”
Jeremy blocked off Robin and spoke sternly. Well as much
as he could, under the circumstances. “That’s enough, boys. Go to lessons.”
Robin protested. “But I haven’t finished. What about my
books?” As the boys filed out, he continued, “my books? Doesn’t anybody want to
buy great literature?”
“Your books are haram.”
“But what about the girls? I haven’t seen the girls, yet.
You promised me girls.”
Jeremy looked Robin square in the eye. “It’s break. I’ll
get you coffee. After that, I’m afraid I have to teach. But you know where my
office is. Should you need me. Good luck.”
It must have been nearly the end of the day when Jeremy
checked back to see how Robin was getting on.
And he was surrounded by a group of girls. Many of whom
looked adoringly at him and were holding copies of his books. Jeremy strained
to hear:
“Can we have a selfie?”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to meet a famous writer.”
“Will you sign this book, Mr Blind?”
Robin Blind was all smiles, shits and giggles. “Of
course, my pleasure. But only if you sign my book in return. Because, you know,
you’ll be famous too. And I want an advance. On your autograph.”
Jeremy squinted to see. And Robin was indeed holding a
book.
Now Jeremy couldn’t be totally certain, but he could have
sworn it was a cheque book.
A blank one.
