Nanowrimo Winner

[Total word count: 34,345]

So, gentle reader, you and I will never complete the journey that is Nanowrimo. I feel sad but free. It’s nice to think I don’t have to churn the words out, but I do feel a sense of something almost like bereavement. Until I decided to stop, I felt fed up with the whole thing, but as soon as I made the decision, I started to regret it. And there is one uncongenial task to be completed as a consequence.

After work, I went round to Geoff’s with a bottle of Cristal. I was fairly confident he would be in, since the new regime, if that was the truth, allowed him his evenings free for browsing Internet porn, or whatever Geoff did when he was alone.

Sure enough, he opened the door, but at the sight of the bottle his face fell.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“You win, Geoffrey,” I said, “I’m giving in.”

“Hey, you can’t do that now… look, come in.”

I followed him upstairs and sat down on his tiny sofa.

“You can’t give up, John,” he said earnestly, “Not yet. It’s not been going so badly, has it?”

“Well, I have a few problems,” I said, “I seem to be stuck with Charlie in the hospital and Fenella still alive… uh, those are two of my characters. But also, I’ve sort of promised Julie I’d give up. And this bloke at work knows I’m doing it, and has warned me I’m getting into trouble.”

“Christ,” said Geoff, “Now hang on. Let’s not be hasty here. Do you want a beer?”

“No thanks,” I said.

Geoff waved his finger in the air which seemed to be an indication that he understood but had thought of something else. He went over to the tiny cabinet and took out a bottle of Glenfiddich.

“Geoff!” I protested.

“No, come on,” he insisted, plonking down two tumblers which, to be quite honest, could have been more perfectly clean, “A shot of this won’t do you any harm.”

He poured two glasses, pulled up a chair, settled himself and looked at me thoughtfully.

“I’m sure Julie doesn’t really want you to give up,” he said, “She may have said so when she was in a bad mood or something, but honestly I’m sure she’ll change her mind. Doesn’t she always tell you off for not finishing things? Like that internet thing you were going to do. What was it? Kick-ass something.”

“Yes, but…” I began, and interrupted myself, “Hang on, though, Geoff – why do you want me to carry on? You should be cock-a-hoop, shouldn’t you? This means you’ve won the bet. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it.”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” he said thoughtfully, taking a sip of whisky, “I suppose it sort of seems different now. And the other thing is, if you don’t carry on, I won’t have any motive for finishing myself. I’ve actually been a bit stuck the last few days, you know. I haven’t really written anything much since you came round here last. Been a bit busy, really. You could probably catch me up if you put in a little effort.”

He gestured at the pile of manuscript, which did look exactly the same as it had before.

“See, that’s a point you ought to consider,” he added, “Who’s to say I’m going to finish? If neither of us finishes, it will be a draw.”

“Sort of,” I agreed, “But I think the terms of the bet were that the first person to give up loses. And I’m the first one, there’s no real argument about it. You won fair and square.

“Mmh. I think you’re wrong. It wasn’t first to give up loses, it was first to 50,000 wins. I’m not there yet. Surely it’s a cheek this bloke from your office telling you that you can’t do it. Is he your boss? Is there a policy that employees shall not be novelists? Is he claiming that copyright will accrue to them under the terms of your contract? I can’t understand it at all. The people where I work are all for it. They keep trying to sponsor me, and I have to keep telling them it’s not for charity. Are you sure this bloke is really speaking for your firm?”

“Oh, I think so. It isn’t really him that’s telling me; he’s just drawing my attention to the fact, which I know quite well for myself, that my having a time-consuming hobby, and one which I might be tempted to pursue in idle moments at work, is not going to go down well. It’s not that they’d sack me or anything, it just might stop me getting my interview so soon, that kind of thing. I know he’s right, really.”

“I don’t think it’s any of their damn business what you do in your own time,” said Geoff, with surprising vehemence. “Think of all the time you’ll have wasted if you stop now. Think of all those words that are never going to be used.”

“Well, probably no-one was ever going to read them anyway,” I pointed out, “And who knows, I might go back to it and finish the thing in the end. I just can’t afford to do it to the Nanowrimo timetable.”

“Why don’t you give yourself a bit of time to think about it? You might feel differently in a day or so. Don’t give up yet. I won’t take this now, you keep it until you’ve really thought about this..”

I shook my head in puzzlement and looked at Geoff.

“You’re a strange bloke,” I said, “How’s Mercedes?”

“Now look, don’t change the subject. Promise me you’ll think about it a bit.”

“Well, I’m happy to keep the bottle for another couple of days if you really insist.”

“Well done. Cheers.” He took another sip from his tumbler, “Mercedes hasn’t been round recently. She seems to be busy a lot at the moment.”

“Problems?” I asked, sympathetically.

“I don’t think so, not really. She has problems, though, things she keeps having to sort out. Don’t ask me, it’s all you know, I said this and then they said that, and so I said and they said. I think perhaps she’d be happier if she could see me in the evenings and at weekends, you know?”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“No, not really. No. It’ll all be fine in the long run.”

“Julie… Julie finds it hard to believe you’ve got this woman coming in every day before breakfast.”

“Well, not every day,” admitted Geoff, “Did I give the impression it was every day? To be honest, John, not that it’s any of your business really, I think we’ve only really done it three times.”

“Only three?”

“Yes, but it’s a pretty serious relationship. She has other commitments at the moment, that’s all.”

“Other commitments? What, you mean another boyfriend?”

Geoff frowned irritably.

“Family commitments,” he said, “Family commitments… sort of thing.”

“I don’t know. No offence, but it seems an unusual kind of relationship”

“It is a bit complicated at times,” said Geoff, darkly “It turns out she’s quite a complicated kind of person. But like I say, we’ll sort things out, I’m sure.”

I was walking down the old track to the river when Charlie appeared from behind a tree, and gave me a small wave of recognition.

“What are you doing here?” I said, “You’re supposed to be in Wenham.”

“Yes,” he said – his voice was deeper than I had imagined it, and he sounded more like a Dorset man than someone from the fenny country of Wenham. “But I thought this would be easier for you, since you know it so well.”

That seemed to make sense. We strolled along companionably towards the river bank.

“Are you getting on any better with Lady Jane?” I asked.

“Yes, things are OK,” he said , “It turns out she’s quite a complicated kind of person.”

“She seems to be sort of jealous of you,” I said, “Which is a bit odd, because I’m sure it wasn’t my idea. It just seems to have got into the text somehow.”

“Yes, that happens,” he agreed, “She seems to think I’m going to get mixed up with Fenella. The other day when Fenella rang up about my laptop, there was a definite look of suspicion there. But I would never be so stupid as that. She ought to realise.”

Charlie bent down and picked up a small flat stone, which he sent skimming across the river. It bounced six times.

“I could never do that,” I admitted, “Never even one bounce.”

“You just need to focus.” he said, and threw another. The river seemed to be much wider than I remembered it being.

“Oh,” I said, “I remember what I was going to ask you. How am I going to get you out of the hospital?”

“I don’t see any problem about that,” said Charlie, seeming slightly surprised, “I could discharge myself if you like. You could say it was because I was eager to get back on to the case. You know. Or if you find that bit difficult, you could just cut to a scene where I’m already out. The one where I find Fenella’s body, say – that’s be good.”

“You’re going to find her body?”

“Well, I presume so. More pathos that way, more drama. But you’re the author, aren’t you?” He grinned. He was actually a rather amiable bloke in the flesh; big, but not such a looming presence as I had imagined he would be.

“You can’t find her body after you come out of hospital. That doesn’t make sense Unless…How does she die?”

“She was in a crash.” he said, shortly and decisively, as though I were being stupid.

I began to feel worried.

“God, I’d forgotten,” I confessed, “This is all no good. I’m not going to write it. I’ve given up.”

Charlie turned to me a face which was filled with incredulity and anger. It was such an angry face it hardly looked like him any more. He turned his back on me and stamped over to where a small kind of brick building stood – just like a park-keeper’s hut or something. He opened the door, but I followed him and grabbed his sleeve.

“Where are you going?” I asked, “You can’t go in there.”

“I am the home-owner,” he said, angrily, and slammed the door behind him.

As I looked around I realised that the reason the river had seemed wider was because it was a different river altogether. I had though that this place was a combination of the fields behind our house when I was at school with a river in Portugal – the Tagus? But it was not – it was somewhere else, somewhere I didn’t know at all. I was lost.

“Help! You’ve got to show me the way back!” I shouted, but the hut door was locked.

With a perceptible jerk, I awoke in my own bed, in the dark. Julie was asleep beside me.

I stared up at the ceiling and began to calm down. There is something distinctly weird about feeling guilt towards an imaginary character of your own creation. I mean, if I wanted, I could put a little postscript on Wenham where Charlie and all the other characters expressed their sincere pleasure over the fact that the story would not be completed. But there was no doubt I did feel strangely guilty, in a way which having imaginary characters traumatised and murdered, something I’d done enough of by now, had never occasioned.

Actually, Charlie would certainly have faced his own fictional demise with much more stoicism and loyalty than he had displayed in the dream. I found myself beginning to wonder whether the dream Charlie was the real Charlie or not. Now that I thought about it, dream Charlie had had black brylcreemed hair, which wasn’t right at all. So which was the real Charlie? Unfortunately that was not a question I could get my mind round in any appreciable sense. That way madness surely lies.

Come to that, this whole dream seemed like a worrying sign of mental turmoil – actually another good reason to stop writing, if that’s what it was going to do to me. Now I couldn’t sleep because my mind was racing, although goodness knows I was tired enough.

I got carefully out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Picture your author, gentle reader, sitting stark naked on the toilet: stark naked but for headphones which he has plugged into the radio behind him in order to listen inaudibly to the World Service, which at the moment is broadcasting The Ticket, an arts review programme which is actually quite interesting and sort of comparable to Radio Four’s Front Row, which I often catch in the evenings. Perhaps one day Wenham will be reviewed on programmes like these, but then I remember yet again that Wenham is never going to be finished. My lost baby!