Nanowrimo Winner

[Total Word Count: 40,647]

Things have quietened down at Behemoth following the big excitement of Kevin’s presentation. Kevin himself is away this week. I’ve got three different projects I need to work on, but none of them has a deadline nearer than the end of next week. I think I might be a bit of an adrenaline junkie: I certainly can’t take very seriously a deadline that is over a week away.

Earlier on, John Sopert the Director called me into his office – a proper office, this one, with a full-sized desk and everything. Sopert is one of those immensely dignified people who are frightfully nice even though they are obviously amazingly posh.

“Thanks for coming – nothing to worry about, John,” he said, with an air of affected bonhomie, “This isn’t – ahuh! – a crisis meeting or anything. Perhaps that’s disappointing, actually? We all love a bit of crisis management around here, don’t we? I keep saying to my managers, I want more completer/finishers, er, guys: give me a few completer/finishers. But they never do. Anyway, no; this is just a chat. It’s always been my intention to keep up with our younger execs, but I’m afraid it’s a policy more honoured in the breach than the observance. But you’re my guinea-pig, John. I’m going to try to have quarterly chats with all of you in future.”

“OK,” I said, inanely, bonhomising back at him to the best of my ability.

“How do you feel about last week?” he asked, looking at me keenly.

“Well, I’m quite happy really, I mean obviously it’s frustrating when you can’t convince people,” I began,

“Oh, I wouldn’t say we weren’t convinced,” he interrupted, “I enjoyed the presentation. I thought it was illuminating. And you made a good contribution. Certainly. No, I wouldn’t say we weren’t convinced, John.”

“Well, I mean, it’s a shame we didn’t get the go-ahead on the winter strategy,” I said cautiously, and waited to see whether he would insist that, in a very real sense, we had got the go-ahead. Just not the go-ahead to do anything. But he merely raised his eyebrows in a ‘well-let’s-not–jump-to-conclusions’ style.

“But I enjoyed doing the presentation, and obviously it was a valuable learning opportunity for me.”

“Ahuh,” he agreed, “yes.”, as though I’d put my finger on a rather obscure but tremendously important point. “Yes, indeed.”

“I’m still convinced that my analysis of the seasonality is basically right, “ I said cautiously, “But I’m looking forward to helping to develop the strategy in other ways.”

“Good, good. You’re a promising young man, John,” he confided, “Personally, I think you have some definite potential. But at times, you know, it’s a bit difficult to know what to make of you.”

“Really?”

“Ahuh. At times you seem very reserved, lost in your own thoughts, you know, just going through the motions. I don’t quite know how to put this, but there are times – I hope this doesn’t seem negative – when it almost seems as if you aren’t very interested in what you’re doing.”

“Gosh.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. And then, on other occasions, you know, you sort of come out with guns blazing.”

“Do I?”

“Oh yes, blazing. Look at that time you made the point about, what was it? De minimis. Quite right, of course. But you see, I wasn’t even there, but I’ve still heard all about how passionate you were.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“We like passion. I’d go so far as to say we need our young execs to be passionate. If you’re not passionate, where’s the future of Behemoth? No, I like the passion. But sometimes too much?. A bit of aggression is good. In this world, John, you won’t get anywhere without a bit of aggression. But you have to know how to moderate it, you see. You have to – what was that phrase? You have to know how to dance the dance, if you follow me.”

Oh bugger.

“I think I do.”

“That said, I do believe, myself…” (…in spite of what everyone else says…) “… that you’ve got real potential. Now John. Kevin has suggested to me that you might be ready for a manager interview. I must ask you – do you think you would like to go in for that? Do you feel ready?” He looked at me intently, as though great matters hung on my response.

“Yes,”, I replied, trying not to show what a stupid question I thought it was, “Yes – I think I am ready.”

“Good. Good. Well, I think you’ve got real potential.” he declared.

He sat back in his chair and looked at me steadily. Time passed. The silence began to get oppressive.

“Er, I…” I said,

“Thanks for dropping in.” he interrupted, sitting forward suddenly. And the chat was over.

Things were quiet back at my desk. Kevin was away for a week, so there was no-one to badger me, and not much real work to do. I found myself waiting impatiently for someone to send me an email. I surfed the net negligently, picking up an interesting site about self-publishing which I nevertheless couldn’t be bothered to read. I copied the address for later. Then I took to fiddling with a copy of a spreadsheet charting advertising spend for six different products.

Twelve o’clock. A bit early for lunch, perhaps, but then it saves queuing. I wandered out, got a Pret sandwich from round the corner, and brought it back to my desk. While eating the sandwich, I ran up a completely meaningless three dimensional chart out of the data from the spreadsheet, and then changed the colours and values so it looked like a model landscape – a flat blue area with yellow sloping up from it, then green, brown, and on top of the solitary sharp peak, a touch of white.

It always annoys me the way people always leave two blank sheets when they use Excel. It’s because the default is three sheets (used to be more, I think) when you start a new file, and most people round here are at best only dimly aware that those tabs lurking at the bottom indicate other sheets which can be deleted, named, selected, copied and all the rest. You could actually stick some text in a big text box on page 2, and no-one would ever read it.

The drawing room at Wenham Hall smelt of mildew, and the furnishings felt cold and unaired. The sunlight streaming in through the two tall windows was full of dust motes, and in one corner an unused vacuum cleaner of ancient pattern leaned abandoned against the panelled wall.

In all probability the room had not seem such a large or lively gathering of people since the late Earl’s distant youth. A small deputation from the local police, headed by D.I. Cuffley, sat in a group at one side of the hearth; Mr Popplewell, the late Earl’s solicitor, was ensconced on the sofa in solitary splendour; and three sombre-looking members of the Pasholme family, now the presumed heirs, kept their own counsel in the rear. A number of local creditors, elderly villagers and former servants who considered themselves to have an interest in the estate, were scattered about the room on dining chairs brought in from the next room. There was even one of Lady Jane’s many cousins standing by the window, a dignified lady called Lettie Durbridge, holding a brochure with a rocket on the cover.

“I’m very grateful,” said Lady Jane, standing before the imposing Adam fireplace, “to you all for agreeing to come here today. I have made certain discoveries which I should like to share with you.”

A thrill of expectancy ran round the room.

“First of all, who poisoned the fourth Earl of Wenham? We’ve established now beyond reasonable doubt that there should have been no-one else in the house that night. There are no signs of forced entrance, and in any case, how would an intruder force the Earl to drink from a glass which visibly contained hemlock leaves?”

“We’ve also established that the Earl was seen by Sergeant Derrick down by the pond earlier that evening. This is the only place near Wenham where water hemlock is known to grow. The only possible conclusion is that the Earl put the hemlock in his own drink. Suicide? Possibly, but death from water hemlock is quite unpleasant, not a likely method to choose, unless the victim had confused it with the hemlock concoction which Plato describes as being responsible for the death of Socrates. We know, moreover, that the Earl was in the habit of drinking whisky infused with mint. The balance of probability is that in the absence of his faithful manservant, the Earl simply made a tragic mistake.”

“But the Earl’s children presumed he had been murdered, and by someone he trusted to prepare his nightcap. In their minds, it could only have been one of their number. If it were the eldest, then he too surely deserved the same fate; if it were a younger sibling, he or she would surely seek to eliminate the elder claimants. The game was on.”

“We now know how at least three of the Earl’s children were responsible for the deaths of one or other of their siblings, and how the so-called Wenham wolf-pack destroyed itself through a campaign of internecine murder.”

“ Who then, is to blame for the death of Fenella, the last member of the family and probably the only one innocent of murder herself? The mystery is compounded by the fact that all the probable beneficiaries, the natural suspects, are dead. The Pasholme cousins were all far from the scene until today and all have alibis.”

“However, I have discovered that the Earl had another son.”

There was a shocked murmur, and surprised glances were exchanged. Only Oliver Mordaunt, the artist, looked unsurprised.

“Two years ago,” explained Lady Jane, “Oliver here discovered his dead mother’s diary. From this, and from papers he found with it, he uncovered for the first time the secret of his own paternity. The Earl had embarked on the seduction of Miss Mordaunt his mother, at that time the village school-teacher. In order to have his wicked way with Miss Mordaunt, an honest and virtuous woman, the Earl had secretly gone through a bogus marriage ceremony with her. Mr Dundas, a friend of the Earl who was somewhat in his debt at the time, played the part of a priest on the occasion, something he now regrets. He has described the Earl’s scheme in a letter written from Eastbourne, where he now lives in retirement.”

D.I. Cuffley rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Oliver Mordaunt,” he said, “ I arrest you for the…”

“Just a moment, please,” interrupted Lady Jane. “Oliver investigated the circumstances very thoroughly and he discovered that what the Earl intended as a bogus marriage, intended only to overcome young Miss Mordaunt’s scruples, was in fact legally valid under an old statute intended to protect young women against just this kind of deception. I am satisfied that his conclusion is correct. It follows that he was always the legal heir: the Earl was a bigamist and his other children were in fact, bastards.”

A hubbub broke out: D.I.Cuffley remained uncertainly on his feet.

“Excuse me!” said Lady Jane, and order gradually returned. “It follows that Oliver had no financial motive for killing his illegitimate half-siblings. All he had to do was come forward with the documents he had discovered, and he would be the heir. It may seem strange that for two years he failed to do so. Indeed, he failed to do so even when the Earl died, and the supposed heirs arrived. Could it be, Oliver, that you resented the way your mother had been treated? Did you plan a grand humiliation for the false Fidgetts? And when they started to kill each other, did you decide to stand by and let it happen, rather than bring their murderous aim to bear on you? Did you, in fact, enjoy the sensation of having your revenge, a bloody revenge, without lifting a finger?”

Oliver was unmoved. His lip curled slightly, he raised one eyebrow, and replied:

“Schadenfreude is not a crime, Lady Jane.”

And then, atrociously, he smiled.

OK, gentle reader, I realise writing at work is a stupid risk, but another thousand words is something I can well use at the moment. At 35,000 words, I still have ground to make up, although as ever my main problem isn’t lack of words but lack of plot. With the climactic scene I’ve just made a start on, Wenham is practically complete, with 15,000 still to come. I pasted in the address of the stuff about self-publishing and emailed the spreadsheet to my home email. Just to be on the safe side, I deleted the original copy of the spreadsheet altogether.

[Total Word Count: 38,489]

I went round to see Geoff again. I felt obscurely guilty about deciding to continue with Wenham, as if it were somehow cheating; but I thought it was best to go round and tell him. He looked completely taken aback to see me, almost apprehensive. I was not a welcome visitor, it seemed.

“John? You haven’t come to give me that bloody Cristal again, have you?” he asked.

“Au contraire, Geoffrey.” I replied, “The race is back on. I’m going to finish Nanowrimo.”

“Oh! Well, good! Good! You changed your mind? Well done. I mean, it’s good that you’re trying, though of course I’m still going to win.”

We paused on the step.

“Er, come in.” he said at last, reluctantly I thought.

Geoff led the way upstairs, and once again we settled ourselves. I couldn’t help glancing over at the pile of manuscript. It didn’t seem any bigger, and I could almost swear that there was a thin layer of dust on the top sheet. Was Geoff’s inspiration finally drying up, perhaps?

“Do you want a quick beer?” asked Geoff, “Only I’m going out a bit later.”

“With Mercedes? She’s graduated to the evenings at last?”

“Yes – I mean yes, it is her. Actually, I’ll just go and give her a quick ring if you don’t mind: we didn’t fix up when we were going to meet.”

He hurried downstairs.

An opportunity? Shall I have another little look? At Geoff’s manuscript? No, no, I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t. What, you think I should? Really? I’m surprised at you, gentle reader – I had you down as a more scrupulous kind of person. Still, if you insist, I suppose I’m powerless to resist…

Draw for you, knave I don’t think I’m not doing that no I’ll call my man to deal with your impertinence I fancy. He said with haughty mien.
Draw or by God I’ll prick you where you stand, poultroon.

Stand still you caitiff rogue.
At that a strange figure appeared and leapt between them twirling his moustache.

Enough he cried back there now.

And who the hell do you think you are Mister our hero ground out between gritted teeth.

Let me 'ow you say introduce maiself monsieur I am Louis Renault Capitaine of Mousketaires. Gentlemen we ave other feesh to fry ave we not? I say this stops ‘ere.

And by golly, gentle reader, it did. The rest of the page was blank. I turned the page: the next one was a completely blank sheet. And the next one. I picked up a big handful of pages and riffled them. All blank. Snowy white virgin sheets. It seemed – I had a quick look back at page one – it seemed that Geoff had in fact completed no more than about four hundred words of utter drivel. A wave of relief, shock, disbelief, and belief swept through me.

He reappeared in the doorway, saw the manuscript in my hand, and froze on the spot. It wasn’t turning out a very tranquil evening for Geoffrey.

“This is a gripping yarn of yours, Geoff.” I remarked.

“It’s all on the computer,” he said, hesitantly, “I didn’t print it out, that’s all. Just thought it would give you a fright if I showed you a big pile of pages, you know.”

“Geoffrey,” I said, “Your pantaloons are aflame, Geoffrey.”

He looked abashed.

“Geoffrey, Geoffrey, Geoffrey.” I remonstrated, “Geoffrey. This is all you’ve written, isn’t it? Come on now. Look me in the eye.”

“Alright,” he said, coming into the room and slumping down on the small sofa, “You win. I can’t do it. I could no more write a novel than ride a woolly mammoth down Lombard Street, as you put it. It’s true. Sorry.”

Did I really say that thing about mammoths? That was a bit unkind, really.

“But Geoff, what was the point? You have to register your words with the ’wrimo people. You can’t hand them a big bundle of blank paper.”

“Well,” he said, wearily, “At first, I just didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t get anywhere. I thought I might catch up. But then I thought so long as I kept up a front, you know, it would encourage you to keep going. That was why I came up with the bet. I thought it would encourage you to focus, you know, help you stay motivated. I would never have taken the champagne off you, at the end of the day. That’s why I wouldn’t take it the other day, and tried to get you to carry on. Successfully, too, it seems. I really only wanted to help, all along.”

“Geoffrey, Geoffrey,” I said, “You big, fat, liar!”

“No, this is the truth” he protested, “ I wanted to encourage you, be a sort of pace-setter, a sort of sparring partner. Is that so bad?”

“Forsooth, thou takest the biscuit, Geoffrey; yea, verily.”

“Come on, I meant well.”

“Draw, Sir!” I said, dancing about in front of him with one arm thrown up and the other clutching an imaginary foil “Draw, I say! Draw, damn you Sir! I say draw, Sir, an you be a gentleman!”

“Oh, shut up!” said Geoff.

“Draw, an you be a gentleman, or I shall spit you where you sit like a spiced apple at Bartholomew Fair, forsooth.”

“Oh God.” said Geoff, helplessly.

“By my halidom! ’Odds bodikins! Gadzookers! God’s pieces, Sir! Ow!” I had forgotten that Geoff’s flat offered little room for swashbuckling, and banged my elbow on the wall.

“You want a quick beer?” offered Geoff, “Come on.”

“Alright then, you lying bloody liar, you sad failing talentless ungifted lying bastard, “ I consented, “You snivelling illiterate faithless incapable liar. We might as well.”

Actually, I felt exultant. My lack of faith in Geoff’s abilities had been triumphantly vindicated, and my own astonishing literary gifts looked all the better by contrast. I felt much better about myself. I felt much better about Wenham. And I felt a whole lot better about Geoff. Now he couldn’t write to save his life, I really liked him again.

We sat and had a friendly glass of frothy warm cat pee: Geoff seemed relieved, too. He offered to pay me for the Cristal (“You don’t really want two, do you?”), but seemed to change his mind when he heard how much it had actually cost me.

On the way back to the Tube station, gentle reader, I was virtually walking on air. I nearly collided, in quick succession, with an old man holding a newspaper, a small boy, and a plump, bad-tempered looking Philippina, who turned and looked at me sharply. But I was immune to all disapproval for the time being.

Back at home I threw myself into Wenham with renewed enthusiasm.

At the back of the house stood a long low barn. A little gate gave direct access to it from the side road, and it was that way that Lady Jane went, with Charlie bringing up the rear. A small door on a simple latch led into the barn: Lady Jane opened it and put her head inside.

“Coo-ee?” she called. There was no answer, so she stepped inside. Charlie followed.

They stood in a sort of anteroom. half the height of the barn, with two deep sinks, old chairs, and a table against one wall with a sheet draped over it. There were drips and splodges of paint everywhere. To the right were a pair of high double doors, one of them just ajar.

“Hello, there? Oliver?” called Lady Jane. “He should be here. I spoke to him only yesterday, He seemed quite alright about it. He knows my cousin Archie in London. I wonder if something is wrong.

“You don’t think…?”

“No, no, Charlie, I don’t think he’s been murdered. For heaven’s sake. Oliver? Hello? Are you there?”

Again there was no answer, so she and Charlie pushed the double doors aside.

Inside was a large space: about half the barn. The roof had been replaced with glass, and there was extra strip lighting round the whitewashed walls, some of which was switched on. Even though the sunlight streaming in through the roof was weak and watery, the overall impression was one of stepping into a warmer, more Mediterranean climate. Stacked in piles around the walls were twenty or thirty canvases. Two large ones were hung on the walls, and another stood on an easel, with its back to them. A tea-chest covered with paints, brushes, bottles and tools stood beside it.

All at once, the artist’s head popped out from behind the canvas on the easel, blinked, withdrew, and immediately popped out again. The resemblance to a small bird was so striking that Charlie immediately thought of a cuckoo clock.

“Hel-lo?” said the artist, warily.

“Jane Pimsey?” said Lady Jane, “I rang yesterday? You said I could drop in?”

The artist’s face smoothed out into a smile.

“Oh yes, of course,” he said, coming out from behind the easel and wiping his hands on a rag, “I’m so sorry. When I get caught up in a painting, I forget everything.”

“These are wonderful pictures,” said Lady Jane, shaking his hand, “But – forgive me if I’m confused – I went to an exhibition of yours in London five years ago – I thought you went in for abstracts?”

“Yes,” said Oliver, “I was a rather austere abstract expressionist at the beginning of my career. But one day I was reading the preface of a book by Calvino. He explained how for years he had written fiction with a political commitment, a social critique, always grittily realistic; then one day it just came to him that he was doing it out of duty and actually he didn’t have to. He could write anything he liked. He could write the books he’d really like to read: the adult equivalent of the fairy stories and legends he’d loved so much as a boy. So he did, and went in for the sort of intellectual magic realism which is what we really know him for, of course. Now I found that inspiring. I asked myself, are you abstaining from figurative art merely out of a misplaced sense of duty? I decided to give myself a holiday. I took an enormous canvas and said: now I can paint whatever I like. There was no doubt in my mind what that was: I just threw the paint on. And I’ve never looked back. My figurative pictures have done quite well, actually: I’m afraid I’m becoming quite obscenely rich.”

They chuckled politely while Charlie wondered what quality it was that rendered a chauffeur invisible, and whether he was glad he had it.

“That’s the very first one over there,” said Oliver, “I shall never sell it.”

They turned and looked. Hung beside the double doors they had come in through was a vast canvas depicting what seemed to be a dragon. Much of the picture was misty dark grey-green smoky swirls; but the face of the monster, angrily looming forwards as though to swallow the observer, part of a scaly wing and a huge clawed foot, stood out in nightmarishly clear detail.

“Blimey!” said Charlie, unthinkingly.

“Oh yes,” said Lady Jane, “I like that. Could we see some of the others?”

“By all means.” said the artist politely. He pulled out a canvas from one of the stacks by the wall.

“Bloody hell!” said Charlie.

“It’s basically two Blemmies fighting,” explained Oliver, “You can sort of see that this one has had some bits of skin and muscle pulled right off him, but he’s coming back strongly.”

“I thought blemmies were fish?” remarked Charlie. Oliver glanced at him impatiently.

“No, no: these are Sternophthalmoi,” he explained, “The people with no heads who used to appear on medieval maps and in traveller’s tales. They had their faces on their chests, you see.”

“It makes me think of Goya.” said Lady Jane.

“Really?” said Oliver, “That’s excellent. Thank you. I could have no higher praise.”

He pulled out another canvas.

“Christ!” said Charlie

“This is a Gryphon.” Oliver said with an insincere smile at Charlie.

“That pile of… Those things it’s tearing at… are they human?” asked Charlie.

Oliver merely raised his eyebrows.

“Extraordinary,” said Lady Jane.

Oliver pulled out another canvas a few inches and hesitated.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to show you this one,” he said, “I should put this one away. Well, never mind. It’s a portrait, you see, of the late Earl of Wenham, depicted as Cronos.”

He pulled it fully out.

“Oh, fuck!” said Charlie, involuntarily.

“Charlie?” said Lady Jane, “I forgot to tell Mrs Moreton that we’d be in for dinner tonight. Would you mind going back and telling her, please? No need to come back for me – I’ll walk.”