[Total Word Count: 42,609]
It’s finished. It really is finished. Wenham, I mean. The story is told. I knew it was going to happen, and now it has. All the sections of text can be bolted together, and the thing can go down the slipway now. Whether it’s any good is another question, but it’s incontrovertibly finished. It just isn’t 50,000 words long.
I sit here at the trusty old laptop and time passes. As I sit here the end of November is actually getting closer all the time. I can almost feel it breathing down my neck. There’s an inflatable snowman outside the motorbike shop. This morning, there was actual snow. December is standing over me the way a curious Tyrannosaur stands over a little fluffy white bunny. I look around the flat, but there is nothing to distract me. In Julie’s absence the place is becoming tidier all the time, and pretty well everything has been cleaned at least once within the last twenty-four hours. Many small objects have actually been sterilised.
“Detective work just does involve a lot of waiting, Charlie.” said Lady Jane, “Here, have a magazine. This story about the Morris 1000 is rather clever. It’s a sort of updated version of one in Boccaccio: actually there’s the same story in Apuleius or somebody…”
Oh God. I’m getting so desperate now that for a few minutes I seriously considered resurrecting the idea that Wenham is a story being told on an intergalactic spaceship. It may come to that. You remember that bit about the Danes? That’s back in. It may be guff, but it’s words, gentle reader, it’s all more words.
I hauled out the corpse of the old book earlier on, the proto-Wenham, my earlier attempt at the same story, just to see if there was anything in it I could salvage. Not words, not words, just ideas. But it’s hopeless. Everything that happened in that version has already happened in this one, sometimes twice, in flashback, and in slow motion. I’m stuck trying to find places for random interpolations.
While she was waiting, Lady Jane studied the bookshelves, often a source of information about the personality of their owner. ‘Sacred Hunger’ by Barry Unsworth: she remembered that one – a Booker prize winner? Through a strange combination of circumstances, a group of slaves and mutineers take over a ship and establish an idealistic multicultural society…Hmm, Gore Vidal, ‘Civilisation’…that’s the one where the unfortunate Cyrus Spitama, grandson of Zoroaster, gets sent on epic journeys to China, India, and Greece. I wonder if I can remember the details?
Ach. It’s the old problem – if it were really just words, any words, it wouldn’t be so bad, but somehow I can’t quite bring myself to stuff the thing full of completely irrelevant rubbish. That’s not the point.
The phone rings, and I snatch it up immediately.
“Hi!” says Tom’s voice.
“Ah, Tom,” I reply wearily, “I’ve really got to write, mate. I really have this time. You know?”
“Oh sure,” he says, unworried, “Nobody wants to come out any more. Either they’ve given up and just want to forget the whole thing, or they’re still desperately struggling to stay in with a chance. What’s your word count now?”
“Nearly 40,000,” I reply, “On paper, I’m almost back on target; it really ought to be possible now. But I’ve run out of story.”
“OK. Well I’ll be in the Angel if you think your creative juices could do with a top-up. I’m still stalled, by the way.”
“Bad luck,” I say, “I’ll give you a ring in December, anyway, if we don’t see each other.”
I spend half an hour putting in the text of two more hymns which the villagers sing in the final episode which I’ve already written. Then I save, switch off, get my coat, and head outside.
I feel a burden of guilt as I trudge down the street. What I ought to do is just sit there day and night until another ten thousand words is on paper, and then I’d be free of the damn thing. I suspect now that part of my own motivation in taking on Nanowrimo was just the desire to be rid once and for all of any idea that it was somehow my duty to try and write a novel. It certainly feels now as if I just need to be shot of the thing, and never write another non-factual word in my life.
There has certainly been a big falling-off in the sociability of the ’wrimo folk. When I arrive I think I must have misunderstood; but in the end I spot Tom sitting in solitary splendour with a pint of Guinness in front of him. He seems unworried, and greets me with his usual warmth.
“How many people does it take to write a Nanowrimo novel?” he asks.
“I don’t know: how many people does it take to write a Nanowrimo novel?” I ask.
“You mean you had help?” he asks with mock horror.
“Very good, yeah,” I say without enthusiasm. “Actually, that would be good, wouldn’t it? I mean, if you could write me a couple of episodes to insert into Wenham, I could easily do you a couple of chapters for Snarking Asshats. See I’m, not dictating, but one of your people lives in Delhi, and every day his lunch is delivered to him by one of those special carriers that take home-made stuff out to the people in offices…”
Tom has covered his ears.
“Not listening! Not listening!” he repeats.
“Well, you could take the idea,” I point out.
“No, I don’t want to be helped. As the man said, I can cope with the despair: it’s the hope that kills me.”
“Who was that? Housman?”
“John Cleese.”
“Of course, of course. Same again?”
As the evening wore on, we managed to stop talking about Nanowrimo. I think I was telling Tom all about The Golden Ass in quite unnecessary detail when Miss Mouse suddenly appeared, and it was actually a bit of a wrench to spool back to the burdens of the literary life.
“Are you OK?” she asked, in a tone which made it clear she was keeping up with the blog, and put one small mouse-like hand on my shoulder.
“Fine,” I said, “And you?”
“25,000!” she said, triumphantly, “Of course, it’s not nearly enough, but it’s a big improvement. I’m not giving up yet. Could I… I know this is awful, but would you mind if I read you a short section, just to see if it sounds alright?”
She read us an episode set during the war- and it’s only as I write this I realise I’m not sure whether it was supposed to be WWI or WWII. Our heroine has been stood up and is in tears in Pall Mall, beginning to attract the haughty stares of passing nobs. Suddenly, who should appear but Jimmy, the young boy she wrestled with when small, the bolshy trade unionist who has now somehow attained the rank of Captain and is in full uniform. He offers her his shoulder and a handkerchief, and takes her off to a magnificent dance, where he behaves impeccably, speaking in a fake upper-class accent which is probably meant to be satirical but has the staff fawning and the chinless aristocrats around them gazing fondly at this sturdy specimen of British manhood.
Our heroine is emotionally vulnerable after the upsets of the earlier part of the evening, and this strange new personality – Jimmy, but Jimmy with polished manners and a commission – is deeply appealing to her. They have a wonderful evening which concludes in Jimmy’s hotel room, and I’m assuming this is the occasion when the feckless artist son is initiated.
The following morning she discovers that Jimmy is AWOL and has merely borrowed a captain’s uniform; however, after a breakneck journey he returns to barracks just in time, where he can resume his post as a private in the catering corps without being court-martialled. It’s only later, as a sergeant, that he attains military renown by fending off a detachment of Germans while armed only with a spatula and a potato peeler.
It’s not bad, actually, though it’s not really my kind of thing.
“You two never let people see any of your stuff,” she complains. Tom merely flaps one hand dismissively.
“I haven’t got anything new,” I say, “I’ve run out of inspiration. The story’s finished, but I need another ten thousand words. I think I might have to introduce another murderee, though that would really mess things up”
“Only another ten thousand? You’re doing really well. What about your MC having a Proustian moment, you know, a long passage about a biscuit? Or why don’t you put an epilogue on the end?”
I swallow a snide remark about that being the best place to put an epilogue, and consider the idea. There’s something to it, you know, gentle reader.
“It’s quite a handy thing,” she says, “You can just ramble on about what happened to all sorts of minor characters after the main action, and it doesn’t matter if the threads don’t hang together. And you can make it as short or as long as you like.”
“Yes,” I say, warming to the idea, “Yes.”
It is quite late by the time we all leave, and Tom disappears with a wave.
“Thanks for the suggestion,” I say, “That’s the second time you’ve given me a bit of help.”
She looks me in the eye and smiles.
“Would you… would you like to come back for a coffee?” she asks.
“I’d love to, but I’d better not,” I reply, falling readily into the well-worn script. She looks a bit vulnerable. I smile back at her, feeling like a bit of a bastard for some reason.
“Goodnight,” I say, and give her a grateful peck on the cheek.
Early the following morning, while it’s still dark, I wake from a dream I can’t quite remember with a slight headache, not a bad one considering. Perhaps in some curious way it is partly attributable to the strange decision I made last night to switch from bitter to red wine half-way through the evening. At the time it was supposed to stop me getting a hangover, though I can’t quite recall the rationale now. I stare through the darkness at the ceiling, waiting for my brain to sort itself out. Writing of any kind is surely going to be difficult today, as is work, and I briefly entertain the idea of phoning in sick. It’s comfortable here in bed, in that ideal state where you are neither fully awake nor properly asleep, though that is gradually being changed by a growing need to pee, probably the reason I am waking up so early.. This at least I can deal with. I roll out of bed in practised style and head for the bathroom and the World Service, my faithful nocturnal companion. It’s only now I realise that I don’t know where the bathroom is, or the bedroom door. My flat has changed in the night (you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you , gentle reader?). All at once some memory module coughs into reluctant life in the centre of my brain and I remember.
Picture if you can, and if you can bear to, the figure of John Faletcher in mid-shuffle, naked, his buttocks silvered by the moonlight still streaming through the window, his head twisted back over his shoulder in an uncomfortable way, his face contorted in surprise, his lips parted to emit a soft, low groan of shock, disbelief, remorse, and belief, his eyes fixed on the figure of Miss Mouse sleeping peacefully under her duvet behind him.
