Nanowrimo Winner

[Total Word Count: 44,871]

I arrived early at Behemoth in a state of turmoil. I got as far as sitting at my desk and then a kind of paralysis hit me. My brain, reserving only those basic functions necessary for life support, had diverted its resources into running a single sentence through my mind over and over again.

Oh God.

“You alright?”

It was fat Katie, the stupidest of Behemoth’s generally rather superior secretaries, but unfortunately the one who worked for the Director.

“Uh? Oh, yeah. Yeah. In a brown study, you know?”

“What?”

“Yes, I’m OK.”

“Only, I just wanted to check it was alright.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“No, I mean the spreadsheet.”

“The…?”

“The spreadsheet. Was it alright?”

A horrid, impossible speculation entered my mind.

“Which spreadsheet, Katie?”

“That one I took. Oh, you don’t know, do you? Sorry. No, you see John was asking if we had a copy of the ad spend figures, and I knew you’d had it, so I came over and you weren’t here, but your computer was still on, so I had a look and I took it. Is that alright?”

“Which spreadsheet? Not the… ASP raw data breakdown? The Multistode figures?”

“Yeah, that was the one I think.”

“But I deleted that one the other day.”

“Yeah, but I looked in your sent mail and you’d sent it to yourself, so I forwarded it to John. The thing is, when I printed it for John, there was all this writing. See, I always check ‘print whole workbook’, ‘coz sometimes people put stuff on other sheets.”

This is the woman who can’t be bothered to look in her own mailbox, but invariably asks to be sent stuff again. But suddenly, on this one occasion, she comes over, hacks into my computer, looks at sent mail, and finds the one deadly needle in the haystack, and takes care that every bit of it gets printed. Evil is not just a metaphor, gentle reader.

“That wasn’t really the right one, Katie – have you still got it?”

“Oh yes, I’ve still got it. Do you want me to send it back to you?”

“No, just delete that one and I’ll dig out the right version for you. Good job you asked me. You know it’s a bit out of order, really, forwarding other people’s sent mail.”

“Yeah, sorry. I thought there was something wrong with it, cause there was all this stuff like a story. When I printed it off, I looked at it, and I thought, he’s not going to want this, is he? He just wants the front bit with the figures.”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell him.”

“You don’t need to tell him., do you?”

“Oh, yeah, ’cause in the end I thought better give him the lot, and if doesn’t want it he can ignore it. So it was in his overnight papers yesterday. But don’t worry. I’ll tell him that bit wasn’t supposed to be in it. What was it, anyway?”

I groaned.

“It was nothing, Katie, but if you get a chance to take it out without raising the subject, I think that would be good. It’ll just annoy him if he reads it.”

“Oh,” she said, with relish, “He’ll have read it. He reads everything. Sorry.”

She smiled broadly and half-turned to go.

“Have I got you in trouble?” she asked, cheerily.

There was just nothing I could do. Well, one thing. I logged in and started anonymising the blog, something I should have done long ago. Names and details were changed. It’s not likely that John Sopert is going to Google his own name the way Kevin did – Sopert probably thinks Google is a famous Russian author – but you never know. Any kind of Internet stuff is going to be far, far worse than mucking about writing a novel in a spreadsheet.

That’s it. All names, all recognisable details in this blog have been changed. It took hours. The problem for me is that you, gentle reader, still remember all that stuff, don’t you? I know you wouldn’t give me away, but it still makes me uneasy, and it’s going to sort of disrupt your reading pleasure if you have no idea who is who any more. I think I’m going to have to make use of a little-used authorial privilege and zap your memory, sort of like Men in Black. I can do that. Oh yes. Here… can you feel a little itch behind your left ear? That’s me popping in and changing your memories to match my re-write.

It’s done. Now you think my name has always been ‘John Faletcher’. You think my best friend’s name has always been Geoff, and that he was always a management consultant. So far as you know, my girlfriend was never a blonde called Mel. Kevin Johnson was never a skinny little bloke called Howard Cohen (Actually, gentle reader, that’s not his real name either.) I never worked for anyone but Behemoth, and the Director’s name was never… anything but John Sopert. If there are uncorrected inconsistencies left in my account, I’m sorry, but not being spotted is top priority. I hope you understand.

Too little, too late. But it might help. Not with the actual problem, of course – writing a novel in my lunch hour is not going to go down well anyway – but all I can do about that is hang on and hope that somehow it blows over.

I would have expected a crisis like this to paralyse me with worry, but the thing is, I’ve already been paralysed with worry for entirely different reasons. What am I going to do, gentle reader? I think I have to tell Julie about last night. No, it’s not stupid: don’t raise your eyebrows like that. I may be a pompous, lazy bastard, but I am honest. I don’t want to cheat. Think how much worse it will be if she finds out for herself, and let’s face it, with my luck and skill, she’s bound to. Oh. come on, let’s do it. Let’s make the appointment with the dentist. Let’s arrange to lance the boil. Let’s face it, this bloody morning isn’t getting any worse, whatever happens.

I pick up the phone and key the number.

“Julie?”

“John?” she doesn’t sound annoyed, just mildly surprised. I cannot deal with this over the phone, of course.

“Julie, look, I need to see you. Just half an hour? Can I come over?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just want to… I need to… There’s…”

“You’ve done something. Is it to do with bottles? What have you done? Tell me.”

“No, no. Just let’s have a chat later, OK?”

“No, I’m not doing that. Just tell me what you’ve done.”

“Alright, look, I didn’t want to do this on the phone, but… Do you remember Miss Mouse?”

“No. What are you talking about?”

“Oh fuck, look never mind, let’s just leave it for now. I’ll speak to you later.”

“No, no. Who is she?”

“She’s one of the Nanowrimo people. Remember? She had, uh, my laptop.”

“And?”

“Well, and I slept with her last night.”

A silence. Then, weirdly, she laughed, in an unhappy way.

“Well,” she said, “That’s about it then, isn’t it? That was all we needed to round things off.”

“No, no, please. It was just a stupid thing, It’s nothing. I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again. I just…”

“What? Wanted to boast about it? Wanted to upset me at work? Wanted to get in before she rings me herself? What?”

“No… I’m sorry Julie. Please forgive me. Can I see you?”

“You know, John, you really are a bastard. You didn’t have to ring me up at work with this. Actually, to be frank, I don’t know why you told me at all, unless this is some weird way of dumping me.”

“Oh no, look…”

“Look, I’ve got to go. Don’t ring me again. I’ll ring you. Tonight. If you actually want me to?”

“Yes, of course, but look…”

She rang off.

Made the right decision there, eh? Smooth or what?

I sat staring at the elderly monitor on my desk for the rest of the day, not doing anything, not even reading emails. Nothing happened. No call, no summons from Sopert. I went home.

I’m not a superstitious person, gentle reader, but as I sit here with the completed text of Wenham before me (40,252 words – I’m that close), I cannot help feeling that I brought this on myself by the perverse magic of writing. Above all, I wrote the end first: I actually wrote ‘The End’: in some strange way, that turned this whole thing into a kind of curse. By writing a downbeat story, I have somehow given a downbeat turn to my life. Don’t you think? How else can you explain it, then? Don’t look at me like that! If I sound a bit mad, gentle reader, just bear with me. I think I can do something about it.

Epilogue

“Would you put my bags in the car, Charlie?” asked Lady Jane.

“Back to London, then?”

“Yes, I can’t really stay here any longer. Have you packed, or are you sending stuff on later?”

“Packed? You mean…”

“You are coming with me, aren’t you? You don’t have to, but I sort of assumed you would.”

She looked at him enigmatically.

“You want to take me on permanently?” asked Charlie, incredulously.

“Oh yes. You did a good job, Charlie. We’ll sign a proper contract in London, but I’ll pay the same rate I’ve been giving you here – alright, no, plus ten per cent, London is expensive. And there’s a nice flat over the garage – I’ve got a mews place, you know the kind of thing – which is yours as part of the deal if you want it.”

“I didn’t think I’d sort of passed the trial period,” said Charlie, “You seemed quite cross with me over that bottle business. And then me being friendly with Fenella, well…”

“What I really need, Charlie,” said Lady Jane pensively, “Isn’t a chauffeur, or an assistant detective. I get into some strange places in my line of work, and deal with some odd people. I need somebody sensible, reliable and, well, rooted in reality. Someone who’s, oh, thirty percent Sam Weller, thirty percent Dr Watson, and forty percent Digby.”

“Digby?”

“From Dan Dare. You never read it? Well, anyway, you’re that kind of rooted chap, Charlie. In my opinion.”

“I’m a bit rougher and tougher than that lot,” said Charlie, “Unless Digby was a bit of a bruiser, whoever he is.”

“No, you are a bit bigger and tougher,” said Lady Jane, smiling, “That’s not a bad thing, either. Anyway, look, I can’t stand here all day discussing your personal qualities. Can you put the bags in?”.

“Yus, milady” said Charlie, and smiled. She smiled back unreservedly, and wagged one finger at him.

Then I solemnly deleted the words “The End”, though of course it still is the end, but not really the end any more. I’m sorry, I’m babbling. 40,469 words: that’s it for today, I’m afraid.

I sat back and looked around my lonely flat. By now every surface was clear and disinfected and the only piece of mess not neatly arranged in a tidy container was me.

The doorbell made me jump violently. I got up and opened the door, and it was Julie. She didn’t smile at me, but she was here, at least.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“You’ve got a key, actually,” I reminded her – it was meant to sound better than it did. She came in and sat down on one side of the table. As though programmed, I sat down opposite.

“John,” she said, in a business-like way, “This mouse person. Is it serious? Are you seeing her?”

“No, I told you.” I said, “I went out to one of their sort of writing things, and I drank a lot, and I was just stupid. It’ll never happen again.”

“Cause, you know, I’m not saying, but I would understand, if you seriously wanted to sort of move on?”

“No, no. No. No. It’s not like that.”

“Okay, well look. I’ve been thinking, and I think I haven’t really been fair to you.”

No? This is not what I was expecting, gentle reader.

“I haven’t been very patient really, and maybe a bit mean. I don’t mean everything is alright, but I’m not going to have a row with you now.”

Not now.

“What I suggest is that we stick to the plan of getting through the Nanoo thing, only I’m going to try to be nicer about it. Then when it’s over, we’re going to have to get straight about some things. There’ll be… Well, there’ll be some difficult things to say. Things you won’t like, you understand?”

I nodded emphatically like a toy dog. I really want to hear those things I won’t like.

“Are you sure you’re happy with this? Alright. Now look. You said you wanted to celebrate. Come over tomorrow. I’ll cook something. Is that OK? You can… you can bring your laptop if you like. It’s OK.”

She swallowed. There was a tear in her eye. Mine too.

“Thanks, Julie,” I said huskily, “You’re wonderful. I don’t deserve it. Thank you.”

I stood up and moved clumsily round the table towards her, but she stood up too and backed away.

“Not now,” she said, “Not today. But I’ll see you tomorrow?”