Nanowrimo Winner

The official Nanowrimo counter puts the word count at 53,782, a bit more than I thought based on WordPress totals (but I’m not arguing).

Back with further comment in due course. I’ve done a handy pdf version of the whole thing, to make it easier to read (in the unlikely event that anyone should want to).

[Final Total Word Count: 53,547]

The end is nigh, gentle reader. It’s nearly over. It seems hard to believe, but less than 500 words now stand between us and the summit: Nanowrimo!

It’s been tough along the way, I acknowledge. The rest of my life has taken a number of knocks while I’ve been closeted with the laptop. But I’ve grown, gentle reader, I’ve learned to value my own qualities, and I’ve learnt that I must take charge of my own life. A new life and a better, more mature Faletcher lie ahead.

And you know, I’m actually quite pleased with Wenham, too. It’s going to need a lot of revision, obviously, and probably some expansion. Not to mention some editing. It pains me to think of cutting it back down to about 30,000 words, but it’s going to have to be done before I start adding again. So there’s a long way to go, but let me be quite honest and open; I really don’t see why, at the end of it, there shouldn’t be a half-decent, perhaps even a viable book come out of it. Don’t worry, I’m not back on the Booker prize tack, and I realise it may just be the euphoria of completion that’s speaking here, but at the end of the day, when all’s said and done, taking everything into account… why the hell not?

I rang Julie earlier on and told her that within about an hour, all being well, the thing would be done, and asked her to come over and celebrate. So now, gentle reader, the last little insertion into the text…

…is done. No, I’m not going to give you a sample of it this time. It’s a kind of inverted Hardy passage where I go on soppily about how in spite of the dullness of the landscape round about Wenham, there’s a property in the soil that brings good out of bad, and how the three years of blight fertilise the land for the seven years of plenty that follow. Alright, it might be a bit out of key with some of the other stuff, but I’m determined to put a bit of optimistic uplift in, and not merely because I’ve developed this superstitious fear about the story having some kind of ghastly influence over me. I’m free of it now, anyway.

Right on cue, Julie rang the doorbell – I told her she should use her key – and came in.

“So it’s really finished?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s it. Well, I have to upload the stuff and get it counted officially, but the writing is done.”

“Congratulations!” she said, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m really impressed with your determination.”

“Have a seat,” I said, “I’ll open the champagne.”

“Wait a minute,” she said solemnly, “Come and sit down. We need a talk first.”

Clearly I had to sign up to a few basic protocols before anything as frivolous as champagne intervened.

“I didn’t want to go through this while you were still doing your writing thing,” she said, “It didn’t seem fair. But now we have to get on the level.”

She took a deep breath.

“First, I slept with Geoff.”

“Geoff? What? Geoff? Geoff Browne? You slept with Geoff?”

“Yes, Geoff. Oh come on, don’t look like that. Is Geoff so awful? He’s supposed to be your friend.”

“Yes, he is, isn’t he? I don’t…Is this… is this sort of in revenge for the Mouse?”

“No – it happened before that.”

“Before? But why didn’t you say… Oh, is this why you didn’t give me much of a hard time? But you were definitely post-Maureen, right?”

“Look, the details don’t matter. If you must know, it was only about three times.”

“About three times… My God, you’re Mercedes, aren’t you? Mercedes, the reliable, comfortable ride…”

“There is no Mercedes, John,” she responded irritably, “That was just some bizarre idea of Geoff’s, supposed to help keep you from noticing anything, or something.. I told him I didn’t like it.”

“You went to the Miramar and had breakfast with him, though, didn’t you?”

“What has breakfast got to do with it?” she exclaimed.

“OK, OK. I don’t care about the breakfasts. I’d rather you admitted to the breakfasts and denied the sex, to be perfectly honest.”

“Look, I’m sorry.”

“Jesus,” I said, “And the reason he wanted me to carry on with Nanowrimo was so I wouldn’t be spending any time with you…”

“No, you’re being totally paranoid.” she said.

“My God,” I said, unable to help myself, “You told me there were heaving bosoms. I just didn’t realise it was yours we were talking about.”

That did not go down very well, gentle reader. So at last I shut up.

“The second thing is,” she said grimly, “you and I are splitting up. Look, I’m not, you know, in a relationship with Geoff. I probably won’t see him any more. That’s not what it was about. The thing with Geoff, well… it was partly, I don’t know how to explain it, just a way of persuading myself that my life needed moving on – can you understand that?”

Yes, I understand that alright. It’s the new double standard. If I play away, it’s a contemptible betrayal and shows my piggish male nature; if you play away, it’s a deeply felt emotional exploration of personal potential, something in fact, which I could learn valuable life lessons from if only I could rise above myself sufficiently to contemplate it with the required reverence. That’s it, isn’t it?

“Yes,” I said, “I think I sort of do. So I’m what you’re moving on from, is that right?”

“I really thought we might salvage it,” she said. “Until the other day. It was that rose in the bottle that did it, made me realise it was basically no good.”

“The rose? But that was meant to be apologetic, a tender gesture, a friendly joke. I meant it to be nice.”

“I’m sorry, but it looked sarcastic to me, and it still does. I can’t help forgetting the bottle, for God’s sake. But you couldn’t lay off the smartarse stuff, could you? You couldn’t just leave it.”

There were tears in my eyes, but I had to think clearly. I knew a lot might depend on what I said. Obviously the situation was not retrievable here and now. Things had to play themselves out, this was not a conversation which could be turned away from its planned destination. If I protested, if I got angry, above all if I said anything else that could possibly, in any way at all, be construed as smartarse stuff, I would just destroy the last remaining long-term chances. Instead, a little late in the day, I had to do my best not to slam any more doors, and leave the way back as open as I could.

“I’ll only say this once,” I said, in a slightly strange voice, I noticed, “But I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything. This is a mistake. I love you.”

I think it had some impact, possibly left some trace. We sat in silence for a minute.

“Alright, well I’m going now,” she said at last, “We can speak again later if you want to, but you must accept that I’m not going to, you know, have a row about it, or a detailed post mortem, or a shouting match. And of course, there’ll be some things to sort out, stuff to move. See you.”

“Goodbye.” I said.

So here we are, gentle reader. At the end, it’s just you and me after all. We can have a glass of champagne – Geoff’s Cristal in fact, though he never actually paid for it. Or perhaps it’s best to leave the bottle standing there in the middle of the table forever. Like Miss Havisham’s cake. The weird thing is that as I sit here the thought that comes to mind is: Lady Jane Pimsey must be laughing her head off at this one.

Still we made it, didn’t we? The summit of Nanowrimo. Shake hands, gentle reader – maybe a little farewell hug? Thank you. It’s cold up here, and a trifle lonely, but you can see a lot of things you couldn’t see from down there. Was it worth it all? I lost a month of my life; what I would have called my best friend; the chance of promotion; my job, a substantial chunk of my sanity; and finally my girlfriend.

But Nanowrimo came through. It delivered as promised. Because look what I have got. Fifty thousand words of unpublishable crap.

[Total Word Count: 52,106 !]

“I gave him that spreadsheet.”

“You what?”

“I gave him that spreadsheet. Only he asked for it again, and you never got me another copy, so I had to find my copy and give him it.” said Katie, resentfully.

“Did you delete the sheet with the story on?”

“No. I can’t start mucking about with documents – I just used it the way you sent it to me.”

“Actually I didn’t send it to you. You took it out of my sent mail.”

“Well, whatever. He’s got it now, anyway.”

I moaned and clutched my head, and she turned away.

“Katie, wait. Has he actually read it?”

“I don’t know. It’s in his reading folder.”

“Could you go back and delete the second sheet? Could you? You know it’ll only annoy him. I’m not just asking to save my own skin. Alright, mainly to save my own skin. But not just.”

“No, if he thought I was editing stuff he’d asked for, he wouldn’t like it. He gets really upset if he thinks people are trying to manipulate him. It’s your own fault – you promised you’d get me the original version, didn’t you?”

“If I get you another copy of the proper one now, immediately, could you swap them – I mean before he reads them?”

“I don’t know whether I can. He might have read it already. Well, I might be able to, I suppose. But you’ll have to be really quick. He’s going to start looking at his stuff any time now.”

As soon as she had gone I started frantically searching. I usually accumulate dozens of copies of any given document, as I get re-copied into different circulations. I ransacked my own emails and files, but I just didn’t have it. Not a sniff. With insane, self-destructive tidiness I’d even cleaned out my sent mail, gentle reader. I checked the circulation of the original, which was still on a forwarded email in the depths of my inbox. Only about six people had it, one of whom was John Sopert himself (no point in asking Katie to retrieve it though); one was Kevin, still away, and one was me. One of the others was from a research organisation who would probably try to charge me for an additional copy, and one was in hospital with a broken leg. The other, my last best hope, was Bill. My old friend the headless troll. Clearly it was my day today.

I hurried up one floor to the land of the faded blue cubicles – I lived in the sea of green. By great good fortune Bill was in place, staring myopically at a turgid-looking document on his screen as if hoping it would speak to him.

“Bill,” I said, without ceremony, “Have you still got that spreadsheet on the Multistode spend? You know the one.”

“Hmm? Hello young man. What do you want?” He looked up unsmilingly and raised one condescending eyebrow.

“You remember the spreadsheet with advertising spend we discussed the other week? Have you still got it? Could you send me a copy?”

“The Multistode? I thought that was finished with. OK. I’ve probably still got it somewhere. Not sure where. I’ll have a look when I’ve finished this and send it on if you like. What do you want it for, anyway? Didn’t you keep it yourself?”

“No, that’s the problem. The thing is, Bill,” I gripped the edge of his cubicle. “I gave John Sopert a messed-up copy and now I need to get the correct one before he sees it, or he’ll have my proverbials for garters, you know? I sort of need it now. I’d be very grateful. Please, if you would.”

“Oh.” he said, looking me up and down. “I see. Got ourselves in bother again, have we? Honestly John, and I’m not being in any way personal here, but honestly you want to get a grip of this sort of thing, mate. One of these days…” He paused for a moment’s reflection. He enjoyed making me wait, but finally some last shred of decency came out; or perhaps he decided that in the long run giving me the thing would piss on my chips in some deeper and more effective way than withholding it. Or perhaps he thought John Sopert would in some way blame him if he didn’t provide a copy. In any case, he sat forward with a sigh. “Let’s have a look then… Oh yes. Here it is. There. Sent. Happy bunnies again?”

“Thanks Bill.” I said, fervently.

“Good luck.” he said, and then, with all the scorn his tiny twisted body could hold: “Mr Minimus…”

I ran back to my own desk, checked the spreadsheet. I wouldn’t by any means have put it past Bill to have somehow sabotaged it, but he hadn’t, and it hadn’t somehow acquired a copy of the extra sheet through evil magic. It was OK. I emailed it off to Katie. Then I ran back along the corridor to the little anteroom she occupied.

“Have you got it?” I asked, “Can you replace the other one?”

“No,” she said, “It’s no good. Too late. And you got me in trouble, didn’t you?”

“I what?”

“See, after I spoke to you I thought perhaps I was being a bit mean. So I thought I’d help you out. I deleted the second sheet. But then he comes out and he says that’s not the one he wanted. He says he wanted the one with the fictional material. It turns out he did read it the first time even though he had the plumbing problem. He says it takes more than water through the drawing room ceiling to stop him reading his papers. So there was actually no point in bothering about it anyway. It was too late in any case. But now he thinks I’m trying to pull some sort of fast one, or that I don’t know what I’m doing. All through trying to help you out.”

I had a vision of Mrs Sopert frantically moving buckets and attempting to shore up the house while her husband sat gravely immersed in his business circulars, lifting his eyes only to suggest fondly but firmly that all the noise wasn’t helping his concentration very much darling?

“Thanks for trying.” I said, hopelessly.

I set off back to my cubicle, feeling numb. I was doomed, doomed. There was no getting around it. I didn’t know in what form the storm would break over my head, or when, but clearly it was only a matter of time now. In fact, I hadn’t long to wait at all: before I had quite reached the illusory security of my cubicle, a heavy hand descended on my shoulder. I very nearly squealed in fear, I was so tense.

“John? Come with me a moment, would you?” It was Sopert himself, and his tone dispelled any idea that he was going to congratulate me on a brilliant bit of writing, or ask where he could sign up for Nanowrimo. I trailed behind him the long and weary way back to his office.

“Right, John: I’m guessing you know that this is about the spreadsheet you sent me inadvertently, ending with, er, internet fictional material,” he said once he’d settled himself. “Now you may be wondering why I didn’t speak to you sooner. The fact is, I’ve been talking to our HR people. If their advice to me had been slightly different, John, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and you’d be clearing your desk. Understand? And don’t think that scenario has altogether gone, John, because in my mind it hasn’t. It’s still very much a possibility.”

“However, the HR people tell me that since the material in question is not explicitly pornographic, does not appear to breach commercial confidentiality, and is not offensive hate speech or unacceptable in other ways, it is technically not in breach of our Acceptable Use policy, and is not therefore a disciplinary matter in those respects. They suggested instead that the waste of company time and resources implied by this – material – is instead a management issue.”

“You see,” I began.

“No, you wait a minute,” he interrupted, “You listen to me. What makes this very much worse in my eyes, John, is that this misdemeanour is internet-related. The text here includes a web-site address, and I am forced to conclude that it was your intention that this, er, material of yours was to be uploaded to a chat room. I’d like to know exactly what – ahuh! – you thought you were doing.”

I breathed in and out. It was time to put aside all dignity and decency and grovel.

“I’d like to make a clean breast of this, John,” I began, “To begin with, I must confess I’ve been going through a difficult time with my girlfriend.”

“Ahuh?”

“One of the problems is that, well, she’s a very creative person, whereas I’m sort of totally focussed on work and my career you know? I had to sort of show that I had a creative side too. So I’m afraid I started writing this, er, short story. She sort of insisted. It was her idea, really. I mean totally.”

“But it took me an awfully long time, and I hated it really. I had promised I’d finish it, so I had to, but I really just wanted to be done with it. Well, the other day, when I was reviewing the spreadsheet, in my lunchtime of course, I just thought, I can’t concentrate properly for worrying about this wretched story. Julie’s not going to be happy unless I finish it. So I thought, why don’t I take ten minutes, get the whole thing out of my system and be done with it? Then I can really get into the analysis of these figures. I realise now it was stupid, and I really regret it, but I’ve learned from the experience. I was sort of under pressure, you see. It really won’t happen again.”

“And what about the, the chat-room?”

“Oh, that address isn’t a chat-room. It’s a site about publishing stories. I wanted to show it to Julie, my girlfriend, to er, to show how hopeless, how pointless and stupid it all was. I’m just sorry that in a vulnerable moment., I let myself be led astray in the first place.”

“Ahuh. Well, I’m glad at least that you’ve chosen to be honest. I think I understand the position. You can’t afford this kind of thing, John, I hope you realise that. I’m surprised that you’d let yourself be led astray like this. I’m very disappointed. But I think I understand, at least. Now I’ve spoken to a couple of people about you – it’s a shame Kevin isn’t here but I know his views – and a pretty consistent view emerges. You’re a talented young man, but there’s a problem of attitude. One of your senior colleagues said to me that you were very clever, but he didn’t quite know whether you had taken on board the positive culture we like to foster at Behemoth: the ethos of Total Improvement. I need to make a decision here. We’re a civilised organisation. People values are very much part of our vision. So I’m not going to sack you. But my expectation is that you will want to look for other opportunities over the next few months. Let me make myself clear. You need to be working for someone else by 1 April. I’m not going to spell it out any more than that – just don’t be here, alright? If you are – well, let’s not explore that. Now you can go. And it’s none of my business, but if I were you, well – I’d get myself a new girlfriend, to be quite honest.”

I stood up and turned to go.

“Oh: since you were looking at the Multistode spend, what do you make of it?” he asked.

This was bizarre. As if we were straight back to normal. A wild hope that this was just a test, that I hadn’t been irrevocably fired, sprang up in my mind, matched at once by a desire to tell the conceited old fool where to put his Multistode. No, no: play it cool. Cool. I couldn’t remember anything about the figures. For the moment I couldn’t even remember who Multistode were.

“There are several aspects, really…” I began, limply.

“Ahuh?”

“But in the end if you were to sum it up as a headline it would be, er” – fingers tightly crossed – “Slide Of Distribution; Outturn Falling Fast.”

“Muh?” he raised an eyebrow, “Slide of distribution?”

“Basically A Slide To A Reduced Distribution.”

“Well,” he said impatiently, “You’re right about that, anyway. As far as it goes. Thank you.”

So much for that, gentle reader. As I collapsed back into my cubicle, I was actually trembling. My reserves of nervous energy were at a low ebb, and as the last trickle was diverted to essential life support functions my self-esteem shields flickered and went out. The warm duvet of ego-protecting delusion which we all normally carry round with us fell away from me and I had a rare and painful moment of self-knowledge. I was contemptible, without dignity or decency. Servile attempts to lie and divert the blame to others while trying to convince myself there was something ironically witty about it, that was me. Attempts to blame Julie, who had displayed such patience, who had given me opportunities to be a better person, all spurned in favour of febrile showing off.

Those acronyms – acrostics? – initialisms? -were a pretty crap thing to have done. Childish rudeness, cringingly concealed, and, the characteristic Faletcher icing on the cake, a footling attempt to make myself feel clever. Sopert could sack me, but he couldn’t humiliate me: no, I did that to myself. I had two choices there. I could have frankly told him to piss off, or I could have risen above it and behaved with calm indifference. But I couldn’t do the former for fear of being thrown out before I had a new job, and I couldn’t do the latter, full stop. That’s the kind of thing you have to be a man to do, my son, and I failed; I failed in myself, of my own doing. I can’t do that man stuff, gentle reader. You’re just going to have to call me Peter Pan. Ah. Did you notice the self-esteem coming back on line?

There were some other things to worry about now, of course. It might actually be a good thing to leave Behemoth; it doesn’t look good to hang around too long in one job. But I’d need luck. Any prospective employer would get suspicious at any sign of haste. They might pick up some problematic vibe. For that matter, Behemoth might give me a rubbish reference. I don’t think it would be the Sopert way to give me a really bad one, but a bit of studied restraint, or one allusion to how I hadn’t quite achieved perfect harmony with the local corporate culture and I’d be doomed. Any mention of internet activity would be equally damning. I should, in fact delete this blog altogether now.

OK, gentle reader, I’m still here. I’m not giving up. This is the lesson of Nanowrimo, I’m discovering: as in novelising, so in real life: it takes effort, but you can write your own story. I mean to do so. This is my blog, and whether or not I am to be the hero of it, I’m damn well going to be the author. As I took control of Wenham, so I shall take control of my own life. Well done, me.

[Total Word Count: 49,479]

“Good morning!” said Julie, “Sleep alright?”

I gradually resumed consciousness and pieced together the essential memories I needed for a coherent answer,

“Yeah, not too bad, considering,” I answered, levering myself up off the couch.

“There’s coffee if you want it. I’m off in about ten minutes. OK?” she glanced sideways “What’s that?” she asked, staring at the table.

The wine bottle still stood there, gentle reader, but in it was a single red rose.

“It’s just a rose.” I said, “Well, I say ‘just’, but I had to ransack about twelve gardens last night to find it. Your neighbours are probably going to think the Yeti’s moved into the neighbourhood.”

She clicked her tongue, shook her head, and left.

I felt pretty good that day, in spite of a relative lack of sleep. I was back in control. But there was an unwelcome task ahead of me, and as the evening approached my spirits began to droop again.

It was only as I picked up the phone that I realised there was another difficulty. I still had no idea what Mouse’s actual name was. But I wanted to speak to her. I didn’t want just to avoid answering the phone for the next month. Never mind, with any luck, she’d answer the phone herself.

“Hello?” said a voice, uninformatively. I wasn’t even completely sure it wasn’t her, but I didn’t think so.

“Hi!” I said. What now? “Er, this is John…”

“Hello! Did you want to speak to Phillipa?”

Phillipa! Aha! My strategy was succeeding.

“Yes please.”

“She’s not here any more, I’m afraid.”

“Not there?”

“No, she moved out.”

“She moved out? Surely not? When was this?”

“Oh, last February, She went back to Shropshire. Haven’t got a phone number, but I think we’ve got an address if that’s any use.”

“No, no thanks, that’s…OK.”

“Sorry. Bye!”

So much for that. I replaced the phone in confusion. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

Luckily Mouse took matters into her own hands and rang me about ten minutes later.

“Was that you speaking to Anna just now?” she asked, “Why did you ask for Phillipa?”

“I didn’t, I didn’t. Don’t forget… I still don’t actually know your name.”

“It’s Cecilia.”

“Thanks. Hello, Cecilia.”

“Hello. How are you?”

“I was wondering… Could we meet in the pub again, tonight?”

“Oh, I should think so! Same one, about seven?”

“Yes, that’s great.” I said, wondering immediately why I thought so.

After that conversation, I sat in front of the laptop for forty minutes, but it was no good. I actually began to revise the last section I’d written, which is a bad sign. You don’t revise. Don’t revise. Don’t.

As I approached the pub, I felt really sick, and it was worse when I saw Mouse sitting there, happy, waving at me. I liked her. She was nice. I wanted to be friendly. I didn’t want to upset her. Or was it vanity to think she’d be upset?

I got drinks and sat down.

“I just… I wanted to say…” I began.

She understood instantly, without a coherent sentence being spoken. She went stiff: I could see whole structures of assumptions and hopes turn instantly to choking dust inside her. A look came over her face, a look of fury, a look I hadn’t seen since I had suggested her story was like one of Catherine Cookson’s.

“You don’t want to see me.” she said, coldly.

“I feel like a total bastard…”

“You are a total bastard.”

“Uh, yeah. Well. I’m sorry. You’re great, but you know, I’m sort of in a relationship.”

“Oh yes. Like it says on your stupid blog. Good luck to you. You do realise she’s just about to dump you?”

“Oh, look… Don’t let’s do this. Don’t…”

“I felt sorry for you, but it’ll serve you right. Oh, what’s the point?” she stood up.

“Mouse,” I said, “Don’t…”

“Cecilia!” she hissed, and left. I sat back and sipped sadly at my pint. I didn’t really know how I could have handled things any better. Apart from not sleeping with her in the first place, obviously.

And then she was back again, angrier than ever.

“And you know what?” she said, “You know what? Your story is crap. It’s crap. It’s full of clichés, the characters are corny and flat, the plot doesn’t make sense; there are no clues… it’s full of irrelevant digressions, all the characters sound like you – you pompous git – it’s all dialogue with no description, the motives don’t ring true, the chronology is contradictory, and the names of characters change half-way through…the names are all stupid as well… your MC is a boring male fantasy…”

The spirit of Nanowrimo rose strongly in me.

“Yes,” I said, conclusively, “All of that is true. But none of it matters, because you know what? It is fifty thousand words long.”

“To think I said I liked it!” she hissed, “To think I actually listened to your ideas!”

“Look,” I said, “Let’s not do it like this. I understand why you’re angry, but let’s not make a meal of it. I tell you what. Just hit me, OK? Get it over with.” I held out my cheek as if for a slap, but much to my surprise she punched me, and gentle reader, she got some surprising force behind it for such a slightly-built person.

“Ow, shit!” I said, involuntarily. It hurt like hell, really, far worse than I’d bargained for. But I think it did relieve her feelings for a moment. She sort of pursed her lips in a job-well-done sort of way.

Everyone in the pub was looking at us now, and the landlord was putting down the glass he had been polishing as if he might just come over.

“Sorry,” she said, insincerely, “But you deserved it.” She stalked out quickly.

“Sorry!” I said to the bar at large, “Sorry! You know… sorry!”

You know, gentle reader, I’m a reasonable sort of bloke. I’m ready to accept the karmic harvest of my personal turpitude. But really, you know? I take up a friendly offer, I politely decline anything more: in this day and age, gentle reader, is that grounds for outrage? Just asking.

Anyway, I stayed where I was for a while, under the landlord’s beady eye, just finishing my drink, giving Cecilia plenty of time, if she were so inclined, to pop back and point out that my poetic imagery was rubbish, or my use of metaphor and simile was weak.

It was fairly clear to me that I wouldn’t be served another drink in this establishment this evening, and that in fact I had probably overstayed my welcome already. I had the strong impression that the landlord thought it was better to let me leave quietly than throw me out, but that if it came to it, he was by no means averse in principle to the latter alternative. But I rather felt the need of one more drink. I went outside and phoned Geoff on the off-chance. He was slow to answer.

“Fancy a pint?” I asked, when he did, “I’ve had a difficult session here.”

“Difficult session?” he answered angrily, “Oh, you’re having difficult sessions, are you?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh nothing. Sorry. I can’t come out. Er… she’s here.”

For a moment my confused brain conjured an image of Cecilia giving Geoff a thorough briefing on my failure to exploit to the full the resources offered by litotes and zeugma.

“Who, Mercedes?” Even in my depressed state, my interest in Geoff’s obliging girlfriend was soon reawakened.

Geoff grunted irritably.

“She’s been here for two hours already. She wants me to listen. She says she wants advice, but I’m not allowed to say a word. Between you and me, I think the only way through, the only way my ears can cope, is for me to get totally rat-arsed again, the way I was the first time.”

“The first time?”

“The first time she unloaded all her damn issues about… oh you know. Oh fuck, look John, I really can’t talk like this, with her upstairs. It’s just mad. I’m sorry. Really. I’ve got to go. Sorry, mate. Really. Bye.”

O, the mutability of human fate, gentle reader. One minute a man is enjoying an uncomplicated regime of sex and cooked breakfasts, the next his happiness is dashed and he finds himself being required to spend his evenings listening sympathetically to a range of female relationship problems. I mean, isn’t God supposed to be a man? I couldn’t help feeling though, that in a limited way Geoff was getting what he deserved for falsely representing himself as a good listener, a reckless step which is all too easily taken in the early stages of a relationship.

I walked home contemplatively and plonked myself in front of the laptop. I really need to press on here – there’s a definite possibility that I can finish ahead of schedule, before the actual last day of the month – and wouldn’t that be great? But in spite of myself, I can’t help thinking about what Mouse said.

Are the names of my characters stupid? OK, Fidgett is a fairly whimsical name for the Earl’s family. But what Mouse, OK Cecilia, probably doesn’t realise is that I stole the name from Osbert Lancaster. It’s the name of the aristocratic family in Drayneflete. Surely no-one – no-one who’s read James Knox’s book, at any rate – is going to tell me they think Osbert Lancaster is stupid?

OK, the clues are a bit deficient. They don’t really amount to a knock-down case. Mind you, Agatha Christie’s clues weren’t all that good. She was a devil for the late revelation which solves the case and which the reader hadn’t been given a hint about. So I understand. To be honest, I’ve never actually read any Agatha Christie.

Wenham makes sense to you, doesn’t it, gentle reader? Oh, I forgot. You haven’t actually read it. Only the bits I’ve quoted. You know there’s lots of other stuff in it, all good stuff? And you’ve read enough to know it makes sense, haven’t you?

“What you have to remember, you see,“ said Lady Jane as they sped towards London, “Is that we’re not in a detective story. In those things, it always happens that the case produced by the detective is enough to secure a conviction; or the guilty parties confess, faced with the overwhelming evidence, or they kill themselves. So everything is wrapped up neatly; they never end up knowing who it is but unable to get a guilty verdict.”

“In real life, it’s not like that. Poirot would never have secured a single conviction in the real world. People don’t confess, and they don’t obligingly kill themselves just because you happen to have correctly accused them. It’s not as easy as that.”

Charlie digested this for a few moments.

“Still, though” he said, slowly, “ the Wenham murders. It so happened that they actually did kill each other off, leaving no-one to be tried. So that is a real world case where things were wrapped up neatly, isn’t it?”

“Charlie,” said Lady Jane, “Come on now. It may be neatly wrapped up, but do you really think they killed each other?”

The car lurched just perceptibly sideways as Charlie absorbed this.

“You mean they didn’t? But that was what you said – you convinced everyone that that was what happened. And then if they didn’t, you mean there is a single murderer after all? Is it…?”

“It was a complex case, granted. If this is a story we’re living in,” said Lady Jane, darkly, “there’s been more than one person who thought they were the author. More than one who thought they could dictate the course of events. But they miscalculated. You know, Charlie, I’m not a big believer in traditional resolutions, and I don’t always see a need for the actual killer to be brought to book…”

Oh no, look, this is somehow drifting away again. The story’s over, complete. We’re not looking for another twist. We’re just bulking out the word count. Is that OK with you, Lady Jane? You know, gentle reader, I was a bit worried when Charlie started getting into my dreams, but at least it wasn’t her. Maybe it serves me right for imagining a character who is more clear-sighted and intelligent than I am. I’ve got Sherlock Holmes syndrome – you know how Holmes was basically sharper and more resourceful than Conan Doyle his creator, and hence wouldn’t allow himself to be killed off, even when Doyle, in desperation, threw him over the Reichenbach falls. That’s not happening here, Lady Jane – sorry. I know she’s trying to mess me up. She doesn’t like the happy ending – that sort of thing is not to her taste. Tough luck.

No: I am master here, and I decree that there will be no more negative reflections. It’s still partly a superstitious thing I admit – I half-believe that what I’m writing is influencing my real life somehow. If things are bad in Wenham, they turn bad with me, and vice versa. I know that’s a bit mad. Put it down to a month of continual creative and emotional stress, gentle reader. But that’s only half of it. The other half is a new kind of ethical commitment. An author has a kind of responsibility to his characters, don’t you think? Or am I just losing it?