Poor Jacky, page 4
“Late, love,” said Mum, coming into the hall with a tea towel.
“Um,” Paul acknowledged.
“Tea’s ready.”
Paul trudged up the stairs.
“I said your tea’s ready.”
“Oh, leave me alone!”
Paul regretted it as soon as it was out. But he continued on to his room. He tugged off his tie and dropped it on the floor. He stood staring blankly for a few moments.
What did it matter? What did any of it matter? So what if Steven had suddenly packed in his job? So what if no one had seen him? Whatever had happened at the Hall was obviously not what Paul imagined. It wasn’t his problem.
He changed out of his work clothes and went downstairs. He made his apology in the form of a cup of tea and tried to put the events of the previous twenty-four hours out of his mind - as best as he could.
At the end of the week, he too left the library for the last time. He went back to Leicester to finish his studies. Time and distance soon helped him to forget.
2013
“Can I get you anything else?” The pretty young library assistant was lingering at the door. Paul looked at her over the top of his spectacles. He didn’t need to wear them but they helped to him to convey a more literary air. He shook his head; his shock of white hair settled like the head of a pint. Ah, yes; beer! Paul was very much looking forward to his post-engagement beverage.
The girl was still there. She indicated the room.
“A squeeze to get all the chairs in,” she said. “You’ve sold out, you know.”
Paul chuckled. “Is that a comment on my artistic integrity?”
“What?”
“Indeed.”
“I mean, all the tickets. They were snapped up. You’re ever so popular.”
Paul dismissed this with a wave. “More of a curiosity, I should think. Where do I...?”
He brandished a USB stick.
“Ah, um.” She strode over and took the flash drive from him. She opened a door in the lectern, revealing a computer tower. “There you go.”
She handed him a tiny remote control. “Do you need help with the projector or...?”
“I think I’ll figure it out. Thanks. There’s a bit of time.”
Still, the girl didn’t move. She watched him organising his notes: the bestselling author - the bestselling local author; that’s what made it extra-special. It was as though he had returned from some fabulous quest in the wide world and had come to tell them of his remarkable feats.
Paul was all too aware of her scrutiny.
“There’s still time before they - before the hordes descend, yes? If you don’t mind, I’d like to...” he held up his notes. She still didn’t get the message. “I’d like to go through my lines, if I may. Alone.”
It took a while but the penny dropped. The girl’s cheeks flushed. She stammered an apology and hurried to the door. Paul immediately felt guilty. He may have had seven novels in the bestseller lists but he was still unaccustomed to fan worship. He didn’t get much of it. He could walk down the street or around the supermarket undisturbed. It was only at this kind of event in libraries or at the fantasy conventions that he encountered wide-eyed adulation. He rather liked it - why wouldn’t he? - but he didn’t know how to handle it.
Alone at last, he paced around the room, going through his opening address in a murmur. He had had to rewrite the usual spiel to acknowledge he was back in his home town. It was his first visit since university. His parents had accused him of avoiding the place, jokingly observing he was avoiding them. He hadn’t really thought of it. The move to London straight after graduation had seemed natural at the time. A job on a magazine, a boyfriend from Finchley. What reason had he to return to dreary old Dedley?
It was the third novel that was the breakthrough - the first volume of the fantasy trilogy that was to make his name. He ditched the job - the boyfriend was long since gone (and who ditched whom, he couldn’t remember) - and bought a house near Hampstead Heath. Mom and Dad and even Jenny and her fella were invited down for extended visits, West End shows and the best restaurants. Dedley just didn’t figure. It was the past.
And yet here he was.
He wasn’t sure how it had happened. He had agreed on a lecture tour of universities around the country, with the occasional signing session in a shopping mall or meet-and-greet in the local library. Somehow, and he suspected his agent knew exactly how, he had been roped in to give a talk - not a lecture, a talk! - in his home town, in the very building where he had worked during his student holidays. Local boy makes good. The provincial press were all over it. It was the biggest thing to hit the town since the English Civil War.
He paused to peer between the vertical blinds. The car park below hadn’t changed. The cars had; there was nothing akin to Miss Beamish’s old Morris Minor... A shiver ran through him and dizziness buckled his knees. He held onto the windowsill for support.
He hadn’t thought of that woman or her car for over twenty years.
He felt sick. He lurched for the lectern and a bottle of mineral water on the table. He twisted off the cap and guzzled cool, sparkling water thirstily. He grimaced. And belched. He was certain he’d asked for still water and this is what they’d given him.
He wiped the back of his hand across his wet lips.
He had an inescapable dread that things were not going to go well.
***
But the talk went very well indeed. The crowd didn’t differ from the usual mobs he met at the conventions. Pale teenagers with dyed hair and more rings in their faces than a shower curtain. Older, fading hippy-types in homemade knitwear and worrying dreadlocks. Awkward, spotty, bespectacled. Bowties and corduroys. The Goths, geeks and nerds of Dedley were out in force, united by their admiration of the worlds he had created.
The Q & A session yielded all the usual questions. Where did he get his ideas from? What did he mean on page 148 of The Blades of Azgorath when it hinted the Turrigans might return? (Paul had made his usual observation that the questioner was obviously more knowledgeable about his books than he was. It was flattering to the reader but didn’t really answer the question. Wait and see, Paul would add, tapping the side of his nose. He claimed not to be at liberty to reveal any more... This always elicited a gasp and a ripple of excited applause.)
The accent jolted him at first. He had lost his Dedley twang at university and had only really heard it in his parents’ phone calls or when comedians wanted a shortcut to a cheap laugh on the television. And now he was in its midst again. He felt at home again and yet also alienated. Most of the audience hadn’t been born when he had lived there. How dare the town continue in his absence!
The pretty librarian waved to attract his attention. She tapped the dial of her wristwatch. It was time to wind things up but Paul was having too good a time. The questions were intelligent. Some of them were original. They laughed at his half-jokes. They looked at him with adoration. He didn’t want it to end. Not just yet.
“Oh, I think there’s time for one more.” He gazed around at the eager faces, the raised hands waving urgently. “Um.... you. You at the back. Black coat and short hair. What’s your question? Ask away - as long as it’s not to borrow a tenner!”
The audience laughed. They turned to see who would ask the final question.
There was no one there.
Paul was flummoxed. An empty seat! The place had been packed out. If anyone had left during the proceedings he couldn’t have failed to notice. But he could still see the chap in the black coat and the short hair in his mind’s eye, as vividly as he could see the pale and puzzled faces before him right then.
Pong.
His leg wobbled. He leant on the table, feeling queasy.
He looked up at the concerned crowd and offered them a sickly smile, his face sweaty like old cheese.
“Apologies, apologies. Touch of Banquo’s Ghost there for a minute”
Some people laughed uncertainly. The pretty librarian stepped into the breach. She encouraged the audience to show their appreciation through a round of applause. The great writer bowed his head, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. He raised his bottle of water in a salute, mouthing silent thanks. Waving he walked unsteadily from the room. He dashed to the staff toilets, which were where he had left them all those years ago.
The applause continued for some time. He could hear it and the cries for more. He washed his face in the small basin and looked at himself in the mirror.
Suddenly nervous, he half-expected the spectre of Pong to appear over his reflection’s shoulder. It was the kind of cheap trick he’d pulled in his books time and time again. He glanced around. Both stalls were empty, their doors ajar. Paul scolded himself. It was the bane of the writer to have a lively imagination. He just wished it would keep office hours.
He returned to the corridor. The librarian was ushering the punters out of the room and down the stairs where the caretaker would guide them to the building’s side exit. They were chattering excitedly but in somewhat hushed tones - perhaps being in a library always had a dampening effect, even after closing time.
He glanced at his watch. It was nine p.m. Plenty of time for a drink and perhaps a curry before the hotel. He went back to the room to pack up his things.
The librarian came back, startling him.
“That went very well. Thank you so much.”
“Yes, um, it did, rather... And it’s my pleasure.”
“There’s just the matter of the press. If it’s no trouble. They’d like one or two shots downstairs. Books in the background, that kind of thing.”
“Yes, yes, of course. How’s my hair?”
The librarian laughed. “It’s fine.”
She watched him gather his stuff and while he waited in the corridor, she turned off the lights and closed the door.
A couple of reporters and photographers were waiting when Paul reached the lending library on the ground floor. They steered him towards a display of his own books and an enlargement of his author photo, the one he hated.
But Paul had done so many of these things, he was at ease in front of the cameras. He took direction well and could hold a smile. He posed with the librarian, who was a little stiff-necked in the spotlight. Five minutes later, it was done.
The press packed up and left. The librarian thanked Paul yet again and offered to summon a taxi. He told her he wasn’t going far; it would be good to walk through the town centre after all these years. Her raised eyebrows conveyed a difference of opinion on that point.
They said their goodbyes and Paul was just about to leave when he stopped abruptly. He patted the breast pocket of his jacket and then delved his fingers inside it. No; not there.
“Is something wrong?” the librarian was worried. She’d put her coat on and looked concerned her long day was not yet over.
“I forgot my memory stick,” Paul said. “The irony!”
He headed for the staircase.
“Do you want me to...?”
“It’s all right; I know the way,” he called over his shoulder. He sprang up the flights of stairs and reached the function room only slightly winded.
He switched on the lights and crossed to the lectern. The flash drive was blinking in the computer tower.
“There you are!” Paul greeted it. He stooped to retrieve it but as he pulled it from the socket, the overhead lights went out. At first Paul thought he had caused it. He pocketed the stick and stood up.
“Hello, Paulus.”
Paul gasped in surprise. A pale young man was standing in front of him, his skin glowing white in the moonlight from the window, his face slashed with shadows from the blinds.
“Darren?”
“You got old!” Darren marvelled. Paul’s hand shot involuntarily to his mass of white hair.
“What do you want?” Paul gripped the lectern for support. Suddenly the exit seemed very far away. The spectre took a step closer.
“Just a chat.” He leered at Paul as though the writer’s face was a dirty magazine.
“What about? Have you come to warn me? Tonight I’m going to be visited by three spirits; is that it? I thought I spotted Pong earlier on. Your calendar’s off, by the way. Christmas isn’t for months.”
The apparition’s lips contorted into a humourless smile.
“Put it back.”
“What?” Paul weighed the USB drive in his hand. “This?”
“No, you fucking idiot.” Darren snarled. His acne flared and popped. Tiny maggots squirmed from the bursting blisters.
“Then what? Put what back?” Paul was backing away. His shoulder blades nudged the white board on the wall. Darren stepped through the lectern as though either he or it was mist. Paul gibbered as the youth approached. He raised his arms defensively.
The lights came on.
Darren was gone.
“Sorry, mate.” The caretaker was in the doorway. “Almost locked you in then.”
Paul realised he had been holding his breath. He let it out in relief. He wiped perspiration from his face with the flat of his hand.
“Come on then,” the caretaker held the door. “Let’s be having you. Otherwise I’ll have to start charging you rent, eh? Eh?” He laughed. Paul didn’t. “You can have that one for free; put it in one of your books.”
Paul smiled thinly and said it was something to think about.
The caretaker escorted him downstairs and out through the side entrance. Paul was glad of the company but then, alone in the street, the town seemed a cold and empty place with far too many shadows around for his liking.
His stomach somersaulted. He bent double and vomited on the pavement. Lightheaded and shaking, he decided to head straight for the hotel. Forget dinner, forget curry.
He needed a drink.
***
The bar at the Railway Hotel was quiet. It invariably was but that was the way Rick liked it. The last thing he wanted after a day at uni was to be rushed off his feet by raucous sales reps. There was a party of them in, he noticed, as he turned up for his shift, but they were quiet and subdued, as befitted a Wednesday night.
Rick smoothed down his waistcoat, flicking specks of something or other from the embroidered logo. He set to cleaning glasses. It would fill the time until someone came up to get served.
Railway Hotel! It was stupid. There hadn’t been a working rail service in Dedley for over forty years. The tracks were nearby, overgrown and abandoned. A metaphor for something...stagnation, perhaps? Isolation? Of being left behind by the rest of the world?
Rick pursued this line of thinking to a dead end. His creative writing lecturer was always banging on about metaphor and symbolism and all the rest of it. For Rick, story was the important thing. Anything else was decoration.
Paul Beecroft. Now, there was a man who knew how to tell a story. What a thrill it had been to see him in the flesh! Rick had been disappointed the writer hadn’t stuck around to sign books and assorted memorabilia - Rick had plenty of both. But rumour was the great man had booked a room in this very hotel. That was exciting! Rick wondered if the writer would wander into this very bar and order a drink from this very barman...
“Excuse me!”
Speak of the devil.
Rick turned to find his idol, his hero, standing at the counter and brandishing a ten pound note.
“Yes, sir?” Rick fought to conquer the grin that was threatening to split his head in two. The great writer’s eyebrows twitched into a frown. He was trying to work out where he had seen the eager young face before. “Great talk, sir. Very informative.”
“Ah, you were there, were you?”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I write myself.”
The great writer quailed visibly. He evidently heard that a lot. It couldn’t be long before the request to ‘glance at some of my stuff’ would be forthcoming.
“What can I get you? On the house.”
The great writer ordered whisky. He accepted the free drink with good grace and also trepidation, wondering whether this obliged him to glance at some stuff. He knocked back the whisky - a generous double - and ordered another. The young man was pleasant and polite. He didn’t bombard him with questions or unearth sheaves of paper from under the counter.
Gradually, the sales reps split up and dispersed to their separate rooms. The barman and the great writer were alone. Rick left the bottle on the bar for convenience.
One a.m. came. Rick was officially off the clock. He poured himself a whisky although cider was his usual and only tipple. Emulating his hero, he knocked back the shot and almost choked on liquid fire.
“What’s next for you?” he asked, when his throat was back to normal.
“Bridlington,” Paul muttered, unimpressed by the prospect. He held up his empty glass. Rick filled it.
“No, I mean, what are you working on? Anything you tell me is confidential, goes without saying.”
Paul looked blearily at the young man. Nick, Dick, Rick - that was it! Everyone always wanted a scoop, a sneak preview of forthcoming events. The truth was, he didn’t know. There were no forthcoming events. Since the completion of his acclaimed fantasy trilogy, he hadn’t written a word. The third volume had been out in paperback for over a year now. The well was dry.
“Oh, I’m just toying with a few ideas,” he shrugged. “You know how it is. All clamouring for my attention. I’ll see which one takes my fancy.”
“So, you’re not actually working on anything at the moment.” It wasn’t a question but Paul felt as though he was being interrogated. Gently maybe but it was a grilling all the same.
“Well, with the tour, you know...”
“Good!”
“Uh?” Paul’s spirits sank faster than the whisky he was downing. Here it comes: the kid was going to tell him his Big Idea. Come on then. Let’s have it.
Anything was preferable to going to his room alone and thinking about the reappearance of Darren into his life.
The young man smiled and leaned closer, even though there was no one else in the bar.
“I’ve got an idea...”
