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- Herausgeber: Galley Beggar Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Meet Francis Plug, a troubled and often drunk misfit who causes chaos and confusion wherever he goes. And where he most likes to go is to real author events, collecting signatures from the likes of Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, and Eleanor Catton, all the while gleaning advice for a self-help book he is writing with the novice writer in mind. His timely manual promises to be full of sage wisdom and useful tidbits to help ease freshly published novelists into the demands of life in the public eye. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in the literary world - or, in fact, humanity in general. Because while it is a brilliant slapstick comedy, blurring fact, fiction, and absurdity to astonishing effect, How To Be A Public Author by Francis Plug is also a surprising and touching meditation on loneliness and finding a place in the world. Francis, it seems, just doesn't fit in. And as you read, you may wonder if he'll even make it to the end of his own book…
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Francis Plug How To Be A Public Author
Paul Ewen
For Linda
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Bookish folk aren’t what they used to be. Introverted, reserved, studious. There was a time when bookish folk would steer clear of trendy bars, dinner occasions and gatherings. Any social or public encounters would be avoided at all costs because these activities were very un-bookish. Bookish folk preferred to stay in, or to sit alone in a quiet pub, reading a good book, or getting some writing done. Writers, in fact, perhaps epitomized these bookish traits most strongly. At least, they used to.
These days, bookish people, such as writers, are commonly found on stage, headlining festivals, or being interviewed on TV. Author events and performances have proliferated, becoming established parts of a writer’s role. It’s not that authors have suddenly become more extroverted – it’s more a case that their job description has changed.
Of course, not all writers are bookish. Not in the traditional sense of the word anyway. Some are well suited for public life, particularly those from certain academic backgrounds where public speaking is encouraged and confidence in social situations is shaped and formed. These writers may even be termed ‘gregarious’, and are thus happy being offered up for speaking engagements, stage discussions and signings. Good for them. But the others – the timid, shy and mousy authors – they’re being thrust into the limelight too. That’s my lot. The social wipeouts. Unprepared and ill-equipped to face our reader audience. What’s most concerning is that no one is offering us any guidance or tips. We’re expected to hit the ground running, confident and ready, loaded with banter, quips and answers. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
That’s why I’ve decided to study the ways of the literary event. The know-how necessary for survival as a public author. This book is a culmination of that. It follows in the fine tradition of The Paris Review’s ‘Writers At Work’ series, teasing out methods and tips from the biggest literary names. Unlike their interview format however, this collection is based on first-hand experiences and observations at real author events. By attending in person and documenting the smallest details in true author style, I’ve managed to collate a rich mine of information pertaining to the public skills of our most noted writers. Stage etiquette, audience questions, book signings, wardrobe, performance. Invaluable knowledge for those of us forced to become public authors too.
The authors I have chosen to focus on specifically are Booker Prize-winners. Writers at the coalface of public interaction, under the most intensive public scrutiny and spotlight glare. If role models are to be found in the world of public authors, surely this is the group in which to find them. Hopefully we can all benefit from their valuable expertise and knowledge.
Francis Plug
The water in Salman Rushdie’s glass is rippling. The glass itself is perfectly still, sitting flat on the even table surface, but the water inside is rippling. It’s Still water, but it’s rippling. I know it’s Still water because I can read the label on the bottle. Still Spring Water. I’m sitting in the front row. I can see it with my own eyes.
Salman Rushdie has barely touched his water, unsurprisingly. The water was placed on the table shortly before 18:30, and he didn’t sit down until 19:07. So it’s been sitting there, warming, for nearly forty minutes. Imagine what it must taste like now, especially under all those bright lights. Like a heated swimming pool, or a glass of hot-water bottle water. Sometimes I drink the warm water in the shower when I’m washing my face, but I don’t swallow it because the taste is like something from an ornamental frog in a garden pond on a very hot day. So instead, I spit the water out down my tummy. And then I give my tummy a good soap down.
Bacteria thrives in warm water. It’s rampant in waterbeds. I heard of a couple who never cleaned their waterbed, not once. You’re supposed to add chemicals to keep the heated water free from bugs. But this couple didn’t. Perhaps they didn’t know they needed to, or maybe they just forgot. Anyway, one day they were preparing to move house, and they emptied the contents of the waterbed bladder into their bath. The water that began to sludge out of the valve was filled with dozens of little scaly things with legs and no eyes. Little hairy mites, kicking about in their clean white tub. The couple were horrified. But there was more to come. A squelching noise was heard, and out slid a huge slimy worm, two metres in length, maybe more, thicker than your thumb. They’d been sleeping on that. Sleeping on a bed of worm.
So don’t drink the complimentary water at your author events, because you might get worms.
There are other dangers too. Perhaps your unattended water bottle in the empty auditorium has been tampered with. We only have to look at the lessons learned from Agatha Christie. People in her books are forever being poisoned. She even spells out what the poison is and how it’s administered. In their drinks. The organisers of this event must be only too aware of Agatha Christie’s back catalogue, and of the brugmansia flower, formerly known as the datura, a South American pendant-shaped plant belonging to the Solanaceae family, also famed for its spicy night scent, which is used by Amazonian tribes as distilled poison to tip their arrows. It doesn’t take an idiot to work this out.
Tonight’s event was scheduled to begin at 19:00, but Professor John Mullan, who’s asking all the questions, and his guest, novelist Salman Rushdie, didn’t sit behind the light pinewood table until some seven minutes after. Authors, I’ve noticed, are always running late. That’s why, unlike other celebrities, they aren’t paid loads of money to advertise expensive watches. In contrast, I entered the Shaw Theatre this evening at 18:20, which is why I’ve secured this top-notch seat in the middle of the front row. If Salman Rushdie were on TV, I would need to move further back because the light would be bad for my eyes.
Earlier, after saving my seat with my coat, I ran through the empty theatre playing Cops and Robbers. Assigning myself the role of robber, I darted down a row, between the folded up chairs, with my right hand tucked under my sleeve holding a gun. When I reached the wall and realised there was no escape, I spun around, drew my gun and begun firing randomly, shouting AAARRGHH!! A policeman shot me in the face, and I fell backwards over the row of seats below, my legs sprawling in the air. It was all quite real to life, with mild concussion and everything, so I ended the game early and slowly crept amongst the rows, loudly flipping all the seats. Another thing you can do before your author event is stock up on complimentary wine.
Drinks Table Woman: Back again?
FP: Yes, that was very tasty, thank you.
Drinks Table Woman: And you want another glass?
FP: Yes please.
Drinks Table Woman: [Holding up bottle.] White?
FP: Um, yes white and red, thanks.
Drinks Table Woman: White and red?
FP: Why not! [Laughing nervously.]
Drinks Table Woman: One of each?
FP: OK! [Laughing nervously.]
Drinks Table Woman: You’re quite early aren’t you? Still half an hour yet…
FP: Yes. Do you have any Kasmiri brandy?
Drinks Table Woman: Kasmiri brandy? No…
FP: Any Mercurochrome?
Drinks Table Woman: No, just the wine.
FP: Right. Does any of the wine contain pickled water snakes? For virility?
Drinks Table Woman: No, it’s just ordinary wine. With grapes.
FP: OK. Maybe I could take a bottle. Save me… save you pouring all the time… [Laughing nervously.]
Drinks Table Woman: You want to take a bottle?
FP: Ha, ha. Yes.
Drinks Table Woman: Hmm. I’m only supposed to give out one glass per person. And you’ve had three glasses already. Three glasses, plus an entire bottle would be like… seven large glasses…
FP: I’m like a lawn, aren’t I? A lawn.
The empty bottle now stands beside my shoe as Salman Rushdie discusses his Booker Prize-winning novel, Midnight’s Children. Right now he’s talking about the use of topical issues.
Salman Rushdie: … anyone who tries to incorporate, particularly contemporary history or contemporary political material into a contemporary novel, it’s a very frightening thing to do because, you know, the subject always changes, whether it’s next week or next year or in five years time…
The Sauvignon Blanc kept its chill far better than Salman Rushdie’s water. Why didn’t the Shaw Theatre offer him a jug of iced water? Maybe they thought he’d be impressed by the fancy bottle and the fact that the water came from a spring. Oh dear. If a half-wit like me can see through that silly guise, I’m afraid Salman Rushdie is very likely appalled. Other stage performers have people running on from the wings with fresh drinks, but Salman Rushdie is lumped with water that probably smells like a wet mitten drying on the radiator. What if he takes a large swig and has to spit it out? Where will he spit it? In his hand? What will he do with it then? Tip it into his pocket? And what if there’s too much water to fit in the cup of his hand? Will he keep it in his mouth instead and gargle it? Or will he allow it to run out of his mouth and down his bearded chin? No, he will do no such thing. This is a literary event, and Salman Rushdie has a reputation to uphold as a distinguished man of words. He will be forced, against his best wishes, to swallow the warm water, resigning himself to the fact that he mustn’t drink any more, even though his throat is dry from all this talking, something he’s obviously not used to because he’s a writer, and writers don’t talk, they sit quietly.
Just to reiterate, DON’T drink the complimentary water at your author event.
The ripples on Salman Rushdie’s water, I believe, are being caused by a series of deep sighs. Sighs that are escaping through his nose. I’ll describe Salman Rushdie’s nose, just as others may, in turn, describe yours. It is not a monumental organ, but it appears to have a lot to say for itself. From bridge to bow, it is about the length of a modern mobile phone, and it resembles a bunch of small, upside down flowers that have been pinned to his face without a message. The nostrils are shaped like melting clocks, and their generous girth offers flume-like passages for volumes of air to travel both down and up. A pair of stylish glasses are affixed to his nose – I’m not sure of the exact optician or designer, but perhaps closer scrutiny on internet images will confirm this. It’s important to note that his goatee beard and moustache, which are succumbing to grey, are neatly trimmed.
The event is taking place in front of a live theatre audience, but it’s also being recorded for future public use. On the surface of the desk, alongside the warm Spring Water, is a recorder device and some microphones. A young man plugged these in shortly before 19:00, and he now sits behind a side desk, wearing headphones and facing the audience like a courtroom typist, recording the facts. The purpose of this electronic gadgetry is to save the author’s voice as an audio ‘Podcast’, which will be accessible for free on the worldwide web. It must put even more pressure on the author because every word he says is being kept alive for the entire world to hear. Not only words but other noises too, like laughs, snorts and sneezes. My smoker’s cough will probably make today’s file. I once dropped a bottle of scotch at a similar event, and it made a loud thud on the floor, and I cursed a bit. I suspect you could also hear me laughing by myself, and, on that occasion, weeping.
These recordings don’t describe the authors themselves, however. Their gestures, their body language, their trousers. Hopefully the book you are now reading will assist in these respects, as will any such events you attend as an audience participant yourself (recommended).
Salman Rushdie and the professor are sharing a microphone on the table. But if your voice is soft and projects poorly, you might require your own, attached to your lapel. However, this may need to be removed if you’re drinking wine instead of water because you may well start talking much louder. You might even begin shouting.
FP: [Aloud.] Why did I only get one bottle? I should have got two.
I met Salman Rushdie earlier, as it happens, because I was lighting up a Gold Flake cigarette outside the theatre just as he arrived. He was, and is, smartly dressed in a dark suit with shiny black shoes, a white shirt, and a gold tie with strawberry splotches. I assume his publishing company are fitting the bill for his expensive attire, because no writer worth his salt is going to own a suit of their own. No way. When I dress to go out, I dress to go outside, into someone’s garden. But it’s worth having a parent/grandparent on stand-by if your publishing company is not forthcoming in this respect, or if you happen to be a successful self-published author. Salman Rushdie is a short man, which is a consolation, because so am I. Writers don’t have to be pin-ups. An athletic build is not a prerequisite, and in fact, many writers are beginning their careers just as professional footballers are finishing theirs. This may be why you don’t see big-name male authors advertising the latest hi-tech razors. Because their faces are just too wrinkly.
As Salman Rushdie approached the Shaw Theatre, I nervously waved him in, as if he were a taxiing aircraft.
Salman Rushdie: Hello. Would you like me to sign your book?
FP: Yes please. To Francis Plug. Francis with an ‘i’, Plug with one ‘g’.
Salman Rushdie:Francis Plug. Is that you?
FP: Yes.
Salman Rushdie: What an interesting name. Francis Plug. It sounds like the name of a fictional character…
FP: Yes, but I’m real.
Salman Rushdie: Of course.
FP: I’m not a talking mule, for example. In a haunted house.
Salman Rushdie: No. [Slight pause.] But as Saleem Sinai says, ‘What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same’.
FP: Sure. But he also calls his penis a ‘soo-soo’. [Laughs.]
Salman Rushdie: OK, thanks.
FP: [Still laughing.]
Saleem Sinai is the name of the central character in Midnight’s Children. Francis Plug is my name. As names go, I suppose it’s quite memorable. People forget my face, but they don’t forget my name. This has helped me stay invisible and blend in (apart from a particular ‘Butt Plug’ period). Of course, as an author, anonymity goes out the window. You become a name and a face. That’s why it makes sense to prepare. It makes all the sense in the world.
Salman Rushdie’s book is set in India and contains many challenging narrative conventions. This makes the professor very excited. He would clap his hands if he could. John Mullan, a pink-faced gentleman, is a professor of English literature, and tonight he’s wearing a tight black top. It looks like the same top he wore at a previous event. Maybe it’s his good luck top. It reminds me of those tight tops that are difficult to take off. If you try to pull them over your head, they often get stuck there and you can’t see. And you panic slightly, afraid that you’re going to suffocate, or that someone will walk up to you and punch you in the stomach. The professor has a lean frame, so his tight black top suits him well, but I imagine he’ll struggle later tonight when he tries to take it off before bed.
Audience questions are a popular part of most author events, and I want to ask Salman Rushdie about his socks, because I can see them there, poking out. But then I notice my hands and think otherwise. They look like a worm’s hands, all muddy and slimy, with little gardens beneath the nails. No one is going to pick a hand like that, even if I’m right here in the front row, frantically waving it about like a big mucky moth. No, I’ll have to go and give them a thorough wash and scrub, just as soon as I relieve myself. In fact, they’ll need a good going over before my piddle because I’m not about to touch my modesty with those filthy monsters.
Salman Rushdie: … So for instance the spittoon, I mean it’s just a spittoon, that’s all it is: it has in itself, intrinsically, no metaphorical meaning…
Salman Rushdie is in the middle of a serious point, so I creep past the stage on tip-toes with my dirty hands held up to my chest like a quiet mouse’s paws.
Once my wee is wee-ed and my hands are stringently cleansed, I duck outside for a quick State Express 555 cigarette. My £8 ticket is equivalent to two and a half well-filled glasses of wine. So far I’ve had seven glasses, so I’m up. Still, you can see a half-decent band for £8. And bands have fancy stage lights. In 2044, it will probably cost £1,111 to attend an author event, and us authors will be talking within enclosed, bullet-proof boxes. Perhaps we’re currently experiencing the golden age of author/reader interaction, but I suspect, for most contemporary authors, it’s nothing but a friggin’ nightmare.
There doesn’t appear to be anything outside the theatre to draw the crowds in for tonight’s event. No inflatable Salman Rushdie figure with long, billowing limbs, for instance. Not even a banner that reads: NEXT ATTRACTION! SALMAN RUSHDIE! TALKING! LIVE ON STAGE!
It’s just a matter of time, I suppose.
The wine table is unattended, so I help myself to another bottle before heading back into the theatre. Salman Rushdie looks over to me as I scuttle towards my seat, and the professor’s eyes are diverted by my re-entry also. It must be distracting to have someone moving about like a frilled lizard while you’re trying to talk. But at least I didn’t walk out on them. I came back. And my sparkling hands smell of lovely flowing bathroom soap.
FP: [Aloud.] Mmm… Milk & Honey.
The condensation from the wine bottle leaves damp stains on my trousers. I’m also starting to feel very drunk. There are two Salman Rushdies now, so I try looking at them through my wine glass, holding it up to my eyes.
FP: [Aloud.] He’s quadrupled! There are four of him, three of him! FOUR! THREE! FOUR! TWO! NINE!
Woman Sitting Beside Me: Ssshhhh!!
The wine in my tummy is sloshing. Salman Rushdie is attempting to answer an audience question about characters that have gone beyond his control. But the calm of his gentle voice is broken by my hiccups. I stick my hand up.
Professor Mullan: Yes, the young man there, in front.
FP: SORRY. [Hic.]
Professor Mullan: Um…
FP: I’M REALLY [Hic.] DRUNK.
Professor Mullan: I see.
The professor quickly picks out someone else, and Salman Rushdie engages them with a thoughtful response. I slump back, feeling like a bit of a dick.
Later, weighed down by a leather satchel, I stumble out of the auditorium, possibly gripping a wine bottle.
In Ben Okri’s Booker Prize-winning novel, The Famished Road, the road swallows people up and feeds them into its stomach. It reminds me of the speed humps I have to navigate in my work van. Unlike the more popular white vans, my van is grey, a tone conducive to its age.
To avoid the police I steer my van down London’s back streets where I’m forced to encounter roads blighted with these friggin’ speed humps. Driving over them is like trying to shave a face covered in warts. It’s like driving some hundred years ago, especially in my van, which is nothing short of an old shit-heap.
Of course, you can’t use words like ‘shit-heap’ when you’re an author, on stage at the Hay Festival, for instance. D.H. Lawrence was using the ‘C’ word way back in the 1920’s, but I think the world’s grown up a lot since then. Booker Prize-winners don’t tend to blaspheme in their events, because they probably assume, quite rightly, that their audience really wouldn’t care for that.
Of course, that doesn’t stop said authors using swear words in their books. James Kelman’s Booker book is loaded with expletives, including ‘stupid fucking fuckpig bastards’. And Hilary Mantel refers to ‘a four-penny fuck’ and a ‘leek-eating cunt’ in just one of her winners. I don’t remember any such coarseness in Ben Okri’s novel, although I do recall the trees having very odd names, like iroko, baobab and obecke.
This evening I’ve come to hear Ben Okri talk politely at an Oxfam shop. It’s near the British Museum, in Bloomsbury, not far from where D.H. Lawrence used to live. There are no chairs left, so I’m standing at the back, which is actually the front, facing the windows onto Bloomsbury Street. After scrimping up a suggested donation of £6 and placing it into an empty fishbowl, I take a glass of red wine in receipt. Although I finish the wine very quickly, I only return for one further glass because Oxfam is a charity, and it wouldn’t be very charitable to drink all their wine, or to try and recoup my donation, after donating it, in the form of said wine. Instead, by reaching beneath the chair legs of those sitting in front, I manage to take quick swigs from their floor-bound glasses, as a sort of seating tax.
It was Ben Okri himself, in The Famished Road, who wrote:
Learn to drink, my son. A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
That’s why I always carry a hip flask of whisky with me. We’ll hopefully explore the area of ‘author confidence’ later, in more detail.
Ben Okri has just arrived through the main door of the shop wearing a black suit and a cream shirt without a tie. It’s all a bit awkward, because we were expecting him to appear from the wings somewhere. Instead, as I say, he just walked through the main door. So an Oxfam representative has quickly whipped him off out the back somewhere, in case people started talking to him, before his event. He’s really dressed up for the occasion, in his suit. But unfortunately he’s forgotten his reading glasses, because the Oxfam representative has just asked if anyone has a pair he can borrow. Patting all my pockets, desperate to assist, I end up waving a pen around.
Oxfam Woman: Yes?
FP: I have this.
Oxfam Woman: A pen?
FP: Yes.
Oxfam Woman: It was some reading glasses we were after…
FP: Thank you.
On a previous occasion, Ben Okri had been browsing the bookshelves here in Oxfam’s Bloomsbury shop when a staff member recognised him and invited him back to give a talk. He had been picked out in public, identified purely because of his appearance. His face was now familiar, like the Honey Monster, for instance. As a public author, this is a very real consequence that you must be prepared for.
Until his death, American author J.D. Salinger kept well away from prying eyes, spending a great deal of energy in safeguarding his famous work, The Catcher in the Rye. Thomas Pynchon, another American, has also adopted a reclusive, hermit lifestyle, with only one or two photographs of him known to exist. These are examples of authors who have successfully avoided the public glare. To combat meddling reporters yourself, try and refrain from splaying out on pavements, or slumping in the doorways of neighbourhood pubs. Doing these things may build up a reputation for yourself that you could really do without.
Ben Okri is actually unwell this evening, but he has turned up regardless, soldiering on. Instead of being curled up in bed with Vicks on his pillow, he is out in Bloomsbury, all flashed up in a fancy suit and a stranger’s pair of glasses. There are many lessons to be learned from this, but most clearly is the sense of self-sacrifice that Ben Okri has displayed this evening, and from which we the audience have most certainly benefited. Oxfam is a charitable entity, so Ben Okri is giving his time tonight for free. The Oxfam representative mentioned that they’d done a scour of many local branches, sourcing all of Ben Okri’s titles that had been donated and handed in. Therefore, Ben Okri won’t secure any new book sales tonight, because the books have all been bought already.
He’s also sick, so he is effectively sacrificing his personal health this evening also. When you’re sick you can’t write, in which case you try and get well as quickly as possible. Rather than do that, Ben Okri has chosen not to let down his hosts and the large crowd who have turned up to hear him read and speak. And unlike other big authors who beat a hasty retreat as soon as their stage time is up, Ben Okri has agreed to stick around to meet his readers and sign their second-hand books.
He’s sweating profusely, leading me to think he is actually close to death.
FP: Are you OK?
Ben Okri: I’ll survive, I’m sure. Thank you.
FP: You are a credit to the pioneering spirit of the public author.
Ben Okri: Well, you’re too kind. [Pause.] Francis Plug? Is that you?
FP: Yes. Have you heard of me?
Ben Okri: No.
FP: Oh. Because I’ve actually made a bit of a name for myself in residential gardening.
Ben Okri: Ah, you’re a gardener.
FP: Yes… but I’m an author too.
Ben Okri: Are you? What books have you written?
FP: I haven’t written any yet.
Ben Okri: Oh.
FP: But… I’m writing one at the moment. Right now. And you’re in it.
Ben Okri: Me? I’m in your book?
FP: Yes. It’s going to be brilliant.
Ben Okri: What’s it about?
FP: Um, well, I can’t tell you. I’d have to kill you. If you don’t die first. Of your illness.
Ben Okri: OK. I guess I’ll just have to wait and read it when it’s finished.
FP: Yes. [Pause.] Thanks for not swearing tonight.
Ben Okri: Did you think I might?
FP: No, I didn’t think you’d stoop to that. [Pause.] I liked that bit in The Famished Road where Madame Koto is moving a table in her bar and she farts.
Ben Okri: You liked that did you?
FP: Yip. [Laughs.] It was funny.
Ben Okri: Hmm.
FP: I’m glad you didn’t cark it before you signed my book.
Ben Okri: Yes, most fortunate…
Tending gardens is an OK job because I get to work alone, and this very much suits my inward and lonely author credentials. I used to think that a writing career would be quiet and peaceful too, but of course that’s all changed. Now you have to work a crowd. Ben Okri this evening is a case in point. And on top of their events, authors are also expected to be more interactive with their readers online. They’re now encouraged to ‘connect’ with their audience and ‘make friends’ on social networking websites and the like. Maybe some authors are comfortable making ‘cyber friends’. But I’d rather spend my spare time writing a book than writing about what I had for lunch. Writers don’t make friends, they lose them. Especially drunk writers.
I transgress…
While reading Barry Unsworth’s Booker Prize-winning novel, Sacred Hunger, I found myself perched in the dizzying heights of a ship, like the Liverpool Merchant featured in the book. It wasn’t actually a ship, of course – it was an old oak tree, and I was high amongst the foliage, having just escaped from my client, Mr Stapleton, who owned the tree and the surrounding garden and property. He had arrived home unexpectedly, finding me lying on my back on the lawn, attempting to pedal a ‘sky bicycle’. A short distance from my resting, sodden head was a freshly laid pile of vomit.
FP: It wasn’t me, Mr Stapleton. It must have been someone else.
Mr Stapleton: OH, SOMEONE ELSE, WAS IT? SOMEONE ELSE CLIMBED OVER MY NINE-FOOT FENCE AND PUKED THEIR GUTS OUT, RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, FANCY THAT!
FP: Maybe… it was a badger…
He was very angry, Mr Stapleton, he was pulling at the collar of his shirt and stretching his neck out, trying to find extra room for his bigger, redder neck. Very noisy, shouting at me, scaring the birds away from London, the little sparrows, scaring them away into the countryside. And the tits.
I stopped pedalling and stood up, turning into a gorilla.
FP: OO, OO! AH, AH! OO, OO! AH, AH!!
My hands curled into fists and I fiercely beat my chest, roaring. Mr Stapleton was quiet and stood quite still. His whole face tightened, resembling a face drawn with felt-tip pen on a taut balloon. Picking myself off the ground like a gorilla, I ambled quickly across to the oak tree in the corner of the garden, rolling my arms before me in their rolled up overall sleeves. Climbing the trunk with strong nimble fingers, I continued my ascent until high amongst the foliage, hidden from view. Once safely clear of immediate danger, I began to shake the upper branches like a mad, mad monkey. This was designed to confuse, to ward off an attack by a group of outsider monkeys in order to protect my own inner group of monkeys.
After the roaring and the beating and the shaking of the branches, I fished inside my pocket and produced a pack of Cutter’s Choice, some papers and a box of matches. Far below, a lot of yellow leaves were gathered on the lawn. I’d have to rake those up later.
Mr Stapleton is a banker, but he doesn’t look like one. He’s part of the new ‘rock star’ breed. Unlike his predecessors, he’s not geeky and awkward. In fact, he looks more Baywatch than MoneyWatch. He’s a tall fellow, broad and white, with tanned skin, most likely achieved via ultra-violet bulbs. A ‘home counties’ background, in his late 30’s perhaps, with pale eyes, light brown hair (darkened with gel or ‘fudge’), and a thin unfurling nose, scarred at the bridge, as if broken and swiftly fixed. Handsome yes, but in a dastardly, villainous way.
It’s not surprising we have our run-ins. Ultimately, we’re wired very differently. He’s a hard-edged investment type, a mover and a shaker. Whereas me, I’m more of a meek, bleeding heart, lacking any of that ruthless drive stuff, or capitalist fervor. We may as well be from different planets. It amazes me that I’ve lasted this long as his groundsman. But I came recommended by the Hargreaves, an elderly couple whose garden I tend in Highgate. According to them, Mr Stapleton was taken by the fact that I was a writer. That has to be some sort of sick joke.
I sat like Hughes, in the crow’s nest. Hughes is a minor character in Sacred Hunger, but he’s the person I remember the most. Barry Unsworth’s historical epic follows the journey of a slave ship from Liverpool to the Caribbean and onwards to Africa and the Americas. Hughes is part of the English crew making the journey. The ship is packed with human life, unbearably so, but for one tiny place, high up in the rigging. It is there, in the crow’s nest, that Hughes resides, shut off from the others in his own swaying, elevated world.
I ended up sitting in the rafters of Mr Stapleton’s oak tree for two and a half hours. Being up a tree wasn’t the worst way to pass the time. I had my smokes, and also a cheeky little bottle of scotch. Also, the wind through the leaves sounded like stones being washed and shaken in a sieve, and I enjoyed watching the clouds being kneaded into various contortions of dough, as if by unseen jointed knuckles on a floured chopping board of sky. Still, there were more important things I could have been getting on with. And there lies the problem for the author of today; too many other concerns prevent you from actually writing. Things like money, working to earn the money, angry people, turning into a gorilla, hiding like a gorilla in a tree to escape the angry people. When you could be writing.
One thousand oak trees were needed to make a slave ship, according to Barry Unsworth’s research. (His book is a thick tome, possibly using many oak trees in its production too.) Firs were also employed in the process, forming the construct of the mast, and elms were intricately carved for their role in the figurehead decorations. When I met Barry Unsworth, I hadn’t yet read his novel, so I couldn’t ask if Hughes was based on him. But as a writer used to solitude, Hughes rang a bell with me, so perhaps he rung Barry Unsworth’s bell too.
Barry Unsworth’s talk was at the University of London in Holloway Road. But the tickets were quite expensive, so instead of buying one, I awaited him in the foyer.
One of the ladies on the desk was very nice, and knowing I couldn’t afford to attend she offered to help me meet Barry Unsworth when he arrived.
Nice Woman: Are you studying at the university?
FP: The ‘University of Life’.
The more serious audience members began turning up, so I sat patiently in the foyer, squeezing my hands until all the blood disappeared, perhaps shooting up my arms.
As timed ticked on, it seemed that Barry Unsworth was cutting it rather fine for his own event. It’s worth considering how one should time the arrival of one’s own public appearances. It would be terrible, for instance, to arrive too early and to be waiting around with everyone staring at you. They might even ask questions before you have a chance to get some drinks in. At the larger venues, it’s likely there will be a rear artist’s entrance where a doorman will shake your hand with a white glove and tell you by name that you have been expected. Perhaps another member of staff will lead you to your dressing room where a rack of clothes awaits, a stocked fridge hums, and some mirror lights buzz. As the auditorium fills with anticipation, you can sit out back, doing the ‘turkey head’ to some ‘bopping tunes’ before bursting on stage to a rapturous welcome. But you can’t do that at the smaller places. At the University of London Holloway Road Theatre, it’s probably best to arrive just as the train’s whistle is blowing, so to speak.
Barry Unsworth knew exactly what he was doing. He arrived just in the nick of time, and was accompanied, I think, by his wife, and also another couple, as if they’d all just enjoyed a lovely pub meal, perhaps at the Lord Nelson nearby. I’d stopped in there earlier myself, but I hadn’t thought to look out for Barry Unsworth. Which was silly. Of course that’s where he’d be, prior to a gig. At the pub. It made all the sense in the world.
The nice lady on the desk had to reach up to put her hand on Barry Unsworth’s shoulder, due to him being a noticeably tall man, and with her other hand she pointed towards me, cowering near the entrance doors, as if someone had just punched me hard in my testis. Barry Unsworth’s height, coupled with his Booker Prize literary status, made him an imposing figure indeed, especially to someone who was denying him a cut of his ticket price profits. But in fact he was a quiet and gentle man, and my initial concerns about being seized by his large hands and upended on the foyer floor proved unfounded. While all the paid-up ticket holders were somewhere inside, waiting, Barry Unsworth sat next to me, having a chat.
Barry Unsworth: You’d like a book signed?
FP: Yes, please. This one.
Barry Unsworth: Ah, you’ve got it all prepared.
Owing to previous misunderstandings with authors who could not understand my confused lamb-like bleatings, I had written my name on a slip of paper, providing a clear guide to my full title and its correct spelling. As a public author, signing books, it’s crucial that you listen carefully to people, even the muttering ones.
Watching Barry Unsworth intently, I noticed that he continued talking as he wrote, his left forearm keeping the title pages spread so his pen was unimpeded.
FP: Are you worried about tonight?
Barry Unsworth: In what way?
FP: Getting up in front of all those people, talking to them…
