Authors: Jonathan Gash
Next morning, the workshop was in uproar.
A wood shipment was in, which always threw Karen and Tracy. Karen’s usual response was to hurry between craftsmen complaining that nobody had marked the timbers. With Karen, blame was always somewhere else. The quieter Tracy simply matched each pencilled guess to what she actually saw.
Bray approved of the mousier girl. Karen possibly had many excellent qualities elsewhere.
Mr Winsarls checked every cubic foot, and spent hours with monosyllabic wagon drivers signing receipts. Bray had to help. Hitherto, his role had been to joke about the number of timbershakes in each length while the hauliers bantered back that joiners couldn’t tell hardwood from hardboard. No longer. They now cast sideward glances in Bray’s direction, no jokes thrown. Karen had her usual tantrum, leaving Bray to accept the timber as roadsters backed and drivers shouted at the crane man.
Yet it proved the first stroke of luck. Bray was able to ask the exhausted Mr Winsarls if he could go for a break
after two o’clock. The owner approved. Bray was soon in Pimlico, walking fast through crowded London heading for Victoria.
Meeting Mr Ireland in Drury Lane had given Bray the confidence to visit the publishing house.
The place was surprisingly austere. Bray had expected an enormous edifice with threatening mirrored windows. Instead he found a docile redbrick building, steps into a quiet hall with books laid out on small glass tables and bookshelves carrying unnecessarily gaudy displays.
Still, gaudy was a promise. Too late to back out now.
He gave his name to the receptionist, said his piece. “I’m an acquaintance of the young lady’s father, by correspondence. I made an appointment.” She gave him that eventual smile. Leonora Blaisdon would signal him up in a few minutes.
The paper was in his pocket. He had time to read it through several times before he was called. On his way to the fifth floor he encountered only women, all young and fetching. Were there no men in publishing?
“Pods,” the lass who met him announced. “No separate offices, not like —”
She mentioned rival publishers, talking over her shoulder. Curved glass structures extended from floor to ceiling, looking for all the world like exterior lifts likely to plummet at any moment. Leonora entered one, flung herself behind a small desk and waved Bray to a chair.
“Ten minutes only, Mr Charleston.” She signalled to others through the glass, waved at one, laughed, and swivelled to face him.
The place was crammed with books. Boxes piled against the glass partially obscured posters he vaguely recognised
from Tube billboards.
“You know my father, I believe.”
“Only by correspondence, I’m afraid. He lives in Lancaster.”
“That’s so.” She gave him a winning smile. “Can’t leave that crummy old barge he’s forever building. You helped him with the doors.”
Doors? Bray actually remembered a figurehead, but didn’t argue.
“I hope I’m no trouble. I need to learn something about publishing.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve got a manuscript?”
Did all publishers live in terror of manuscripts? “Nothing like that, no.” He shrugged as he’d rehearsed. His confidence grew. One lie is dicey, two lies uncertain. Tell three lies well, you’re capable of anything. “I might have to do a display. International exhibition, you see, two years from now.”
“Can I know who for?”
“I haven’t been told yet. I’ll tell you the minute I hear.”
“Better not.” She leant forward to confide, “Word spreads in publishing like a grass fire.”
“I need an idea of, well, what a publisher of children’s books actually does.” He gestured with unfeigned helplessness. “This seems so modern.”
She laughed. “We don’t think so. We all hate these pods, like goldfish in bowls. They’re why we do contracts in restaurants.”
“What makes a bestseller?” he blurted.
“Sure you’ve not got a manuscript?” She overrode his denials. “Sales. Money coming in. Nothing else.”
“Not quality?” He was honestly amazed. “Arthur Ransome —”
“Dark Ages, Mr Charleston. Sorry. Now, it’s numbers. Finish.”
Hesitantly he began to explain about cabinets required for his mythical display, but she was already into her world.
“Look. We sold forty thousand of a title. You know the new children’s spooks? Came from USA, so popular. Fifty titles – can you imagine, fifty in one series?”
“How many’s the least?” Where could he keep forty thousand books?
“Sales? Less than four thou. It’s been down to fourteen hundred.”
He suppressed his relief. That few he could manage.
“Do you control the price?”
She wrinkled her eyes and looked at him with mischief.
“Are you into a pricing contract, Mr Charleston?”
“Not really.” He opted out, embarrassed. “Could you show me the different bits of the, er, house?”
“Glad to.” She rose and marched out throwing words over her shoulder as Bray hurried after. “Pardon the shambles. This is editorial. We commission, contract in, contract out. Copy editing, subbing…”
He hoped the recorder in his jacket pocket was working well. One thing he was good at was mensuration, keeping records. Words surely couldn’t be much different here. Like wood, like children?
Listening, he followed, realising now that his plan was becoming complex and might take months. Even years. He had costed two years out in his head walking through Pimlico.
“You all right, Mr Charleston?”
“Sorry,” he told Leonora in the dispatch rooms. “It must be the dust.” He blew his nose, gave a grin. “I wish I had words to say how grateful I am.”
“Has it been of help?”
“Vital.” He’d told somebody else that recently. “Vital.”
She showed him out, walking him to the main entrance with its glass shelves and tables. He wished her father well. On the way back to Gilson Mather he paused to dial George Corkhill’s number and say he’d take him up on his offer to visit.
That evening he bought a range of children’s books from WH Smith’s, ignoring a keen assistant’s advice. He also bought a book about publishers and publishing, and a daunting catalogue. That is, it
might
have once seemed daunting. Once. From now on, there was only resolution.
As he boarded the train, he dropped three books. A woman helped him retrieve one that had escaped under a seat. It was the manuscript woman. She smiled and handed it over.
“You’re going to be busy.”
“Thanks.” He sat, and during the journey made a list of the number of pictures in each of the books. By the time he reached his station, he had also made a count of the words. He was conscious of the woman giving him curious glances, but curiosity was her business, not his. He made certain he alighted without mishap.
At home, two phone men were waiting in a van outside his house. They installed a telephone line in his shed in minutes. He was almost breathless. They accepted a heavy tip, said to say hello to Porky and they’d do a split.
“You’ll do a split,” he repeated, driving the words in. Split what?
He made his evening meal, working out how to explain to Geoff his new influence with the telephone companies. He went for Buster, and found a curious peace walking the bouncy retriever across Avery Fields.
“No such thing as a hunch, Jim.”
Jim Stazio was drowning his sorrows in Poppers, the cop refuge mostly kept for squad rankers, the grunts of the city’s finest. Promotion sent you to Frankly Ranks two blocks down.
“Never had one, Sam.”
His partner eyed him. “You called how many clinics? Dozen?”
“Eight. Seems like eighty.” Jim hated tonic, but Vera in Crimstats swore it took pounds off. “Not a sniff. All legit. Wall to wall diplomas.”
“The names Menzoy give?”
“Saw two. One’s moved to New York. Called them, nothing. Agencies wanted money, more money. They all three got suspicion, called it off.”
“No links?”
Jim snorted. “Losing my touch, Sam. One give me some contact at a kids’ camp. I spoke to the local cops, still nothing.”
Officially he was to retire the following Thursday. There would be the usual boozy talk, them good old days, then seeya-seeya out the door, headache for breakfast and nowhere to go.
“Done your fitness thing?”
“Yeah, Sam. The docs say don’t become a dud spud, get a hobby.”
“You still carrying out the bodies?”
Sam’s crack made Jim smile. Retirement cops had a strange addiction to old cases and mementoes. The sick joke was that retiring cops got Christmas turkeys from photocopy firms, the folders they took home. Cops called it carrying out the bodies.
Jim owned up. “I’ve no illusions, Sam. I know I’ll never
look at them. Another year, I’ll say what the hell and throw them out with the garbage.”
“You’re still moving out of town?”
“Trailer city beyond Pleno. Not far.”
“You come in some time,” Sam said, the conversation wooden. Soon they’d be into promises to meet for a drink, talk over old days.
Jim cleared his throat. “Look, Sam. You staying here, right? Not still thinking of transfer to Tarpane?”
“Right here. What?”
“I might give you a call, coupla questions. Nothing much, just loose ends.”
Sam was relieved. Retirement cops chased mirages. Past cases were the stuff of cop gossip. If that was all Jim wanted, Sam could chase shadows with the best of them. Christ, they’d been on an airport hassle beyond Alloa Flats an hour, they hadn’t even got started, proving one mirage was good as the next.
“Glad if you do. What are partners for? I’ll maybe take a ride out, see you’re not laying too many old biddies out there giving yourself a heart.”
They chuckled. Jim had two or three questions already lined up for Sam Tietze, but today was too early. Have to wait till he was really walking the streets and nothing to do. Make the cops work a little, no charge.
The next day Bray drew out the money Kylee and her friend Porky wanted. It felt bulky in his trouser pocket.
On the train, he read about computers. Like learning the names of unknowable football teams. Uncomprehending, he stared at names, names. What
were
they? Firms? Devices?
He would have to rely on Kylee, if she turned up again. Maybe she’d leave Bray to it. She’d said nothing about teaching him more of her slick expertise. He’d ask her about another instructor. The phone connection seemed so inadequate, just one simple white fixture. Could it really talk to entire continents?
One magazine had a wounding find: There seemed to be sections – what were they called, addresses, sites? – principally for missing children. It stopped his breath.
The evil people would brainwash a child to eliminate his former life. They would remake him, set out his new future like items in a playpen.
As Davey entered that new false existence, they
would be
his parents. All the assumptions families made from year to future year would be theirs to define. Those
assumptions had been stolen from Geoff and Shirley.
Most horrid of all was one that almost made him cry aloud.
There was the Name. The children’s Big Fun theme park. He read it with horror. Write for a catalogue, the magazine invited, listing computer sites providing music, films, book titles, CD Roms. He felt ill. As the train shot through Ilford, he disposed of the magazines into the waste bin.
“Pity,” someone said. He looked up. The typescript woman was seated across the aisle. She explained, “We publish one of those.”
“Those?” He felt stricken. What was she on about?
“Magazines.”
“Oh.” He invented quickly, “Wrong sort.”
“Computers. I hate them. I find they rather take over.”
“I suppose so,” he said dully, and said no more.
With part of his lunch hour still to spare, he hurried to the accommodation address on Grays Inn Road and paid another two weeks in advance. He was only able to send off two advertisements before he had to get back.
The journals in which he advertised were quite proper. He had decided on women’s magazines after what Leonora told him about publishing. Painstakingly Bray had rehearsed her words from his miniaturised recorder:
“Girls mostly buy books, not boys. We often say boys don’t read, girls do. Between five or six to one.”
And, some sentences further on, Leonora’s information was: “Boys – and so men – go for exotics, creatures, systems, ‘specials’, we say. Think of boys as dinosaurs and gadgets, girls as ponies and winning through with the help of a slightly older boy groom.” Leonora laughed at this
point. “From six onwards, hearing about kissing, learning girlfriend rivalry, all that.”
It seemed impossibly young to Bray. His advertisement read:
The KV Story!
Read the story of KV!
The
happiest
story
ever
told!
Suitable for ages 6 to 8.
Write to Dept KV
(Postal sales only. Not available through commercial booksellers.)
With his heart in his mouth, he gave a price, arrived at by taking an average of nineteen children’s books at Kings Cross Station. His claim,
the happiest
…he’d simply copied from the front of a magazine. It was an embarrassment. Still, booksellers must know what they were doing.
He gave the accommodation address. No author’s name, of course. It was only later that he remembered he ought to have mentioned postage money, but by then it was too late. Nobody would actually, really, want to buy it after all. He was astonished that the magazine offices made him fill in a form. He paid in cash.
At home he went through Buster’s greeting ritual. He was only now learning the benefit of a whole-hearted welcome from a creature who flung itself at you with unconditional love. Life should be as sane and uncomplicated.
Speedily, he walked Buster and on their return wiped its paws clean. Raining again, but Geoff’s lean-to porch
where Buster could loll was invaluable. Bray gave the dog its blanket, and settled down at his old typewriter. He had bought envelopes for sending replies to anyone who might answer his adverts, and laboriously typed out a formal letter of regret. It was exactly as he imagined real publishers wrote to disappointed customers:
Dear,
Thank you for your letter ordering a copy of
“The KV Story”.
I sincerely regret this, but we have none left because they are all gone.
I am very sorry, and will try to remember to print a lot more next time. There are many other excellent stories printed by other publishers and I expect you will find some that are just as good.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Asquith V. Verdreeker
The name he made up. Doubtfully he read it over. Somehow the letter didn’t quite ring true, though he thought it slick and commercial. Perhaps he ought to have asked Leonora? It was the best he could do. That last sentence was faulty. He rewrote it several times but it now kept coming out wooden. Would George Corkhill have a better idea? It was a headache.
His idea was simple, to run off a hundred photocopies, fill in the would-be customer’s name, sign with a squiggle and post off. That would be the end of it. Of course, he had no book. As long as the myth held, he could at least get going.
Geoff had gone to see Shirley. His note said he would
stay overnight, and talk to the doctors in the morning.
At ten o’clock there was a knock at the back door. Buster did his hunting-dog game, delighted at the digression. Kylee and Porky stood there wanting payment. Bray invited them in. Porky absorbed the wad of money.
“You di’n’ fucking fix it,” he said with disgust.
“Fix it?” Bray asked blankly. “Fix what?”
“The fucking lurch, did you?”
Kylee took a swipe at the youth. “I told you he’s thick. Why don’t you listen?”
She pulled Bray and they went to the shed. “Don’t take any notice. Porky’d be useless at them carvings, just like you’re useless at other things.”
Bray hesitated, returned to shut the back door and made it to the shed just as Porky was endeavouring to drag the door open, kicking and mouthing off. Bray produced the key.
The one light seemed thin and garish. Porky made to light a cigarette.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have smoke in here. It’s,” Bray added seeing Kylee look, “a special place. Nothing against you nipping out for a cigarette.” He explained solvents might take fire.
Porky cursed, ripped at the cardboard computer boxes, throwing the packing anywhere. Kylee started clearing the wooden carvings off the workbench but Bray quickly told her he would do that.
“One thing,” he said, hoping to please. “I bought an aerial.”
They halted, stared. He coloured, indicated a long box by the door.
“Aerial. It’s the best they had, Morgan’s in Stowmarket.”
“Fucking idiot.” Porky resumed. “Empty that over there.”
Kylee was helpless laughing, “Nobody uses aerials, Bray, stupid old cunt.”
The large cardboard cases were thrown out onto the grass. Bray felt unnerved. There seemed so many bits encased in plastic bags. Porky was impatient, shoving tools aside, hanging the cable over a fretsaw, kicking Bray’s stool while he yanked the console along the surface.
“I brought the fucking tutorial,” he told Kylee scornfully. “He’ll need it. Don’t worry, Thicko, it’s free. Don’t pay. The bastards have it all sewn up.”
Porky sat and plugged the computer into Bray’s four-ganger point. Kylee tapped Bray as Porky sat and took out a shiny disc.
“Remember I said you needed a firm to go online? This is it.”
“I haven’t paid —”
They guffawed. “You gets a disc, a tutorial, and a number. Free access. Some charge you. The phone people – right swine, them; Dad’s in with the local boss – sell you hours a month, then extra time per hour. Fucking robbers.”
“They get you either way,” Porky growled. He had a terrible cough.
“What is the time for?” Bray asked.
“Don’t!” Kylee held up a hand to stay a new Porky explosion. “Leave him be. I’ll tell him. See, Bray,” she said, “your computer uses the phone lines at so much a tick, okay? Like ringing people up. And a site – like your phone – has a rental. Got it?”
“You going to use it a lot?” Porky demanded, sour.
“When I know what I’m doing.”
“You said you teached him.” Porky swore crude oaths.
“He’s senile.” She was confident. “What’s it to you anyhow?”
“You’re on now,” Porky told Bray. “The disc’s inside that slot, okay? Who are you?”
“Mr Charleston,” Bray said, mystified.
“Silly cunt. Who’re you
going
to be?”
“The computer doesn’t know you, see?” The lad hacked more coughs. “What it wants is letters so other computers know it.”
Bray hadn’t thought. Letters?
“Wasting our frigging time.” Porky spoke as if Bray was absent. He sniggered. “Leave him and his fucking aerial.”
“What do I do?” Bray asked Kylee.
“You’re off. You’ve a fast computer. You can check a zillion chat groups, see? And your e-mail phones apps at local call rates.”
He didn’t understand, and didn’t want to be left alone with the glowing screen.
“Thank you very much for coming. You’ve been very kind.”
Kylee seemed to relent. “I might come tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t you be in London? With your mother?”
“Sod her, and fuck London.” She paused, spat. “Nobody has aerials, Owd Un.”
“Look, please,” he said desperately. They were a lifeline, literally. “I’m going to get a brand new shed. Will you come back and fix it up for me? I can pay.”
They agreed, gave him a cell phone number to ring, and left through the garden gate. Bray said goodbye. The glowing screen had a series of small figures. He had been shown the mouse by Kylee at Mr Walsingham’s college, but it worried him. He needed somebody while he tried his
hand. But what if he ruined the entire thing?
He could almost hear Geoff’s exasperation:
Buying an expensive machine from two scruffs, Dad? What on earth? And where’s the receipt? There’s VAT on electronics
…
He sat helplessly before the screen. Lots of blue around. Why blue?
One more thing: How on earth did it turn off? All very well for Kylee to say it was all okay and sail off, but what happened next? He found an on/off switch under the screen’s face, but was it safe?
He jumped as the screen suddenly went blank, except for small multicoloured windows seemingly flying through space. Yet he hadn’t touched it. Kylee had said nothing about this.
“Heavens, Buzz,” he said feebly. “This might be a serious mistake.”
The mouse lay on the workbench with its grey cord. Gingerly he moved it, and the screen instantly cleared, the top bar returning with its line of pictures. He felt worn out. A time trick, perhaps? What was the point of that? Kylee had said to leave things on, hadn’t she, at that first encounter in the college? So be it.
He called Buster and went inside to go over the instructions. Doubtfully he looked out into the darkness as he brewed up. Buster was due his pint of milky tea.
The shed had a strangely luminescent glow out there between the hawthorns and the blackness of the fence, as if showing some wanderer the way home. He shook himself. Too fanciful.
He got a biscuit and read, read, read.
At eleven o’clock Geoff rang. No significant change. The senior consultant feared Shirley’s condition might be a longer haul than at first thought. The dog turned in on
his blanket at eleven, sooner if he could get away with it.
Bray went back to his reading, every so often checking that the shed was still glowing out there in the night.