Johnny Jarvis (1983)

 

My Life Closed Twice by Nigel Williams (Faber & Faber 1977)

 

6.30 a.m. Monday

On most of them, you see, I want revenge. I want to make them suffer. Revenge first of all, on that guy at the publishers. I recall his letter as faithfully as I can. I can’t bear to get it out from the pile.

Dear Martin Steel,

   I'm afraid I’m returning The Good The Bad and the Indifferent to you. Some of us here liked it a lot, but none of us (alas!) enough to publish.

    Do let me see anything else of yours.

Ronald Jones

Like your wife or your mother or your father. Just so long as it isn't a novel, short story, play or poem I’d love to see it. I mean—who does Ronald Jones think he is? What does he do on his free evenings? I can see him now—in a fetching leather bum-freezer—sitting with a few chosen friends in Charco’s wine bar in Chelsea.

And who, while we’re at it, are “some of us”? A sandpit full of trendies, up there in Bedford Square or wherever they hang out, lounging around like the last days of the Roman Empire and sneering at Manuscripts Received? Or is it just a stupid way of saying “Me”? Ronald Fucking Jones. Probably never even tried to write a novel. The ultimate one-upmanship.

Like the other week when I was with a Minor Poet, we met Davies, a zealous Talks Producer from Radio. It was about half past nine at night and the Minor Poet and 1 were having a steak in the canteen, prior to recording some of his verse. There, at a table in the corner, was Davies, moustache drooping, stooped over a plate of soup.

“What goes on?" I asked.

“Oh,“ says Davies, “just doing some typing."

Suspicious. So I said, lightly and airily to the Minor Poet, as we made our way down to the studios,

“I bet he’s writing a novel."

“Oh they’re all writing novels at the BBC," says the Minor Poet, “only none of them are any good, are they?" And he looked at me keenly.

I knew then that he’d rumbled me. How in God’s name does one conceal the fact that one writes novels? I really have tried to look as if I do something else with my leisure hours. I really have tried to do something else with my leisure hours actually but that’s not the point. The fact or point is that I have written about fifteen novels in the last five years. About a million and a half words. And, all around my room, stuck to the walls, the ceiling, the floor even, are short, pithy letters on thick paper, all beginning “Dear Martin Steel" why do they always use both names as if you were a kid at school?), and all of them saying, in one way or another “Piss off with your bloody awful books." Here's another:

Dear Martin Steel,

Yes I’ve read the two novels. I found Down The Corridor too long, and although I loved some of the dialogue and many of the set pieces from The Jellabies Move To 22a Camden Hill Gardens, I felt the joke didn't quite hold for two hundred pages!!!

Yours,

Elizabeth Jones

Elizabeth Jones. Probably a relation of Ronald’s. Probably his sister. And what makes the thing so bad is that Elizabeth Jones is, or was, my agent. A woman greatly loved by other rattlesnakes in the Literary World because (quote) of her “in-built shit-detector". Sure she’s got an in-built shit-detector—she detects shit and sells it to various publishers at enormous gain to herself. Only the other rattlesnakes in the Literary World call this “being in touch with things’’.

Just a couple more letters before I get on with the business proper. One of the mealier variety from a creature who works (believe it or not) at the BBC. Last year, as a desperate resort, I took to writing for television. It seemed such an easy option. One simply writes “Interior. Day. Brighton.” and there one is. I wrote a long (and quite funny) piece about a man who grows a pair of symbolic breasts and sent it to an acquaintance of mine from the Drama Department. Here is his reply:

Dear Martin,

  Now you’re really going to hate me for this! You see, I think Serenade on a Rainy Day is a good idea and a well written idea, but I think you haven’t really come to terms with what television wants from a play (if you see what 1 mean). One has to do things that one feels it right to do now and I think that is the situation one is in here (really).

 

   If we want to be particular I think that when David meets Julie on the station, from that moment on we really are unsure as to whether he is only doing this for Karen or whether his antics in the Department are a factor. And once that is exploded the whole David/Karen thing is no go.

Agree?

Paul

P.S. Let’s meet and talk.

Let’s not, Paul. Let’s avoid each other for ten years, and, at the end of that period I will supervise a small but tasteful ceremony at which slices will be cut off your behind and served (with garlic bread) at a hootenanny for Script Editors. And, while we’re at it Paul, when my sixteenth novel hits the bookstalls and you’re catching up with my (unlisted) phone number—you will not get so much as an Italian meal out of me. When you ask for the Television Rights, I shall refer you to my new agent, a Greek half-wit from Camden Town, whose only other authors are world-famous playwrights and celebrities. I will make you crawl, Paul. Agree?