Wednesday, March 11th
Yesterday I had a telephone call from my publisher during which he suggested there would be a definite and almost certainly lucrative market for my autobiography. I said to him, That is all very well, but who is going to write it? and what will it be about? Admittedly, I had had a barrel-load of wine and brandy at lunch, and was not at all sure which way was up, and I did not care much either. I am only just recovering from the disappointment of the plans for my ‘Collected Poems’ falling through. By the way, I found out why the chap who was going to publish it was no longer answering letters or telephone calls. He is dead. Killed by a rampaging elephant somewhere in Africa, apparently. This may or may not be true, because the literary world is full of shysters and liars and miscreants and wait a moment while I go and get my thesaurus.
Anyway, about this here autobiography that now I am half-sober I am definitely going to try to write. I have a vague recollection of attempting something along the same lines a while ago, when I was a bit younger than I am now and some things that have happened to me since had not yet happened. It began “I was born when I was very young . . .” which I thought was mildly amusing but when I told it to Cook she said she had heard much the same thing said in a television sit-com starring Felicity Kendal, and I rather lost my enthusiasm after that. I never did like Felicity Kendal. But I am a brilliant writer and if I put my mind to it I am sure I can come up with something genius, so keep an eye out in the press, and on the better news programmes, because when the story of my life hits the bookshops it will be big news. Then they will make a film of it, almost certainly. I expect Jennifer Lawrence will want to be in it as one of my lovers. There is likely to be a queue, to be honest.
Then, as if my life were not fascinating enough, this afternoon while rummaging through an old filing cabinet which I thought might be hiding my collection of vintage men’s magazines, I came across some papers that appeared to contain the beginnings of stories or novels. They must be by me, because who else? I did not remember writing them or anything about them, but I had a read and they all sound pretty damn good to me, and I wonder why I never did anything more with them. It cannot have been a lack of self-confidence. Probably I thought that prose was just too easy, and beneath me. That, and how the world was not ready for even more helpings of genius – it was having enough trouble coping with my poems. But now I think these could be quite brilliant if I finish them off. It probably will not take long; they are only stories, after all, and not as complicated as poems. This is what I found:
SIX GREAT IDEAS AND OPENINGS FOR STORIES
1. The New Philosophy
Optimism had never been of much interest to Buddy Strapp, but when someone fires a gun at you from point blank range and misses you’re perhaps compelled to review your philosophy of life.
Buddy had often seen the building labelled LIBRARY but had never been inside it.
2. The Adventures of Wendy the Weather Girl
It had been raining since Wendy was eleven years old, and she was getting sick of it. Her father had been washed away when she was fifteen, and her mother was now little more than a wet rag.
But, to Wendy’s astonishment, the day of her 24th birthday dawned bright and clear. With the sunlight streaming through the window of her room, Wendy got up out of bed very cautiously.
3. Dear Augustus
Perhaps it had only been a holiday romance, but Augustus could not forget the look in Cherry’s eyes as she was dragged screaming into the family car. As he lay on the couch and leafed through the pages of Guns & More Guns Magazine his thoughts turned irresistibly to recalling the way her hair had blown about in the wind like straw blowing about in the wind.
He heard mail being forced through the letterbox by the postman, and went into the hallway to see what rubbish had come today. There was a letter for him, addressed in a hand he did not recognise.
Opening it, he read:
4. Unbelievable Bill
Bill Johnson, 37, never tired of telling his friends, of whom he had four, that winning the Lottery once was good luck, but winning it twice was unbelievable. He had always been a master of understatement. When his wife had given birth to quintuplets for the second time he had remarked to the midwife that he wasn’t sure if he could continue to believe in a caring and forgiving god.
Conchita, who was Mexican in origin, was a patient and tolerant woman he had met on the internet and grown to like a lot.
5. The Corner Turned
Unnoticed by any but an early sparrow, and still feeling the stinging sensation around his groin that had been troubling him for several days but which he tolerated as a sign from within that his morals were not all they should be, Superintendent Alan Cook crept out of the house and made his way on his hands and knees towards what he noticed now through the mist of sleepiness and the murk of a bad hangover was his very badly parked car.
It was only when he reached the car and felt in his pocket for the keys that he realised he had left them on the coffee table in Alice’s living room. More in hope than expectation, he tried the car door and it opened, but so what? He couldn’t start the thing without keys. It was then he realised he had left the engine running.
6. The Bloody End of Roger Cantaloupe
The last thing Roger Canteloupe expected to find in Mirabelle’s refrigerator was a cantaloupe.
That last one is a trifle skimpy, to say the least, and is perhaps the least promising. But never mind. I do not remember writing any of these things, but they must be mine. Who else could they be by? So, as I say, I am tempted to help improve the parlous condition of the modern novel and short story by spending a bit of time – not too long, because I have better things to do, probably – and turning these scraps into gems of narrative prose. By gosh, I am going to be busy! I mean, an autobiography and half a dozen stories or novels . . . I shall have to stock up on ink.
I need a drink.
,
James Henderson
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