Conversations 10

"Why do you write this shit?" he asked.

Sean McLaughlin was my best friend - always had been, ever since primary school days. We'd met when we found ourselves seated next to each other in our very first classroom; two very small, very apprehensive and quite scared boys, both missing our mothers but also curious to find out what this big school thing was all about. We bonded in the sand pit, when we shared out a few toy cars and tried to build the Masters of the Universe parking garage, and were firm friends from then on.

In the years that followed, we were the Terrible Twins, both red-heads, always in trouble but always with each other's backs. The trouble was never really bad, usually the result of an impulsive idea that somehow turned out to be no brainwave. But we were always there for each other.

So when he asked me that question when we were both in our forties, it never crossed my mind to take offence. Things had moved on a long way since those school days. He was a salesman in hardware items, travelling to building companies and architects, to sell fittings for doors and windows, cupboards and drawers. All needed but rarely thought of. Not a sexy job, but he was good at it.

I was a writer. Shortly after I got married in my early twenties, I wrote a novel and - with absolutely no clue about how things worked, found an agent in the phone directory and blithely sent it off. Needless to say, my amateurish first attempt never got published, but the agent somehow liked my style, and found odd bits of work for me. It might surprise people, but companies that need something professionally written for them need to find writers from somewhere, and have little desire to go searching through the internet for someone who might be able to write the right thing within the time needed at a reasonable expense. So they contact a literary agent to do that for them.

While I was waiting on tenterhooks for a publisher to realise how brilliant my first novel was and rush to offer me millions for the rights to publish it before Hollywood beat them to it, my newly acquired agent offered me a couple of commissions. One was for a trade magazine that was directed at the motor trade, another for a magazine that was sent out free to every printing company. Trade magazines exist solely on advertising, and both needed articles written on a specific aspect of their business that would cosy up to their advertisers, didn't have the in-house manpower to do it, and so farmed it out. I had no clue about either business, but I did have the nous to go and research it, find out who was involved and give them a phone call for their view on the topic in question. It wasn't particularly hard, and the idea that they might get their views into a magazine that went out to all their customers, made it very easy for me to pick their brains. Hell, they couldn't help me enough.

The money was very fair, and very welcome. I was working in a store as assistant manager, hating every moment of it, and the idea of making a little money on the side was more than attractive. So I gave it my best shot.

And the magazines were very happy with my work. Soon, more and more commissions came in, some of the clients offering to work directly with me in order to cut out the agency fees. But, I couldn't help feeling loyalty to the woman who had given me my first break, and simply routed any direct commissions through her. She paid back my loyalty by bringing me in on a commission from a television company who had all the footage and interviews put together into a finished program, but needed a script for a voice-over artist to read to string it all together. That's how most non-acted programs work in TV. Luckily it was on a subject that I'd always been interested in and could talk a little about it. The broadcast slot was already set in place and advertised, the sound studio was booked, and they were over a barrel to get it finished in time. So they gave me a try. In return I gave them a script they liked, and suddenly I was a scriptwriter as well.

That's how the jobbing writer business works. You get lucky, you work hard, you give the clients what they want when they want it, and as thanks they give you money - and sometimes they refer you to others in the same business. And occasionally, the money's enough that you can try and go out on your own and say thanks, but no thanks to the store that's been draining your life-force for the past five years.

But absolutely none of that was what Sean was referring to.

"Shit?" I asked with raised eyebrows.

I was no longer inordinately proud of every single thing I wrote. That passed years ago. But I never considered my writing to be shit either. Some pieces were better than others, but I didn't really consider any of it shit.

Not really.

Hmm. Except that script I wrote for a company that was trying to get a television series for children going, in order to get sponsorship money from a rather wealthy church group. That script was shit - but that was deliberate. I thought the whole concept of children teaching an angel about Christianity was so incredibly dumb and so obviously a come-on purely to get some of that good old church money, that I subtly sabotaged that one. I had no belief in the religion or the fairy tales they espoused, and thought that the church group were completely brainless to even consider that vapid pitch in the first place, but I didn't like the idea of them being ripped off either. It would never be aired by any self-respecting broadcaster so what was the point? And a judicious word here and there in the wrong place in the script worked wonders. Words have power. It never even got into production. My conscience remained clear.

"What shit are you referring to?"

Sean was sitting on my sofa, drinking my beer and eating my snacks, and calling my work shit. Nice friend!

"I'm talking about that crap you write about husbands and wives cheating on each other. There's no fun in that! Why don't you write about something good - something with action and danger and sex in it? Maybe you could write a tale about a Special Forces group that do clandestine missions in the dead of night. That would be good!"

I found myself laughing, despite my irritation. Hey, best friends are allowed to annoy you without worrying about fallout.

"You have no idea how many of this type of story have Special Forces guys in them."

He grinned. "Seriously? Why don't you put some in yours then?"

"Because it's a cliché. C'mon, think about it. A guy gets cheated on, and then uses his super powers to get even? Deus ex Machina, dude. It's too easy."

"I don't speak French, you know that," Sean said pompously, pulling my chain.

"Yeah, you know what it means. The bad guy just happens to get hit by lightning or something equally unlikely - like the rain offing Bruce Willis in the Lovely Bones after he kills Saoirse Ronan. Or more likely, the poor cheated husband or wife just turns out to be Special Forces, but nobody knew. Or at least it wasn't mentioned until very late in the story."

"At least that would be cool!" enthused Sean. "Like, the bad guy is about to hump the wife and the husband shoots his dick off."

"Been there. Read it. Snipers are very popular."

"Yeah, shoot the tip of the guy's dick off from five miles away. So he wouldn't even know what happened. It's just ... gone."

"Exactly."

He went and got himself another beer. What can I say? My fridge was his fridge.

"Okay, so no super army guys. But it's still shit. So why do you write it? Especially after ... you know..."

Yeah, I knew - my wife being humped by another guy - got that tee-shirt as well.

Hell, so did Sean. Although he knew his wife was a slut right from the get-go. He loved his sluts, did Sean. Mine took me completely by surprise.

Well, that's not absolutely true in every sense. She went off to a symposium, and as I watched the 747 take off with her onboard, I suddenly knew that she was going off to meet a lover. I had no idea how or why I knew - but I was certain.

"Okay, I admit that somehow I just knew what was going to happen," I said. "Certain enough that it made me reach for my phone and hire a private investigator in the city she was flying to. They were on the job before she even landed.

"And I know that that sounds like Deus ex Machina in itself, but I researched that later and discovered that people take in information all the time - using every sense. And it turns out that those good old five senses are just a fraction of what we can do. There's even the grudging acceptance of proprioception amongst the scientific community - the sense of knowing where you are, how you're oriented and where things are around you.

"Without realising it, we pick up on micro-expressions lasting only 1/25th of a second. We understand the slightest tonal variations in people's speech. And we read body language almost effortlessly. And we do all that so easily, that when people can't do it as well as we can, we feel just a little uncomfortable around them."

"What like being around spastics?"

"Jesus, Sean. Shut the fuck up! You go too far sometimes, and you do it just to piss me off. I hate that."

"And I hate when you go into lecture mode," Sean commented.

"Then fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Tonto," was my witty and eloquent comeback.

Sean gave a bark of laughter. "Tonto goes up to the Lone Ranger: 'Kimo Sabe, I've scouted the area and we're surrounded by ten thousand red Indians, ready to swoop in for the kill.' Lone Ranger says, 'Tonto, what are we going to do?' Tonto says, "What do you mean, 'we', white man?'"

We both chuckled at the ancient classic.

"Okay, I'll try not to lecture," I said with a shrug. "But I didn't just magically know she was heading off to cheat on me. Basically, she'd told me - loud and clear - exactly what she was going to do, although only to my subconscious. Her voice, actions, reactions, facial expressions, even her scent - they all gave it away. And my mind picked up all those clues that she was broadcasting and started to string them together. The plane taking off was just the final part of the puzzle - and ping... there it was in my conscious mind. It was as if different departments of a police force had all sent their reports in to headquarters, and the cop in charge had read them and simply put them all together to reach a conclusion."

"Hmm. Turns out that guy reached the right one," said Sean. "Cheating bitch."

I sighed. "Yeah. I was getting reports phoned in from the investigators every evening while she and the Asswipe were screwing in her room. Fuck, that was so depressing. They were walking around the city holding hands and hugging and kissing like they were on honeymoon without a care in the world, while I was at home working, looking after the kids and holding down the fort. Afterwards I worked out from timings on my phone and in the written reports, that she'd actually called me to tell me how much she loved and missed me, while they were in bed together. Who does that? Fuck!"

That knowledge still upset me. Sean didn't mind me having a rant. He was my go-to when rant-time happened.

"That's why I phoned that escort agen-" I broke off. I hadn't told him about that before.

"You fucking dog!" he said, admiration in his voice. He sat up and leaned forward. "You got yourself a hooker? How come I never heard about that before?"

I snorted. "Actually it was a pair of hookers. And I wasn't proud of it, believe me. Which is why I haven't told anyone."

"Details!" he demanded.

I couldn't help shaking my head and smiling at his avid interest. "I'd got my folks to take the kids for a few days while all that shit was going down. And while I was sitting drinking whisky on my own to try and dull the pain, the idea just popped into my head. I didn't even think about it. I just grabbed the newspaper, found the number of an agency and made the call.

"The first two were just as you said - hookers. It was fun having both climb all over me, but they were just there to get my wallet as empty as possible, as quickly as possible, with as little effort as possible. I think they were from Sri Lanka, or somewhere on the subcontinent."

"The first pair..?"

"Ah yeah. I got my rocks off, but after they left I felt even more depressed. Then next day I got the daily report from the PI, and thought fuck it... and phoned a different agency."

"And?"

"And they were much nicer with more class - more like escorts. Oh, they wanted to empty my wallet as well, but they were interesting and we talked as well as got me laid. One of them spent a long time just kissing me - which was something I didn't think they did. But she did. I think she was new to the game and didn't realise that kissing clients was a no-no. But her kisses actually made me feel so much better - as if I still had some worth. She made an impression on me."

"Kissing? You had two hookers in your bed and you spent the time kissing? You pussy!"

"Okay..." I hesitated, and then shrugged. It was old history. "She was kissing me while her partner was riding my cock as if she was on the leading horse in the Derby. Better?"

"You the man!" he averred and settled back. "I'm glad that happened, mate. Get a little revenge in advance."

"Hey, I did nothing before she stepped out on me."

"I know. I know. But you knew about her before she knew about you, is all I'm saying; a little justice in advance."

He thought for a moment while I was lost in memory of the worst time of my life.

"Still, you writing this stuff is... meh," he said eventually with a shrug. "You won awards. And now you're writing Dear Abby stories."

"I won awards as part of a team, not on my own," I reminded him. "And I think this is cathartic."

"I'm not religious. I wouldn't know."

"Cathartic! Not catholic! Fuck-knuckle!" I said with a grin. He knew what it meant. "Look, her cheating on me like that took me completely by surprise. For you - well, let's face it - it wasn't exactly the surprise of the century when Angie..."

He sighed. "Yeah, I knew she was the village bike before we were married. She loved cock so much. I just thought maybe mine would be enough. I mean, we did it so often I'm surprised Sean Junior didn't just fall off and die from weariness. Her cunt must have been made of some type of super-steel to withstand more than that."

He tapped his forehead.

"I think there was something up there. Something wrong."

"You think?" I said with clear irony. Angie had happily gone from man to man to man with very little care in the world. I don't think her two year long marriage to Sean made much more than a ripple in her activities. She didn't even really pretend to hide them. Strange girl. Sad really, when you come to think of it.

At the church, while he and I were standing at the altar waiting for her, I had offered him an out.

"Sean," I'd whispered. "I have five hundred quid in my pocket, and there's a taxi on stand-by outside. Take it and go to London for the weekend. Have a blast. Get fucked out of your mind. But walk away!"

He had given me a sort of shame-faced grin and shook his head. So we waited until she walked up the aisle - on the one hand, admittedly beautiful and in love, while on the other... well, there was at least a dozen men in the congregation that day who had an all-too-intimate knowledge of her body. I realised later that Sean had loved her, and had thrown the dice in desperate hope rather than expectation.

So catching her fucking some other guy was not a real shocker for him. She did very little to disguise it, and the biggest surprise was how heart-broken and distressed she was when he finally gave up and divorced her. Like I said - there was something wrong there psychologically. But in the end, English villages are not a good place to try and keep a secret, and she really didn't try that hard.

"You weren't surprised when you found her with Fergus. I know that. You were kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop right from the start. But in my life, that period of discovery was like somebody threw a hand-grenade at me from an ambush."

I liked the analogy.

"Yeah," I continued, thinking it through. "Just like a hand grenade. You get the initial blast, which almost kills you. But then friends and family gather round and heal the wounds.

"But when you think about it, a hand grenade is all tiny splinters of metal when it explodes, which is what causes the damage. The bigger pieces get pulled out and the wounds are dressed, but some of the smaller pieces remain, buried in flesh that eventually heals over. And they get forgotten."

I was lost in thought by that stage.

"You know," I said, hearing the surprise in my own voice. "I'd forgotten that I phoned his wife one night and told her all about it."

"Really?" he said. "That must have been an unpleasant surprise for her."

I nodded distractedly. "Yeah. I admit, I wasn't thinking of her feelings at all. I was just thinking about how to get some justice. I told her about the affair and she swore at me. Told me to get fucked and how I should have kept my whore under control."

I turned to him. "How was I supposed to do that?"

"Can't be done, mate. A whore's gonna do what a whore's gonna do. Even if you keep her under lock and key, she'll still be a whore inside."

"I wasn't sure she would even confront him about it," I continued. "Until he phoned later on - after he got home - to scream and shout at me for telling his wife, and rant on about how I'd ruined his marriage. All I could think was how really weird it felt to be in mortal combat with someone I'd never met who was two thousand miles away. In the end, I just laughed at him."

I gave a snorting laugh. "It felt good. I wasn't the only one in pain at losing a marriage."

"You do the crime..." he started.

"You do the time," we said together.

After a moment I continued. "Those little tiny splinters from the hand grenade; they're all still inside you, all healed up and not bothering you, so you don't do anything about them.

"But they actually do affect you," I stated. "I mean, think about it. You get a tiny bit of metal in your arm, for instance. They don't get in there with knives to try and find it unless it's really bothering you. The cut heals up, the splinter is surrounded by tissue as your body isolates it, and there it stays. But without realising it, you start to favour your other arm and do more with that one. If it's in your leg, you may limp just a little.

"But that limp, which is almost unnoticed by anyone else, leads to a problem with your hip on that side and then you really do have a problem. You have a real problem in your life, and don't even realise that it all goes back to that hand grenade which you'd almost forgotten about. It's like that."

"How is that like writing cuckold stories?"

"Okay, first of all, fuck off with that cuckold shit! I didn't make me a cuckold. I had nothing to do with that. They did that to me. I couldn't prevent that. If you got tied down by some gang and arse-raped, I'm guessing you wouldn't appreciate somebody then calling you gay! So I don't think of them like that, alright?"

He held his hands up to acknowledge he'd stepped over the line.

"Secondly, I think that these stories are my way of plucking out the little splinters that remain. Her actions and the subsequent divorce caused a whole lot of shit in my psyche - hence the hand grenade analogy. Now most of those wounds have been cleaned and treated by my relationships with family, friends and other women since then. But it all comes down to those fucking little splinters, which hang around - too small to notice and too insignificant to try and surgically remove - which affect your actions without you realising it.