Phil’s report

Hi Nick,

First of all, hats off to you for a strong story, good believable characters and dialogue. I’ve made a few half-arsed attempts at writing fiction myself and have nothing but respect for the work involved.

Enough of this gay banter. I’m attaching my revised version, the only changes being cosmetic (couple of spellings, getting consistent version of OK etc). My changes are in red, (hopefully).

A few suggestions, some very minor, some which would require considerable work. All, though, are just suggestions … there’s no reason why you shouldn’t ignore them all.

In no particular order, just as I jotted them down:

Sports editor is Jacko, news ed. is called Jackie. When this first appeared I thought it might be setting up some comic confusion, but no. I’d change Jackie’s name. On a similar note, Janie occasionally being called Sully, although it is fully explained, doesn’t really add anything except possible minor confusion.

Gareth starts work on a Friday, the day before deadline. Seems odd, but no big deal.

I’d like more sense of menace in Part One. After the opening dream there’s a long wait until Arnie gets out. Maybe another dream or two (a walking stick smashing into the Cardiff fan?  Trying to escape the fight?). Or maybe a couple of short chapters in Part One of Arnie in jail, getting into fights, vowing revenge on the grass?

Butt/Butty: I know this is a Welsh thing but a lot of people might wonder. Maybe a little comic exchange between a baffled Gareth and JW about chip butties to clear up any confusion?

I’d be tempted to give JW just one daughter … the other one is left dangling at the end and doesn’t really add anything anyway. And I think that would give more impact to Ellie coming over at the end.

Now this would mean a lot of rewriting and I’m not sure it would be worth it but … the characters of Will and Gwynfor perform quite similar functions in the story. Personally I’d lose Gwynfor and make Will the former sportsman from JW’s past. I just think Gareth having all these heart-to-hearts with JW, Will AND Gwynfor is a bit OTT, and dropping Gwynfor would help to make Will a stronger character. Will and JW could still have been out of touch for years, so Jason could still be overawed by meeting JW. But, as I said, maybe not worth the rewriting it would involve.

I’d also be tempted to make Arnie less ambiguous. He’s a thug who gets his comeuppance at the end and I feel the reader’s satisfaction at that is tempered a little. For instance, the scenes with Janie are basically rape scenes and I felt a little uncomfortable by Janie being even partially turned on and attracted by Arnie. I would prefer him to be an out-and-out villain and have Janie repulsed by the attack, though still too scared of him to tell anyone. As a reader, I didn’t want to feel pity for Arnie.

Little thing now … Killer Pool. I’d have the ball sent straight into Reg’s face; I struggled to accept that a ball from the pack would do that much damage!

At the end of Chapter 42 Gareth decides to tell JW how he went off the rails. We then have a long flashback section covering Brighton and hospital before coming back “up to date” when Arnie and Co arrive in Cardiff. You need a short passage at the end of the flashback where we are back at the Vicarage (maybe a brief reaction from JW to the story Gareth has just told), to round that bit off, if you see what I mean.

And, er, that’s about it. I’ve already mentioned the slight tweaking needed on the order of Euro 96 matches.

In conclusion, I’d strongly recommend the minor changes regarding names etc. As for those that would involve major surgery, they are just my personal thoughts and can be safely ignored. If I was you I’d do the minor stuff then get chasing publishers.

Hope this helps. Once again, well done … and good luck.

Cheers,

Phil

 

An angry man

“HELL’S TEETH! WHO comes up with these bloody things? I bet Barack bleedin’ Obama didn’t have to go through this when he arrived at the White House. ‘Now, Mr Obama, being the new boy I wondered if you wouldn’t mind filling out these forms pretty please? We need to know all your intimate details, inside leg measurement, what you had for breakfast over the last year, how many times a week you and Mrs Obama do it’… No bloody chance!  And what’s this doing for the planet? These companies are always banging on about being environmentally friendly, but there’s half a bleeding rain forest here. Not very ‘green’ is it? Paperless offices? Ha! What a myth! That was supposed to happen years ago. Another false promise. Anyway, why a questionnaire? People just lie anyway. The powers-that-be will say it’s routine, a few simple questions, only take five minutes. Yada yada yada. Five minutes… my bloody arse. Five hours more like. Why not give everyone a lie-detector test instead? Much quicker and at least you might get facts, not fiction. Still, I bet whatever answers you scribble down, true or false, will either come back to stitch you up in the end or will be filed away so deep that even future archaeologists will fail to recover them. And, anyway, surely the clue is in the title. It’s an application form and should be filled out BEFORE they give you the job. You’re supposed to be in the midst of applying, not already sitting in your chair, filling the role which you were appointed to a month ago. Human Resource? Human remorse, more like. Stupid questions put together by a sodding computer in all probability… Jesus Christ in a flamin’ handbag, now the frigging pen’s run out.”

The entire diatribe was delivered with lips barely moving, no sound escaping, words tumbling around inside his head like a washing machine going through a high-speed spin cycle. The anger was directed at the pile of papers in front of him, yet it could quite easily have been at something else, the slightly burnt toast from the canteen, the temperature of the vending machine coffee, the time it took for e-mails to load on his computer.

He was an angry man to his core.

The Sheep of War

A big cardboard box is in the centre of the oval table as we enter the conference room. There are several people sitting around it including Jonah, who has a self-satisfied smile on his face. “A-ha,” says big Willie. “It looks like we have got the sheep… is tha’ right, Jonah?”

“Certainly is, boss,” agrees the marketing man. “I had to pull a few strings, do a bit of wheeling and dealing, but I think you will be happy with how they turned out, like.”

“Well, let’s not stand on ceremony,” says the editor. “Rip open the box and let loose the sheep of war!”  We all chuckle at this. I take my seat at the table as Jonah tears through the lid and starts throwing out flattened sheep to everyone. We start blowing them up and as I grapple with mine I get a nagging sense something is very wrong. Finally there it stands in all its glory. Along the sheep are printed the letters STD.

“What’s this, Jonah?” I ask.

“Well, I thought the sheep should be associated closely with our product, butt, so I took it upon myself to put the initials of the paper on the side of each. It didn’t cost a lot, I’ve got a friend in the printing game who did it without fuss.”

“Uh, Yeah, “ I say. “But, you know what those initials stand for?”

“Yeah, Sunday Tribune Despatch – that’s the paper we work for. I don’t see a problem with that.”

“No. S…T….D,” I spell it out for him. “Sexually… Transmitted… Disease.”

There is silence around the table. “Oh, I uh, don’t think people will expect it to mean something like that. I think it is pretty obvious, you know. And there is only going to be one paper that can genuinely be associated with those initials.”

“True,” I agree. ”But don’t you think Trib would have been better? I mean, are people really stupid enough to wave this about?”

“But I’ve ordered them,” he points out sulkily. “We can’t back out now. I’ve paid a grand for 5,000 of them.”

“Um, Jonah,” Angie Duncan butts in.

“Yes, Angie love.”

“Can you tell me what the purpose of this is?”

She is holding the sheep sideways so that we can see its undercarriage. There appears to be a hole. “Ah… yeah,” Jonah replies hesitantly.

“Oh… my… Gawd!” The truth dawns on me. “You got these sheep from the bleedin’ sex shop down the road! Did ya not fink there might be a slight drawback, an incentive for pervs to purchase them. I know you are Welsh, and people refer to you as Sheepshaggers, but Christ on a bike! People STICK things in those orifices. We are advertising Sexually Transmitted Diseases on the side of a sex toy and expecting readers to wave them around with pride.”

“Ah, steady on guys, steady on,” says Big Willie, intervening before the argument accelerates. “We can get around this. One thousand pounds you say? Ok, well, I don’t wanna right it off. Perhaps we can fill the orifices with something.”

“Any suggestions?” I ask sarcastically.

“Yeah, well perhaps people could roll the newspaper up and stick it up there or, here’s a thought, what about using a leek so that they can wave it  above their heads. Come on people, we have to be creative here. Maybes our art desk can come up with something to get us oot o’ this hole.” People are fighting to hold back the giggles. Innuendo and double entendre are in the air, like a new carry-on film. “… Maybe a scarf, or something,” he adds.” We could give our readers tips on how to use their sheep.”

“Great,” I said. “Cut out and keep… how to use your sex-toy sheep.”

Suddenly Big Willie’s patience snaps. “No need for that tone, Michael pal. I think ye’ll agree we have no’ got the same budget as some of your la-de-da London rags. We do our best in the circumstances.”

“Yeah,” I acknowledge. “But is this REALLY the best we can do?”

“Ah come on noo,” he says. “A’ reckon if we dress up a page properly – the best way to use your inflatable sheep – it will go doon a storm. Well done, Jonah. Now let’s say no more aboot it. Art desk..?”

He looks across at Phil Williamson, the graphic artist, who many considered a nodding dog because he tends to agree with everything the editor says. True to form he accepts the challenge with a thumbs up. “Get to work on it,” says Willie. “Perhaps we can get The Legend to give a demonstration of how he would use his inflatable sheep.”

The Marketing meeting

Later that morning The Prince and I head for the Conference Room on the floor above, armed with a coffee each and our notebooks. “It’s a big one for Wales, this is,” he tells me as we take to the stairs. “I really fancy we’ve got a chance to create an upset. I know it’s in New Zealand, where we won’t be expected to win, but we have a kiwi coach who knows the conditions and a relatively young and hungry squad. I’m quietly confident. We better hope they do well, anyway, because circulation’s been falling pretty badly and they’ve not managed to address the slide. Everyone knows how important rugby is to sales of this paper…”

Once in the meeting room we join 10 others around a large rectangular table. I recognise a few of them. Big Willie is at the head of the table with Ffion next to him to record the minutes. Half way down one side is Jackie Matthews and sat at the far end is the barman from the pub the previous night, Jonah.

Big Willie helps me out with the others. “We have a new member of our team here today, lads and lassies,” he says cheerfully. “I’d like you all to introduce ye’selves so that our new Assistant Editor and sports guru Michael Biggs can have a good look at yees so he knows who to blame for which cock up!” He chortles at his joke. Going around the table I am introduced to a big, red cheeked, jovial Welsh character called Sam who is in charge of display advertising. Next to him is a woman who resembles America’s former female tennis star Billie Jean-King and goes by the name of Katie. She is responsible for newspaper sales. The geeky-looking spectacle wearing chap next to her, who might easily be a research scientist at some bio-chem factory is, in fact, our head of web projects Malcolm Steer, and finally there’s a dapper-looking geezer in a full cream suit. “Well hello, old chap, and welcome!” he says, showing off a full set of sparkling, bright white teeth as he breaks into an enormous smile. He reaches across to shake my hand. “Name’s Quinten… Quinten Tucker-Green. I am the Chief Feature Writer of this merry little periodical for my sins. Lovely to have some fresh blood on board. Well done!”

Big Willie turns to Jonah. He gives him the big build up. “This lad started work here as a van driver but his immense feel for everything Welsh soon earned him promotion and… well… he is now our chief marketing strategist. Jonah Harrison, the floor is yours. What have you got for us as regards promotions during the World Cup?”

Jonah stands and gives each of us the hard stare in turn, as if his first revelation will rock us to the core. The room goes so quiet I can hear the ticking of The Prince’s watch next to me. This, I think, HAS to be good.

“Sausage rolls,” he says.

At first I’m not sure I’ve heard right. My brain tries to translate those two words and make a clever strategy out of them. I don’t want to miss the hidden meaning. With no one commenting he elaborates. Slowly, tasting every word as if it is the sweetest, juiciest pastry that has ever seduced his taste buds, he  says: “A FREE sausage roll for EVERY READER!”

I’ve lost it all ready… I start to laugh. The opening chuckle could be mistaken for a clearing of the throat or the start of an irritating cough, only it doesn’t stop. My eyes water and the more I try to hold it back, or disguise it, the more apparent it becomes. I’m expecting others to join in. No one does. I cough, splutter, wipe my eyes and squeak an apology as if I have inhaled a lung full of helium. “S… sorry,” I say.

Big Willie tries to cover up for me as best he can. “Micky here obviously finds something funny. I’m not sure what but perhaps you can elaborate on this plan, Jonah.”

“Well, it’s simple really boss,” he says. “We have a very good connection with the local bakery and they have kindly offered this to us. There’s plenty of value in it and we all know the Welsh LOVE their sausage rolls.”

At this point I feel I MUST say something. I suppress my smirk as best I can… “Yeah, but so does everyone else,” I point out. “How is this uniquely Welsh? This is a massive world sporting event. A World Cup. Surely we can come up with something better to promote our name.”

“I realise you’re new Michael,” he says sniffily, “but I think you’re missing the point. These are WELSH sausages, from WELSH pigs reared by WELSH pig farmers. You put a picture of these sausage rolls on the front of the paper, maybe get a rugby player biting into one and… voila!”

Big Willie interrupts. “Naye a bad idea tha’, Jonah,” he says. I feel my head shaking in disagreement but decide to remain diplomatic. “But it appears Micky has different ideas. Tha’s why a’ve brought him doon here from London so let’s see what he thinks…” I clear my throat. My mind is ticking over furiously, in unison with the Prince’s watch. I know whatever idea I come up with, though, has to be vastly superior to the free distribution of pastry treats.

“I was thinking of inflatables,” I suggest. “You know, like you quite often see at big sporting events. I remember the Grimsby supporters taking blow-up fish to an FA Cup game because the town is well-known for its fishing. We have to come up with something synonymous with Wales, put the name of the paper on the side, give whatever it is away and then hopefully a television audience of millions will see the product of our hard work and our name will be subconsciously planted into the mind of the viewers. It’s about raising public awareness.”

Sam, the ad rep, speaks up as if this revolutionary idea is on a par with Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity. “I see your point Michael,” he says, his face turning even redder than its natural hue. “It’s a terrific idea.” He pauses for effect, then suggests: “What about a free blow-up Welsh sausage roll for every reader..?” To my amazement, others around the room are nodding in agreement.

Big Willie steps in again. “Yeah, uh, ok Sam well we’ve got the germ of an idea here. I think what Micky was suggestin’, though, was more in the line of leeks or daffodils.”

For the first time the Prince gets involved. “Daffodils and Leeks have become a bit of a cliché to be honest, boss… how about blow-up sheep?”

At last, an idea in keeping with my own. “No’ a bad idea, that, Gareth,” Big Willie agrees. “Of course, our marketing budget is pretty negligible but I may be able to swing it I can persuade the MD to buy into the idea. Ah think it may ha’ legs, pardon the pun. Jonah, look into it will ye and report back. Plus, I guess there’s no harm in going for the double whammy and a Welsh sausage roll as well.”

This is how he earns the big bucks, I think. My new boss is a better peacemaker than Kofe Annan.

Malteezer (from Sex & Rucks and Sausage Rolls)

CHAPTER SIX (Sex & Rucks and Sausage Rolls)

STOPPING JUST once for a rest and toilet break at Membury Services on the M4 near Newbury, I have made good time and can see a bridge weaving across the horizon. I pass over the murky waters of the River Severn and enter a queue for one of the toll booths. Pulling out my wallet I prepare to pay my admission fee into Wales.

When I draw up to the booth I am confronted by a strange-looking character with a beard, one earring and a mass of tattoos crawling up his arms. “That’s £5.30 bro, you feel me?” he says. A strange greeting, but to me this is a strange country. I hand over my credit card. “What’s this butt?”

“American Express card, fella,” I reply, thinking it a strange question.

“Ah, sorry, we don’t take the plastic yer.”

I’m stunned. I might think of myself as old school but I’ve never heard of anywhere refusing plastic in this day and age. “You’re joking!”

“No mate… cash only. It’s all about the sponduliks, man.”

“Oh Christ.” I scrimmage around in my pockets to see if I have enough change. I find a couple of coins in my trousers and there are a few more in the glove compartment. He lets his impatience show with a series of tutting sounds as I add up what I’ve discovered. I feel my face reddening. There are cars backing up behind me, and in the mirror I notice a big chap in a Beemer who doesn’t seem too pleased about the delay. However many times I count, I can only get it to £5.10.

“Look fella, I’ve only got £5.10 here but if I write down my address can I owe it to you?” I venture, not very optimistically.

“Sorry pal, doesn’t work like that. No readies, no entry.”

I can feel my cool slipping away and before I know it the words are out of my mouth. “Oh come on, you Welsh jobsworth…”

His response is to glare at me and point two fingers in my direction, as a child would do when pretending to fire a gun in a game of cowboys and Indians. I rear back. “That, brother, is racist,” he says. “You can’t come down yer and talk to us like that… it aint on.” The bloke in the car behind leans on his horn. The toll booth attendant ignores him. “We don’t take kindly to it, see. You diss me, you’re dissing the ‘Port.”

I have no idea what this means.

“Look, ok, I’m sorry…”

“And no one diss’es the ‘Port.”

“Like I said I’m apologising. The ‘Port?”

He looks at me as if I have just arrived from another planet, not the country next door. “Newport, ma’an,” he says. “Third biggest town in Wales. It’s where I was born and bred… we are a proud people, innit, and I aint taking no dissing from no jumped up English invader.”

This is getting ridiculous. “Come on fella,” I say. “You’re a toll booth attendant, not a bleedin’ gangster. And there aint exactly anything for us to raid here is there? Coal? You haven’t got any left. You should come to London and count the number of your ‘brethren’ taking English jobs!” Even to my ears the argument is descending into jingoistic farce.

When he speaks next it is as if he is trying to disprove my Gangsta’ statement. “Yo, lissen up, Bro,” he says, doing a passable impression of a black pimp. “We ‘Port boys have our pride. The world is aware that you don’t get fly with a Newport guy, you hear me?”

Have I walked into one of those strange TV programmes where unsuspecting members of the public are held up to ridicule? My mum used to sit religiously in front of a programme called “Watch Out, Beadle’s About” presented by some guy called Jeremy Beadle. Could my tormentor perhaps be a Beadle clone, created by a mad TV exec with some test tubes and a laboratory?

“Hey, come on… All I want to do is get across the bridge,” I plead, feeling like the Billy Goat Gruff in a fairytale from my childhood. On that occasion a family of goats are halted from crossing a bridge by a wicked troll and, to be fair, Mr Newport certainly looks the part. “I’ve got an important interview… to work for one of your newspapers,” I add, as if this is going to make any difference. “Look there’s no point in us getting all confrontational, is there? Let’s be realistic, this aint Detroit, you’re not Eminem and I’m not 50 pee, or whatever his name is.”

His face colours, like I’ve told him to go and make love to his mother.

“Eminem?” he blasts. “Call him a rapper? Ma’an he aint nuttin’.” Oh Gawd, he’s even taken offence to a reference I was hoping would flatter him. “Nah, he is a little boy compared to the godfathers of hip-hop.”

The bloke behind me is emerging from his car and marching towards us. He rapidly fills my rearview mirror with his bulky presence. His neat grey suit is straining at the seams, as if it might split asunder.

“I’m sorry… this conversation is not only highly irrelevant, it’s mighty confusing,” I say. “What ARE you on about?”

“Talkin’ about the greatest hip-hop exponents of our generation, that’s what.” Obviously my perplexed expression winds him up even more. He mouths the words as if each is a carefully directed arrow piercing my flesh.

“Goldie…

“Lookin’…

Chain.”

He nods and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back as if he’s smashed the winning point in our game of hip-hop tennis. “What?” I say.

The Beemer driver is up alongside me now.

“Goldie Lookin’ Chain, finest hip-hop artists on the planet,” my toll-booth adversary repeats. “And they’re from the Port. They keeps it real.”

“Goldie Lookin’ Chain?” I splutter. “For God’s sake they did a song called ‘Your mama’s got a penis’. Keep It Real? Now you ARE winding me up. They do exactly the opposite: They’re a SPOOF BAND!”

My attempt to laugh out loud is quickly reduced to a strained croak as a giant hand closes around my neck and almost lifts me out of the car head first.

“Don’t you call Goldie Lookin’ Chain poofs – they are one of the greatest bands to ever come out of Wales.” It is a new voice, the Beemer driver. Oh, hell. He has misinterpreted the word spoof as a slang term for homosexual. “Yo, y’all right Mal Teezer?” he says, turning to my toll-booth nemesis. “This guy giving you trouble?”

Mal Teezer? That’s all I need – just like the Detroit rapper who has somehow taken centre stage in our conversation, the ‘border guard’ has taken his name from a well-known item of confectionery. “He aint got the ker-ching, bra,” Malteezer tells his new mate. “So I tells him he’s got to turn back his wheels. You knows it. Loser won’t be having any of it, yo.”

The Beemer driver bends down so he is level with my face, which is now at an awkward right angle, crushed between the window and the roof of my Renault Clio. “I suggest you do what he says, pal. No one disses the ‘Port. They do, they has to answer to me. And I can tell you I’m a personal friend of Goldie Lookin’ Chain… I was even a roadie for them in me younger days.”

I’m too scared of the reply to ask him his name.

“Yo, thanks Jonno, and good luck in the World Cup,” says Mal Teezer as the Beemer driver dumps me in my seat and strides back to his car. Who IS that guy? I vaguely recognise him.

I look at the clock and realise it is already well past 12. I’ve been held up at the toll booth for ages. It’s harder than trying to get into the West Bank. Even if he let me through now, I am going to be late for the interview. It crosses my mind to abort the trip there and then, but a familiar feeling, my built-in instincts of battling with adversity, kick in. “Ok, Mal,” I pronounce the name with a vague hint of sarcasm, but I don’t think he catches on. “How do I turn around, then? I take it I’m gonna have to go back.”

“You’ll have to wait here, butt, till I can get the 5-0. They’ll guide you back across.”

The 5-0? In my internal hip-hop dictionary I seem to remember this means the police, so-called after that famous retro show Hawaii 5-0. I pull forward to let other drivers pass then wait another 10 minutes for the police to get their arses in gear. Finally, a car turns up and I am ordered to follow it to the next junction, where we leave the carriageway then rejoin it heading back in the opposite direction. It takes me another 15 minutes to reach the first Bristol turn off and I travel some way before I find a cashpoint. Retrieving money I then realise it’s all in notes. I don’t fancy another meeting with Mal Teezer so stop at a service station for a can of coke, obtaining some coins in the process. I plan to use the unmanned bins when I get back to the bridge.

I also ring through to the Sunday Tribune Despatch office and speak to a helpful girl called Ffion who, I learn, is the Editor’s Secretary. “Listen, I’m terribly sorry about this but I got held up on the Severn Bridge. They wouldn’t take my credit card so I’ve had to turn back and get some money,” I inform her.

“Oh, yeah, we get that a lot. It’s a hell of a nuisance,” she says. “Don’t worry, I’ll inform Mr McLachan you’re running about an hour late. His appointment diary is clear for this afternoon so I’m sure it won’t be a problem. If it is, I’ll get him to call you back.” I thank her for being the most reasonable person I have dealt with all day, then head back to the M4.

When I reach the toll booths again I join the queue for the coin bins. Before long I am at the front of the queue. I throw my money into the opening and hear it being sorted within the automated mechanism. I wait. The barrier stays closed. Oh man. I have selected exactly the right money. This can’t be happening. Once again a queue of cars has formed behind me. I give a quick blast on my horn to get someone’s attention. Unfortunately the one person I don’t want to attract is the first out of his booth.

Mal Teezer strides to my car through the rain, his tats now blatantly readable on the stringy arms that poke out of his capped-sleeve t-shirt. One side bares his name Mal, the other says simply “You knows it”. He looks peeved, but then, so am I.

He greets me with a flick of his fingers. “Yo, bra, it’s you again. The troublemaker.” I inwardly count to 10 and swear to myself that I will keep my temper, no matter what.

“Sorry, fella, but this bin just aint working,” I explain. “I threw in my £5.30 but the barrier didn’t go up.”

“Oh yeah? Not happened before…” He says, looking at me suspiciously. I grip the steering wheel and swear under my breath as he fiddles about at the back of the unit. He opens it, pours coins into his hand, picks one out, bites it and raises it to the sky for a closer look. Is he questioning the legality of my currency? As far as I know the Welsh don’t mint their own coins.

He then walks back over, his face creasing in an ugly grin. “So,” he says, “You put the right coins in, did you?” I nod, not quite sure what is going to happen next. “Well, bro, you want a car wash, you won’t get one here,” he throws a silver disc in through the open window. He is right, damn it. It’s a car wash token. But I haven’t even been to any car washes. Before I can argue, the truth dawns on me. The Bristol garage must have slipped it into my change.

Mal Teezer leans in through the window. “D’you know that fraud is a seeerious crime?” he says in his Newport Gangsta’ tones. “I could call the 5-0 and they’d be banging you up for this.”

“Look, it’s an honest mistake,” I explain, but I know our relationship isn’t going to improve one hundred percent just because I’m backing down. There is only one thing for it. “Here’s the 10p I was short,” I say, passing it out through the window. “… And here’s a fiver for your invaluable help in pointing out the error of my ways. I am truly sorry.”

He smirks. “You reelize bribin’ an official of the bridge is a seeerious crime, too?” he asks, before slipping the proffered fiver into the back pocket of his jeans. “But you looks an honest guy to me, even if you need to be taught some manners. Me posse will be looking out for yous in Wales, ma’an. You better tread carefully if you’re up in Ringland.”

I have no idea where that is, and have no desire to continue the conversation. “Ok, I’ll… ah… make sure I show you guys respec’,” I say in my best Gangsta’ voice. He nods sagely, flips the 10p into the coin bin, and the barrier rises. Belately, I arrive in Wales.

Sex and Rucks and Sausage Rolls – Take two

ONE

THE LEGEND IS missing.

John ‘JW’ Owens.

Revered Lions and Wales rugby union halfback of the Seventies. Star newspaper columnist. Bon Viveur of the pubs and clubs around Cardiff.

Missing: Presumed drunk.

It wouldn’t bother me, but we need his expertise. We’ve already used his name as part of a promotional package on TV and radio. Read the Legend’s views on the 2011 Rugby World Cup exclusively in the Sunday Tribune Despatch this weekend.

So we need him and, more to the point, I need him.

I’m his boss, by the way. Assistant Editor (sport) Micky Biggs. Also known as Biggsy. Or Ronnie. I’ve been doing the job for less than a week, exiled here from the bustling metropolis, the heartbeat of the universe… London. So the Legend has managed to go missing on MY watch and I am feeling the pressure. If I don’t manage to conjure him up from somewhere pretty sharpish, it will be my head on the block, a black mark against my name.

My chief rugby writer Gareth Prince tells me he has tried countless times to get hold of this rugby-playing God on the phone, but without success. He insists that though The Legend has a reputation for being unreliable, he WILL eventually reply to his answerphone messages when he sobers up. Not being one to move with the times, however, he doesn’t possess a mobile phone. “I’ve trawled some of his favourite pubs looking for him,” explains Prince. “No luck. His cronies say they haven’t seen him since Monday.”

Our centre spread is relying on The Legend’s knowledge and insight. Adam, our design guru, has come up with a neat logo declaring “The Prince and The Legend” and the Picture Editor, a greying, exceedingly passionate Welshman in his late 50s called Len, has dipped enthusiastically into the library archives to recover some old black and white photographs of The Legend in action in New Zealand. All we need to complete an impressive package is the man himself.

“Any ideas?” I ask around the desk. Everyone looks at me blank. Maybe it’s because they haven’t mastered my accent yet. I guess I’m one hundred per cent cockney geezer, but it’s not as if I’m speaking the language of the lost tribe of the Incas. You know Dick Van Dyck, the cheery chimneysweep in Mary Poppins? I sound NOTHING like that. More Bob Hoskins out of the Long Good Friday.

Soccer writer Ian Jones, a rather timid character, running to skinny with a pair of National Health-style specs balancing on his nose, finally pipes up, but mumbles so quietly I barely catch what he says. “Yes Ian? Come on mate. Speak up would you? Can hardly hear you,” I encourage him.

“Umm… s… sorry boss,” he replies. “I was just saying, I’m taking Jason down the City ground this morning for the press conference but he’ll be free after that. Why don’t he pop down the Bay and knock on The Legend’s door?”

Ah, Jason. Our work experience inmate from somewhere ‘up the valleys’. I look at the tall, muscle-bound 16-year-old with a year’s supply of gel in his oily black hair, more boyband member than budding writer, who is sitting opposite me. He is fiddling with the buds on his MP3 player, oblivious to the high-level talks going on around him. “Yeah… Do it,” I say. “That’ll work. If the mountain won’t come to us…” I reach over, pull out a plug and shout loudly at the workie, nodding my head so that he knows the answer I expect from him. “You ok with that Jase? Jump on the bus and get down there? Find the Legend?” He looks perplexed, like I’ve asked him to discover the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. I ignore his apathy and look around. “Can someone give him directions?”

“No problem, boss,” says The Prince. “He lives in one of those gated communities but it isn’t too hard to find.”

“Well, there’s no point in sticking around. Jason…”

“Aye, butt.” A man of few words, I can’t help thinking the workie isn’t cut out for the world of newspapers.

“I want to be kept regularly informed of what is going on, fella. This is our centre spread, a key part of this week’s issue. A major element of the paper. It’s an important job. Don’t fuck it up! Anyone got a phone they can lend him?” Silence. “Oh, forget it… take mine…” I hand over the mobile that has come as part of my signing-on package. “Now let’s get going, lads. No time to lose…”

*                            *                            *

Jase calls in the early afternoon. By now I’m completely on edge.

“Hi boss,” he says.

“Ok, forget the niceties,” I snap. “What’s the tale?”

“Eh? Well, I’ve found the place like, but you needs to be let in like. I pressed his buzzer but he di’nt answer. You want me to come back?”

I sigh. “Fuck that. No, Jason, I don’t want you back here… I need you to do a Woodward or Bernstein.”

“What Clive Woodward?”

“Eh?” His reference to the World Cup-winning England rugby coach leaves me open-mouthed. “No… not fuckin’ Clive Woodward. Bleedin’ Bob Woodward, y’know? Woodward and Bernstein? Journos who uncovered Watergate? Oh… Forget it. Look, you wanna be a journalist, right?”

“S’pose.”

“Well, being a journalist can involve in-ves-ti-gat-ing,” I pronounce every syllable. “That means using your, ah, charm and, er, blaggin’ ability to talk your way into places. Try ringing some of the neighbours’ bells and see if you can get access.”

“Right. Roger and out…” Suddenly our workie believes he’s on a spying mission in Helmand Province, communicating via walkie-talkie rather than phone. The line goes dead. Ten minutes later he’s back. “I’m in, like,” he says.

“Ok, like,” I reply. Cheap shot, but I can’t resist.  “So, what can you see?”

“Um, I’m just coming to the door now, like, Roger…”

“Yeah… look, skip the Roger’s… it’s just a mobile phone, you’re not in the bleedin’ army.”

“Right, like. Well I’m at the door and I’m knocking.” I can hear his firm raps on the wood. Then a sigh…

“Nah, no-one’s answering.”

I think about it. “Can you HEAR anything through the door?”

“Aye, the telly’s on like!” he says with enthusiasm. “’Ang on… Yeah, it’s Loose Women, I think.” Hardly a must-see for every former international rugby player, a lunchtime gossip show for frustrated middle-aged women.

“You sure you got the right number, pal?”

“23. Yes, like, that’s what Gareth told me, like. Roger…”

“Ok, well… Is there a spy hole in the door?”

The line goes quiet again. I can hear some heavy breathing and a bit of scrabbling around, like a cat scratching at a door flap. The next word is shouted so loud I fear it might shatter my ear drum. “Yeeees! I found one… I can see inside!”

Calm. “Ok Jase, that’s good… that’s fuckin’ good. So WHAT can you see?”

“Well, there are a lot of papers all over the floor. They look like copies of the Sunday Tribune Despatch, you know, your paper. It’s… grim. It doesn’t look like anyone’s cleaned up for days, like. The TV’s pretty loud and the place is a mess… wait. I think I can see something on the settee. It could be a… BODY like. It’s… um… lying very still.”

Suddenly the part of my brain conditioned by the newspaper brainwashing police takes over. I guess it’s like being institutionalised, or maybe held captive for five years by kidnappers. What do they call it? Stockholm Syndrome. Everything you’d normally think only right and proper sometimes gets shunted out of your mind to be replaced by thoughts of the best angle, how to get one over on your competitors, an exclusive.

The flow of thought goes something like this: There is a body, it is that of a rugby legend, it is prone on a sofa, it may have been there for days because the room is a mess… conclusion: Welsh rugby legend, John JW Owens, the great JW, is dead. Today is Friday. My publishing day is Sunday. If we inform the police they will release a statement to the media possibly later today. This means every local TV and radio channel will broadcast the news tonight… two days before OUR deadline.

On the other hand… No one has heard from The Legend since Monday. No one, it appears, is looking for him. Therefore, no one KNOWS or is even slightly concerned about his whereabouts. Apart from us. And we are his employers. We PAY him. Which means, as far as I am concerned, we are within our (unwritten) rights to control the news of his demise. I turn to Prince. “Sounds like he might be dead. Reckon we can hold it til Sunday?” I ask.

He looks at me, and laughs. “Great,” he says. “The greatest player ever to hold a rugby ball in Wales is dead and you want the story as an exclusive.”

It sound callous, put into words. He pats me on the back. “Like it! Man after my own heart,” he declares. “Bloody hell, been here three days and you’ve killed off a Legend. Well done. By the end of the month you might have done away with the famous Pontypool front row as well.” He pauses, then turns serious. “I reckon if you can shut up Jason for the night we can keep it to ourselves then send him back down tomorrow and get him to ring the police from there. I’ll ring up later saying we’ve had a tip off and they’ll give us a statement. The later we do it the better, maybe about sixish tomorrow night. Good plan, skipper.”

So it isn’t just me. My chief rugby writer, a bit of a psycho by all accounts – the clue is in the fact he goes by the macabre nickname of The Prince of Darkness – is switched on when it comes to the newspaper business. I return to the workie. “Jason… listen… don’t say anything to anyone right?”

“But what if…?”

“NO ONE. Look, we’ll handle it from here. We don’t know anything yet, OK? As far as we are aware The Legend has gone away.”

“Well… I don’t know,” he protests. “Hey, I can get a better look if I go around the side, like. The windows are pretty high but, well, I’m over six foot like so I reckons I could see in …”

It sounds risky. Someone might see him and blow our “exclusive”, but we simply have to find out the truth. “Ok, Jason, go on son, keep the commentary coming as you do though.”

“Roger and… sorry.” I hear loud interference as if Jason is attempting a military obstacle course. It lasts a few moments, followed by silence, then the workie’s voice. He is speaking in hushed tones. “Yeah…” he says. “Yeah… it is a body.”

PAUSE.

“I’m pretty sure it’s him, like. The great JW.”

“Ok, Jase, keep calm now.” I realise I am whispering too. It is like the most tense point in a Wimbledon final or the tail-end of a football penalty shootout. “Now… describe EXACTLY what you see.”

“Well… He is sprawled out on the sofa, like.”

PAUSE.

“Shit. He don’t look like he’s shaved for weeks, mun.”

PAUSE.

“His clothes is a mess. It looks like… oh no… there’s a red stain on his white tee shirt, like…”

PAUSE.

“Could be… blood.” If this was a horror movie there would be a loud crack of thunder right now. “…It could be… murder… like.”

“Really?” I exclaim. “That’s a bit dramatic, Jase!” In the back of my mind, though, it’s the story that keeps on giving. As a former editor of mine used to say ‘it is a mystery to titillate the tastebuds of the newspaper-reading public’.

“The place looks like it’s been turned over good ‘n’ proper,” Jason continues. “All these papers, like… they all seem to be turned open to his column, like. Could it be a message? You knows, was he killed because of something he wrote?”

PAUSE.

“And the TV being on, like… it’s very loud… maybe… maybe someone was trying to hide his screams, eh, what d’you think boss?”

What DID I think? Personally, it is starting to sound too good to be true, like a plot straight out of one of those TV shows like Murder She Wrote or Poirot. Was I in Cardiff or what’s that place where there is a suspicious death every week? Midsomer? I was thrust centre stage into Murder of a Rugby Legend. Then my thoughts are interrupted as I hear a faint TAP… TAP… TAP.

“What’s that?” I whisper.

“Um, it’s me. I’ve just tapped on the window. Huuuuh…”

There is a massive intake of breath followed by silence. What has happened to my work experienced boy? What if the murderer has returned? Are we insured against the demise of workies on company business or could I be liable? “Jase?” A note of panic creeps into my voice.

Silence. It lasts 10 seconds or so.

“Jase!” I shout.

“… S… Sorry, boss,” he says. “I just tapped the window…”

“Yeah?”

“At first NOTHING, then…”

“Oh come on, pal, spit it out would you?”

“… then the body opened one eye and looked STRAIGHT AT ME.”

PAUSE.

“And?”

“And then it stuck two fingers up at me and told me to f*** off!”

My great exclusive disappears in front of my eyes. “So… not dead then?”

“Nah. He’s come out now. He was just having a rest, like. Says he’s been laid low all week with flu or summin. ‘Asn’t ‘ad time to tidy up… Jus’ fell asleep, like, watching telly. Can I come back now?”

“Yes, Jason, come back,” I agree. “…and bring the corpse with you.”

The first draft

PROLOGUE

TONIGHT I WILL dream of sheep.

Not the fluffy, weather-beaten variety that graze on the hills around these parts. These sheep are plastic. They need someone to inflate them. Rather than counting on them to cure insomnia, they have given me sleepless nights. By a rough estimate at this moment there are 20 of them hanging from the ceiling and as I peer upwards one of the flock liberates itself and floats down towards me. Landing in front of me, it appears to sneer: “What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s purely an accident,” I reply to my telepathic inquisitor, who has a red scarf tied around its neck. Therein lies part of the story. The sheep is here, and I am here, because of the Welsh rugby team. At this moment they are perilously close to being crowned champions of the world.

Now, forgive me if I don’t whisper this in the awe-struck, reverential tones that many around here would use when speaking of such a prize. It’s just that, where I come from, rugby union is a minority pursuit and hardly registers a blip on the richter scale. From what I can gather, it’s viewed the same way across most of the civilized world. In fact, the only reason the Welsh are so enamoured with it is that it’s the one sport at which they have enjoyed a modicum of success. Their list of true sporting achievements can be written on the back of a postage stamp.

The escaped sheep studies me. “If you hate us so much, treat us with such contempt and ridicule, then why don’t you just go home, baaaach?” it asks.

“I can’t,” I say, my self-confidence taking a dip as the memories flood in. “I’ve sunk all me boats, burned me bridges, fella. Anyway, it’s not that I hate you as such. You’re passionate, funny, companionable… You’re a complex breed and no mistake. Quite frankly, I think you’re mad as bleedin’ ‘atters.”
“So we’re mad, eh? Yet YOU’RE the one who is talking to an inflatable, blow-up toy,” comes the witty riposte. “You say we’re a complex breed but how is that? We just like a chance to celebrate… simple as. You said it yourself, we haven’t had much excuse in the past. But for a small nation of just over 3m people we haven’t done so baaa-dly on the field of sporting achievement.”
Ah, just the opening I need to baffle him with facts. I’ve done my homework. “Ok, me old China, let me put it this way,” I say. “It is 53 years since Wales even qualified for the finals of the World Cup in the biggest-known sport on the planet, football. Uruguay is smaller, yet they’ve won the thing twice.

“Here’s another example… Wales has NEVER produced a tennis star like the Scots can boast in Andy Murray, have they? Or sprinters that can shock the world like little Jamaica has with the likes of Usain Bolt? Still not convinced? I’ll give you a quiz. How many cricketers in recent times from this side of the Severn Bridge have been capable of breaking into the England side? How many Welsh golfers since Ian Woosnam have won a major tournament? The answer to both questions is none, zero, zilch, nada. Comprende? All the evidence points to the fact you’re a nation of serial bleedin’ losers.”

He’s far from impressed, but I’m aware it’s quite safe having this frank exchange of thoughts with an inanimate object. If I were to voice my opinions in the pub tonight, however, I would get a volcanic reaction. As they prepared to hang me from the nearest lamppost the locals would demand: “What about Mark Williams, a two-times world snooker champion? Or Richie Burnett, who achieved a similar accolade in darts? And look at Joe Calzaghe, one of the best boxers of all time – unbeaten on the big stage.”

Not being renowned for holding my tongue in such circumstances, I’d have to point out that the people on that exceptionally small list labelled “Welsh success stories” honed their skills in a pub or, at least, in close proximity to a bar. Hardly a true test of endurance, stamina and fitness.
“That’s not true with boxing, though, is it?” bleats the sheep, finding its voice one more.

“Well, I think you’ll find it’s all related,” I explain. “You Welsh love a good scrap… particularly after a few drinks.”

“Sorry, what was that Micky?” says a voice from behind me. Shit, I realise too late I’ve actually been muttering out loud. I turn around to find my work colleague Adam staring at me, eyebrows arched in concern, worried about whether I’m holding it together at this crucial time.

“Oh, er, nothing,” I assure him. “Everything’s absolutely fine, fella.” To prove as much, I refocus on the task in hand. The seventh Rugby World Cup final between New Zealand and Wales from Eden Park, Auckland, is playing out its last five minutes on the screen in front of me. The television is muted, the commentary coming from a transistor radio at my elbow which crackles with interference, a broad Welsh valleys accent battling to be heard above it.

“And the clock is ticking down,” squeals the radio man, like a genetically modified mouse on steroids. “There are a mere five minutes left. Away to my left there is a red tide … swaying to and fro like the Pacific Ocean that laps these shores… it’s fannnnntastic. A magnificent rendition of Bread of Heaven is now enveloping the stadium, as if the Last Night of the Proms has been airlifted into Auckland. The faces in the home crowd are as black as their jerseys. Hywl boys, hywl… One last immense effort and all the waiting is over. They’ll be dancing on the streets of Tregaron, Aberystwyth, Llandrindod Wells and Ystradgynlais… The party will go on for months…”

Oh great, I think. Another bleedin’ party.

There seems to have been an excuse for a knees-up every day since I arrived here 10 weeks ago.

“Sam Warburton puts in another scything tackle,” barks the man they call the Welsh whippet, aka former Welsh international wing Ieuan ap-Davies, one of the many 70s rugby players who have unashamedly taken advantage of their hero status by infiltrating the Welsh media. Apparently, it would be unpatriotic to listen to anyone else.

Up on the screen, the pitch resembles a war zone. Bodies embalmed in red and black tangle like creeping vines around each other, aggressive weeds wrestling for supremacy up the side of a garden wall. There is no sign of the object they are fighting over. “The Welsh captain has been immense today. He will surely be knighted for this, if the Queen can be bothered to look across the River Severn.”

Even at this moment there has to be a jibe at the English.

The enemy. Yours truly.

On the brink of their finest moment, with an Englishman nowhere to be seen, the Welsh can still nurse that gigantic chip on their shoulder. Oh well, it’s their night. Or, at least, it might be. New Zealand aren’t considered the best in the world for nothing. They have some hardened warriors on the field and only need one score to turn things around. It’s a pity their main talisman couldn’t make the game. Their captain Richie McCaw. Laid low by injury, poor bloke, for the biggest match of his life.

Suddenly I feel pain. A real, physical hurt which sends sparks racing to my
brain. My eyes fill with tears, not because of anything I’ve just seen but from the agony administered by meaty, hairy fingers digging into me, as if I’ve been kidnapped and left to the mercy of some muscle-bound masseuse who does ‘extras’ in the form of sadistic torture. I instinctively mould my hands into fists, but the fingers ease off, to be replaced by two full-handed, stinging slaps.

“BLOODY HELL, MON, WE’RE GONNA SHAGGIN’ DO IT. EH, YE KEN? WE’RE ABOUT TO WIN THE SODDIN’ WORLD CUP!”

The words are spoken by my editor. Big Willie McLachan. He’s making it out as if we have both spent the last hour and a half straining every sinew, grappling with giant Maori warriors on a muddy field in a heavy downpour rather than sitting here in our dry, air-conditioned office monitoring the whole thing via television and radio. Willie’s partisan reaction is one the Yanks would find hard to match if they won the Ryder Cup, invaded Iran and annexed Canada all while celebrating Independence Day. Strange really, because Willie is as Welsh as I am. He hails from Glasgow and speaks with a broad Scottish accent. When it comes to rugby, though, he insists he is as Welsh as laverbread and cockles.

“Oh hurry up, mon, hurry up!” he shouts, as if I can influence the timekeeper to make the clock go any quicker. “This will be our finest achievement. We’ll sell a hundred thousand tomorrow. Easy.”

When the whistle does go, and IF Wales have won, then I won’t see Big Willie for dust. He will be off out the door, gone to celebrate OUR victory, HIS victory… To the pub across the road where he will regale people with tales about how he could envisage it all in his “mind map”, had “plotted” OUR route to the World Cup final, had never doubted HIS boys could deliver for him.

Hmm. PLOTTED? The word makes me uneasy. It may seem the height of fantasy that a newspaper could somehow influence the outcome of an international sporting event of such magnitude, yet from the beginning of the tournament it strikes me that Wales have benefited from small strokes of good fortune that haven’t been completely down to a supportive supreme being. The Kiwi captain missing this game is one giant stroke of luck, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I suspect at various times Wales have had a helping hand in human form, a hand I know all too well. Not that I could share my suspicions with Big Willie, for if the truth ever surfaced, Wales’ opponents throughout the tournament might have legitimate grounds for complaint and a proper investigation. Of course, there is no proof anyway.

“Ah, so we’re cheats now, are we?” my sheep friend interrupts, jolting me out of my disrespectful musings. “Just because you wonderful chappies got knocked out in the quarter-finals and couldn’t repeat your fluke of 2003, you have the cheek to accuse us of dubious practices. Shame on you.”

Typically, he’s mistaken me for someone who gives a damn about the sport, lumping me in with the Barbour-wearing, public school hooray henrys that enjoy a game of rugger in between fox hunts and pheasant shoots. They’re the type of people who would treat a working-class East End boy like me no better than animal excrement picked up on the bottom of their wellies. Not my England, pal, far from it.

The hubbub of excited chatter builds around me. Big Willie is talking again and for a moment I mistake him for the sheep. “Ha’ ye thoughta this? Maybe we can get a wee comment each from the movers and shakers in Wales… Rhodri Morgan, Tom Jones, Catherine Zeta, Shirley Bassey… Hey, what about getting that Max Boyce to write a wee ditty to mark the achievement?”

Of course we’ve already thought of it but it’s Big Willie’s train set and on this day of all days there is no point in taking away his fun by pointing such things out. I can’t stop my mind shooting ahead and imagining what he will be like tomorrow if Wales win. I suspect he will wake from the party of all parties at around noon and gather “his team” together in the pub to tell us how glad he is that he thought of this idea, or came up with that plan. He will thank us for carrying out his instructions and, in the midst of his finest hour, he will envisage standing up at a showcase evening of his peers, bowing to them as his name is read out and striding confidently to the platform to accept his award as “editor of the year”.

His speech was written in his head a year ago, of how he turned around an ailing newspaper and took it to the peak of its achievement, like some latter day Robert the Bruce who repelled the invading Sassanachs at Bannockburn and sent them back across the border to “think agin”.

Back in the present I’m about to start the real work, planning the finest sporting supplement ever published in my adopted country. This is MY World Cup final and I’m poised to squeeze every last drop of effort from my small, unpredictable mish-mash of reporters, pick out some useable images from a catalogue of uninspiring offerings supplied by the picture editor and challenge my mediocre band of sub-editors to come up with meaningful and imaginative headlines. The target is for my 32-page souvenir supplement to accurately report, record and reflect this one single life-affirming moment of Welshness.

I am in my element. At the hub of things. Sitting in mission control like Captain Jean Luc Pickard, making life or death decisions on the Starship Enterprise.
Only tomorrow when I sift through the pages and pages of print will I know whether I have succeeded in my quest.

When the last page is put to bed tonight I will read through the proofs and patiently wait for the first edition to drop on my desk as the rest of my band of brothers and sisters play catch-up, attempting to drink themselves silly in the nightclubs of the city. Muttering under my breath about how everyone is having fun but me, yet knowing deep down there is nowhere in the world I would rather be, I will study the edition carefully, pick out some of the most interesting stories behind this ultimate triumph, then take a phone call from BBC Radio 5s Up All Night show and try to talk them enthusiastically and excitedly through the events of the day.

At about 1am, after every last creative juice has been squeezed out of me, I will slump behind the wheel on auto-pilot and direct my car around a moving obstacle course of human detritus. I will sigh with relief on reaching home, the tranquil environment of my one bedroom flat on the outskirts of Cardiff, where I will try to shut out the noise of inebriated locals loudly singing the praises or mourning the demise of their rugby team on the way back from the biggest boozing session of their lives.

Then, and only then, will I reflect again on what I have achieved in such a short space of time. As dawn filters through the curtains, I will retire to bed and attempt to grasp a couple of hours sleep before the garbage-seeking seagulls wake me with shrieking cries to announce their discovery of discarded chip cartons and throwaway kebabs on the deserted Sunday morning streets.

Eventually I will drift off, and then I will dream of sheep.

Blow-up sheep.

Hanging from a ceiling.

And I will ask myself the same question one of their flock posed to me all those hours earlier: “What the hell AM I doing here?”

 

Run Rabette Run sample for NaNoWriMo

CHAPTER ONE

I SHOOK THREE chalky white granules out of the plastic container and studied them. They didn’t look much and I had little doubt their potency had been compromised by my amateur attempts at dissection. Grains of my chemical equilibrium had been left on the draining board in the kitchen and were no doubt at this moment being wiped away with a cloth and rinsed down the sink.

I popped the customised medication into my mouth, helped it on its way with a sip from my water bottle, sighed and studied the threatening clouds above, spartan and grey and weighed down with rain. The gabardine mac hung loose from my sagging shoulders so I pulled the belt across. One, two… My God I was out of condition. There had been times when I could have comfortably reached the third hole without having to breathe in like some slovenly, down-on-her-luck supermodel at a Vogue casting party. Still, it had to be done.

Three! It was uncomfortable, but I could live with it, the alternatives too awful to contemplate. I guess the bloated feeling was due to my stomach still digesting the three Weetabix I had crammed down for breakfast, along with the strong coffee with three sugars I had chosen to revive me after a sleep-interrupted night. Believe me, there had been plenty to keep me awake into the early hours, a myriad of bitter reflections on what had been a real doozy of a day.

The previous morning Wagner, my boss, had made the announcement. He had called us into his office, me, Ben and Hayes, and told us that the business was “downsizing”. As a result the three graphic artists in the specialist magazine department would have to be reduced to one. It was going to be a straight shootout between the three of us who got the axe and the others already had enough ammunition to blow me out of the water. In a toe-to-toe, show-us-your-skills-matrix fight I reckon I could take Ben easily enough – after all he was just a kid out of college and couldn’t boast the on-the-job experience I possessed. If he was to play his joker, though, it would be the very fact his tender age marked him as “one for the future”.

Hayes was a different matter. Cocky, cheerful, convivial Hayes, was the jovial comedian in the office, the cheeky chappy who livened up every board meeting with tales of his single-life debauchery. People who only had short spells in his company thought him entertaining, talented and a real team player, but for those condemned to spending long hours working with him – like me – it soon became evident that a bitchy, nasty and downright malicious undercurrent ran through him.

There was another thing. Hayes was gay, so any attempt at pointing out his personality flaws would place you in the mental filing cabinet he constantly replenished under the heading “Homophobe”. While his sexuality wasn’t identified as an attribute on the matrix, he would have no qualms about playing the discrimination card if the fight cut up rough.

If the opposition itself wasn’t enough, there was the growing list of black smudges tainting my name. I’d been warned twice about my tardiness, while my last project had received a big thumbs down from the Editor. Also, I had been forced to take rather a lot of time off in the last few months, mostly due to my condition, which is where the pills come in. I can imagine Wagner now, checking flirtily with his milf of a secretary Sandra. “Where does Rab stand on the Bradford Factor, Sandy honey? Just bring the files in, bend over my desk and point out his rating with your long, slender fingers while I take in barely a word and focus on your pert bottom.” Did I not mention my boss was a perv? Well, maybe it’s an essential requirement on any skills matrix when the job is running one of the last lads mags still in business, “Boys and Their Toys”.

Fair to say the briefing had upset the delicate balance of my sensitivities. I moped around in a daze for the rest of the day, trying to figure out how to explain to my wife Cherry that we might have to cancel Christmas, together with the new laminate flooring for the hallway and the surprise shopping trip to New York for daughter Jamie. The plan had been to let her choose her own presents from one of the big department stores like Macey’s. After all, she was 18 – all grown up – and what girl wouldn’t jump at the chance to take an all-expenses-paid bite out of the Big Apple? She had done extraordinarily well in her exams, a straight A student, and we felt it only right to give her something equally extraordinary as a reward. So far she didn’t have a clue about the plan which, in a way, was fortunate.

Cherry would not be happy, though. She rarely is these days. I have the feeling she expects more from me, that I should be acting the same way I did 15 years ago when I romanced her into bed and then marriage. In those days my condition was considered an endearing quirk rather than an all-consuming mental disorder that affected every facet of my life. Friends used to laugh when, after we dared each other to recklessly leap off the high board at the local swimming pool, I would insist on going back to perform the feat twice more, even though I still had the red marks as evidence of my original belly flop, which had inflicted a considerable amount of pain on my person. There would be the stupid games like knock-out ginger, too, where one of our number would run up and ring an unsuspecting neighbour’s bell before we legged it down the road. Of course, I’d need to go back again and again to the same house, only to be caught in the act on the third occasion and marched around to my parents for the inevitable carpeting.

To talk about how the condition affects my life in isolation would be the equivalent of an artist painting only half a picture, omitting to colour in the broad outlines. Truth was it impacted on us all, the knock-on effects for the family glaringly evident if you spent time in our company.  In the main Cherry is very supportive, a tough-as-teak crutch to lean on, but deep down I know she feels I use my condition as a reason to wriggle out of some of my everyday obligations as a husband and father. To be fair, she is probably right. It was easy to fall back on as an excuse to avoid the annoying family chores other men had to cope with. Then again, when I use my get-out-of-jail-free card the sigh of relief that comes from my better half is almost audible. It suits her purpose to paint me as the bad guy, then stomp huffily out of the house to go and pile purchases on our joint credit card as some form of pecuniary penalty handed down by the judge in the interminably busy court of the sexes.

The most annoying thing about the voices in my head is I know they are speaking rot. When they tell me the consequence of not doing something is that a member of my family will be harmed I know they are blowing hot air up my backside, dispersing malicious nonsense in the confident knowledge that I won’t challenge them. They are liars, but to do anything other than to acquiesce to their demands would be to tear a giant hole in the fabric of my existence. Damn it, truth is I’m far too scared to try, like a believer receiving subconscious messages from a benevolent God. If the consequences aren’t that my family get hurt in one way, then maybe somewhere down the line they will be hurt in another. Don’t try to make sense of any of it, it will just leave you turning circles in the wind, until your mind flips out, too.

The  voice spoke to me now, a squeak rather than any recognisable form of dialect, telling me it was time to go. I looked back at the three bedroom house where we lived, a stone’s throw from Clapham Common in London because Cherry insisted it was the place to be, the right catchment area for the good schools, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was well out of the price range we had set ourselves. Every month was a battle to keep the costs down – a battle we would never win without the credit cards – and I wondered how the hell we would meet the mortgage payments if the worst case scenario arose. Cherry’s money from her job as a nurse wouldn’t go anywhere near meeting our obligations and it would be up to me to rejoin the jobs market and apply for available posts.

That would be no easy task. Not only was I out of practice having been in my current position for more than 12 years but also I was hardly in my first flush of youth. Having just turned 40 I was a long way down the road to the scrapheap. Yes, the Government had bought in legislation preventing employers discriminating against a person because of their age but that didn’t mean they were effective. You can write something down on a piece of paper and declare it to be law, but it can’t silence those other voices – the ones that whisper to a future boss: “Forget this bloke, he’s past his sell-by date. He’ll cost you too much and will probably break down at the first sniff of hard work. Far better to go for some young, impressionable guy who will come cheap and give more miles to the gallon in a bid to prove himself in the real world.” I couldn’t really argue with the sentiments.

‘Let’s go!’, the voice squeaked, and I waved a pointless farewell in the vague direction of the house, knowing full well no one would be watching. They would be far too busy participating in the mad morning rush. Besides, they knew it would take me some time to get going. It always did.

Bending to pick up the briefcase at my feet I was distracted by the suede leather Italian loafers I was wearing. I couldn’t for the life of me remember buying them, but now I considered them I experienced a warm feeling of satisfaction. Nice shoes, and not my usual type. I was ribbed constantly by my daughter for going to the bargain bucket shops for my footwear, only for it to wear out within a few months. A false economy, she pointed out, though despite her high IQ I suspected economy was the one word missing from her vocabulary, particularly when it came to her own wardrobe.

These shoes must have cost a pretty penny, so it seemed strange I couldn’t even recall the purchase. I could only think that I had stumbled across them during my day out to spruce up my sorry looking wardrobe in the summer sales. This annual pilgrimage involved going into town and visiting men’s clothes shops in a whirlwind, pulling things off pegs, trying them on and then returning home satisfied that I wouldn’t have to do it again until next year. The key word on this sacred day was “bargain”, and if I had bought these in a sale I surely would have remembered. Perhaps I had stumbled across a Christmas present from my wife inadvertently while rummaging through the Aladdin’s Cave of a hall cupboard for a suitable umbrella to combat the oncoming showers. If that was the case, though, they would have been in a box and, besides, Cherry made hiding presents in the most obscure places an art form. No, there had to be another solution and I thought about who had recently visited the house, stayed over and perhaps neglected to take their shoes with them on departure. There was Jamie’s boyfriend, that idiot Marcus, and it was true he had sartorial elegance down to a fine art. It was a talent that seemed to come at the expense of all others, the main one being common sense. Surely even head-in-the-clouds Marcus would have noticed the large hole in his wardrobe by now.

I considered going back and changing them but, well, they were comfortable and they fitted perfectly. I lifted up one leg to have a look at the sole. There was a number there… 39. Ideal. That made everything OK. I pulled myself back up to my full 6ft height, briefcase in one hand, umbrella in the other and sparkling new Italian shoes on my feet, and turned away from the house to head for the nearest tube station. ‘Gate!’ the voice ordered, and I turned obediently. Open, shut… open, shut… open, shut. There. No one would be hurt today.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

THE TUBE. My nemesis. The one thing that sends my legs to jelly, makes my heart shrivel in on itself and dissolves my brain to mush. People think it’s the claustrophobia that causes my irrational angst, the madness of thousands of commuters cramming into carriages like matches in a box, needing just one spark to set the whole thing off. That does play a part, I’ll accept, but it is much more than that. It is about a complete lack of control, your inability to influence anything that happens. You are down there, hundreds of feet below the ground and some greater authority is about to dictate your immediate future. Of course, there is a driver, a timetable, people in the background sitting at computer screens guiding you on your way. There are fallback situations, complex algorythms written to avoid every possibility of something going wrong. And yet…

The way I see it is that only one small part of the operation has to misfire for a whole chain reaction to be set off and, once that happens, it has a momentum entirely of its own. Above ground, in a car, you at least have some say about what is going to happen. Down there you are putting everything in the hands of others and, what’s worse, you don’t even know who those others are, what their motivation is, what makes them tick, what kind of sleep they had the night before, whether some emotional crisis at home has sent them reaching for the bottle, whether they are a hair’s breadth away from a heart attack or some inadvertent muscle spasm which will cause them to flick the wrong switch.

Then there are your fellow passengers. What is their motivation? Ever since the 7/7 disaster you can’t help but sweep the carriage with your eyes, study every bag and try to envisage its contents. If someone looks a bit overweight is it because they have several pounds of explosive strapped to their chest ready to detonate at some pre-arranged time in some carefully selected place? If they are looking around furtively is it because they are trying to select a victim for an opportunistic robbery? On top of all that there is the scenario that frightens us most of all, the prospect of getting the nutter. Everyone talks about the nutter on the bus but generally it is possible to move away, go downstairs, jump off at traffic lights or the next stop. Underground, though, a quarter of a mile below civilisation with a crush of bodies wedging you in place, there is no escape from the vacant gaze, the manic attempts to engage you in conversation, the roaming eyes that seem to act independently of each other, the hand in the pocket that could be at that very moment holding the knife ready to plunge it into your side.

With all these thoughts encircling my brain I guess you are quite within your rights to ask me: “Why bother? Why don’t you just drive, take the bus or order a taxi?” Not… that… simple. The bus doesn’t go anywhere near my destination, unfortunately, so that rules out that scenario. Cab? Well, I don’t really get on with cab drivers or, rather, they don’t choose to put me on their Christmas Card list. They tend to get fed up with my little foibles, the winding up and down of the windows, the shouting ‘go’ at the top of my voice suddenly as they approach a light which is turning from yellow to red. It’s not at every light, mind you, just every third one.

As for the driving issue, well, like I say, the previous day was a real sweetheart, what with redundancy rearing its ugly head and my mind not being as focused as it should have been. Having picked up my Zafira from the underground car park at end of business I was immersed in my own thoughts and joined the rush hour traffic in a dream state. I’d done the journey plenty of times before so it was quite easy to switch to auto-pilot and let my easy-to-handle people carrier guide me through the early evening mayhem.

What I hadn’t planned for was an encounter with some gimp in an urban jeep who, unsure which lane suited his purpose best, had decided to straddle the two. Spotting a gap on the inside to squeeze through so that I could make use of a filter arrow at traffic lights I absent-mindedly forgot to make allowances for the fact this dunderhead didn’t realise his top-of-the-range Safari vehicle was equipped with indicators. I guess you didn’t need them in the wilds of the Maasai Mara…

Lime pickle chapter one

THE METRONOMIC sound echoed through the sparse rooms, bouncing off bare, chalky walls before being sucked into the grubby stone floor like sand through a timer.

Cra-keet, cra-keet, cra-keet.

Apart from the rhythmic dirge every other aspect of this remote, unwelcoming abode suggested it had been derelict for years. There was a notable lack of photographs and paintings, the furniture was well past its sell-by date and there were just a few measly odds-and-sods possessions scattered around, as if the last occupier had vacated in a hurry.

Its dilapidated state, however, hadn’t come about through indifference and slovenliness. Rather, it was by design. It looked exactly as was intended. To improve the decor or the ambience would be to mess with things that didn’t need to be disturbed. Such fripperies might encourage interest from outside which, more than anything, the person who dwelt here wished to avoid. At this time and in this place, things were how they were meant to be, how they had been since forever.

Rain tap-danced on the roof, getting heavier by the second, while an overgrown tree out back beat a frantic rhythm against a kitchen window and outriders of the untethered gale rushed with icy intent down the chimney and into the dark, dank living quarters, searching for bones to chill. If a human being susceptible to the elements had been unlucky enough to find themselves within these four walls they might have shivered at this point. In the ancient rocking chair, the figure barely registered the intrusion, merely adjusted its position so deftly that even a seasoned observer might have missed it. The only part of the body that moved was the index finger, which flexed imperceptibly as it hovered over the trigger of the shotgun.

Cra-keet, cra-keet, cra-keet.

The symphony of isolation continued for some time, the rocking chair, the pitter-pattering rain, the tree tapping, the howling down the chimney. It was only when a new sound interrupted, a syncopation which made all the other components seem off beat, that the figure sprang bolt upright in its chair and threw aside the decaying brown blanket it had been using for camouflage.

Craaaaaa-kkkkk.

Black eyes peered out from deep within an overgrown bird’s nest of facial hair, darting around to focus first on the gun, then the chimney, then the door and finally the window. The head barely moved. A faint glow lit up the pitch-black gloom. The moon? The mangled figure would like to think so, but had a gnawing suspicion deep within his miserable soul that such a reasoned explanation didn’t apply in this case.

The lips, dry and cracked, parted barely an inch, froth forming as they tried to respond vocally to the interruption. The new noise, a quiet fizzing, just didn’t fit in. Releasing the gun for a moment gnarled, deformed fingers pushed down on the armrests of the rocking chair, elbows cracking like hinges on a portable piece of furniture stored too long in a leaking shed. Finally they gave up their protest and snapped into place on the perpendicular, levering the whole body slowly into a standing position.

…keeetttt.

The eyes grew wider, indicating either alarm or anticipation or both, the expression hard to read. The mouth pushed further open, the spittle tearing like cotton stitches stretched past breaking point. The finger, the same one that had twitched over the gun trigger, now pointed towards the intrusive light as it grew brighter and brighter, greedily consuming the black backdrop of night. The body started shaking, the knuckles of the other hand turning white as they lifted the gun again and clasped the barrel tightly. The chair’s geriatric creak ceased.

Like a robot programmed to respond to light, the legs awkwardly shuffled to the window, the arm now fully extended. The crooked twig of a finger shook more rapidly the closer it got to its destination, as a water diviner might do in the presence of an underground stream. The rain was now relentless in its pounding, the wind throwing it like a crazed wrestler against the panes. The figure stopped, stock still, only the head moving. It tilted sideways in a listening pose, though the ears had been consumed by the bird’s nest many years ago. The fizzing noise was expanding in depth and resonance, overpowering all other elements of the symphony until it played a lone solo in his mind. Eyes wide and unblinking, the figure sprang into action. The rifle was suddenly at its shoulder, the safety catch flicked off, the crooked finger steady, hovering over the trigger. At last an almost inhuman croak escaped from the lips, the voice used so rarely these days it took time to get all the parts of the larynx functioning again.

The man, for if you stripped away the figure’s carefully constructed disguise that is what you would find, wished he had time for a drop of whisky, a highly useful lubricant in such circumstances. Unfortunately it was some distance away in his father’s cupboard and he could not drop his guard for a second.

Once again attempting speech, he managed to form the words and they tumbled out like hostages released from a long confinement. Focusing down the weapon’s sights, he mumbled to the elements beating at his window: “So, you’re back are you? Not this time, you bastards, not this time.”

Bending, he peered up into the night sky to find the source of the light. There! It was just approaching over a distant hill, a ball of flame, hurtling at some incalculable speed towards him. Being proved right hardened his resolve. “You caught Moot napping last time but it ain’t going to happen again. I’m not the soft target you think I am. Turn up at my door at your peril.”

As if in reply, the building shook violently around him and he heard plates crashing to the ground, most likely having vibrated free from his mam’s old Welsh dresser in the kitchen. Upstairs there were bumps and thumps and a splintering of glass, a window reacting to a powerful, unseen force. A new, more destructive onrush of air brought an avalanche of soot down the chimney, some of it settling in his hair, yet his focus never wavered. Eyes transfixed, they followed a huge boulder with a fiery tail as it passed unreasonably close to the farmhouse roof and continue its descent down the valley. Seconds later there was an explosion and the sky turned a dazzling white for a few seconds before the normal black backdrop returned and slowly, very slowly, things settled down to normal. The wind resumed its journey down the chimney, the rain pattered softly on the roof, a small rumble of thunder burbled up from somewhere in the valley’s guts and the tree branch continued dolling out its punishment to the window.

The man named Moot kept his eyes focused on the yard, trying to maintain a facade of unflappability. All that changed instantly, though, when a noise behind him made him drop all pretence. Spinning on buckling knees, he lost all control of the firearm’s direction and reflexively pulled the trigger, peppering the wall above the fireplace with shot that sent white plaster flying to mix with the chimney soot still hanging in the air.

Long after the dust had settled he stood, staring at the thing that had provoked the assault and silently cursing himself for losing his nerve at such a vital moment.

Unimpaired and uninhabited, the rocking chair continued its mournful rhythm.

Cra-keet, cra-keet, cra-keet.

Crossing the Whitewash 1-3

 

PART ONE

 Gareth greeted the pale apparition with a proportionate amount of shock and fear, only to discover that the second coming was a cheap conjuring trick performed by a person who lived his life in thrall to alcohol

CHAPTER ONE

2004:

AT FIRST SIGHT the character in the grey overalls didn’t add up to much. He had a taut, wiry frame which meant the clothes hung off him like an older brother’s hand-me-downs. His face was gaunt with hollow cheekbones framing eyes sunk back into shadow, hardly surprising as he’d slept just a few hours a night since his arrival a month earlier.

Yet looking closer, peeling back the layers and peering into those shadows, you could detect a sharp intellect at work, swimming behind irises of cobalt blue crystal. Try to delve deeper and it was like looking into a mirror, the eyes reflecting back what they saw and refusing to allow anyone to glimpse deeper into a soul shut off from the rest of the world. As a defence mechanism it was perfect, allowing him to conceal his inner-most thoughts and protect his true identity from prying busybodies. For more than a year, psychiatrists, psychologists and a whole cabal of social workers had failed to discover what made him tick.

He was reasonably young – early 20s – and his physique marked him out as a target for some of the older, more seasoned lags. He was a pretty boy, really, in a prison known for its bullying, violence and rape. General consensus was the kid was a punk who deserved his comeuppance, that he had battered some unfortunate over the head with a walking stick, leaving him for dead. The question now doing the rounds in ‘Wano’ was how this baby-faced hooligan might react if the boot was on the other foot. Those asking would soon have their answer.

Wano was the nickname that those unlucky enough to find themselves incarcerated within its stark Victorian walls gave to Wandsworth. It was arguably the worst prison in Britain, with many of its problems down to overcrowding. Fortunately the kid had found himself sharing a cramped cell with an old friend of the career criminal he called dad. The cell mate warned him there was a bounty on his head and that if he intended to stay alive he should keep his wits about him. The prize on offer for the successful candidate was a non-stop supply of pharmaceuticals provided by a notorious east London gang.

The kid had first crossed paths with the gang in question during a street fight in his early teens. A few years later he had inflamed the situation by muscling in on their drug distribution network to set up on his own. To protect his interests on the pill-popping estate where he lived, he had formed a loose affiliation with likeminded neighbourhood punks. Now, with the kid behind bars, the gang intended to reclaim their turf, re-establish their authority and kill off the opposition for good. First, though, they had to remove the head from this fledgling criminal body.

The attack came in one of the narrow corridors as prisoners made their way towards the dining area. It might have been successful if the home-made weapon, a shiv crafted with love and care in one of the prison’s workshops, hadn’t reflected off another inmate’s spectacles. Alerted by the glint of steel, the intended victim span just in time to raise his arm and defend himself, the metal implement cutting a crooked path into his sleeve.

Blood bloomed instantly through the thin material and the kid bent double as if incapacitated. In truth, though, it was a trick to catch his attacker off guard and as a second swing of the arm sliced through the air just above his head the walls echoed with playground chanting, fellow inmates encircling the combatants, attempting to keep the action hidden from the screws.

Sensing his opponent off balance from the second lunge, the kid sprang from a kneeling position to launch his counter-attack, burying his head full into the other man’s guts and provoking an involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs.

“Oof!”

Before the bounty hunter had time to think, the kid had grabbed his arm and bitten deeply into the flesh just above the wrist. This time there was a scream, followed by the tell-tale chink as the weapon dropped to the floor. Dazed, with blood flowing from the wound, the bigger man had no time to gather his thoughts before a head crashed into his chin, sending him sprawling across the tiles. Slowly regaining his senses, he reached desperately for the customised blade but his opponent had the ascendancy now, stamping on the wounded hand then following up with a knee across the throat. The kid looked into the eyes of a black face, nose splayed wide like a boxer’s, a jagged scar down one cheek. The mercenary was a big man all right, a heavyweight compared to his lightweight opponent, but his size had only slowed him down and been used against him.

Where some might have pondered the next move, the kid didn’t hesitate. The man below him might now look vulnerable, but he had set out with the intention of causing permanent damage and there was no room for leniency. It was time to send a message to others with similar intentions.

In the distance an alarm bell sounded but the kid took no notice. Lazily he reached across and picked up the shiv as his prisoner gasped and gagged. “Is this what you want, nigger?” he asked, pointing the jagged edge at his incapacitated opponent who, in response, blinked wildly, realisation spreading across his face. “Then this is what you get…”

Without a second thought, he tightened his fist around the homemade blade and sent it plunging downward.

 

 CHAPTER TWO

PRESENT DAY:

Heat… scorching, searing, combustible; Head inside an oven door

Sweat dripping, music pounding, drums crashing, people cheering

Close, too close, push them away

Voices shouting, “Out of my way, out of my way”

His voice

Rising, feeling lifted, are those ants below?

Lights dazzling, cheers growing, louder louder

‘I can do this, I can do this’

Deafening roar…

Taking off,

Soaring, soaring

But, oh no…

Not soaring

Falling, falling fast

Down down

Seeing clearly now

Not ants… people

Getting bigger

People standing, people moving

No, no… Please don’t go

Not now…

CRASH!

The man in room 4 involuntarily shot up to a sitting position in bed, hands held out in front of him, knee aching, feet throbbing. The clammy syrup of fear trickled from his forehead and gathered in his eyebrows, the contours of his head mapped out in a stain on the pillow.

The dream again. The nightmare.

Was it a nightmare, though, if it was only a recording of the truth, a slideshow – snapshots of the past, replayed constantly as if on a video loop? The bang was probably a car backfiring, a door slamming, a dustbin knocked over by a ravenous urban fox. Nothing earth-shattering, but he was allergic to loud noises, abrupt bangs and crashes. Where most young people relished the element of surprise provided by popping fireworks in the night sky, he suffered a jittery, jumping spasm whenever one went off in close proximity, displaying the characteristics of a household pet on Bonfire Night. He would never have survived the army, probably would have caused a friendly fire incident, jerking the trigger at the first loud noise he heard. This ‘allergy’ was a bi-product of the incident that bought the nightmare, the one that snatched his dream career away. The incident which, in a roundabout way, had brought him here.

Where was here anyway? He looked around. Plain beige wallpaper and flowery car-boot curtains, the decor screamed temporary, not permanent. A cheap ceramic plate on the wall bore three feathers and a single word. Wales. Of course.

The B and B.

Cardiff.

He glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. The figures glowed red. 06:35. Shit. How long had he slept? Four hours? Five? He’d arrived late the previous night and taken extraordinary care not to wake the other guests or, indeed, the prickly landlady. He couldn’t guarantee that he hadn’t shouted out, though, at the climax of the dream. He hoped not.

What now? He could remain in bed but it never did any good. He would lie there, tossing and turning, then rise cussing himself two hours later for not having acquired the simple skill of resuming sleep once the nightmare had passed. The trouble was that once it had visited him it alerted his mind, rewound it and forced him to try to piece things together again.

The unconscious drama always started the same way: the wide mouth, the leering smile, the crooked teeth like typewriter keys in a state of mouldering disrepair. The insistent urging from that mouth, backed by familiar voices. “Go on, just the one. Here. Hand over the readies and it’s yours. Yeah, that’s it. Blue one. A score. Cheap at the price. What harm can it do?”

Well, now he knew the answer. Harm of the worst kind. There was no turning back the clock, though, no changing the circumstances, no assistance from hindsight. Sometimes he woke from the nightmare and for seconds believed it was just that. Then it came back in a rush, the crippled knee, the feet that didn’t quite match up, the limp which accompanied him when he visited the bathroom for a drink of water. The constant, nagging pain that was there every waking second of every day – and during sleep as well. Not a dream, a nightmare of reality and, however much he wished it away, it was here for good. This is your lot now, he told himself. This is where it is, the present. You have to make the best of a bad job.

Ah yes, the job. Today was Day One of the re-creation, the day he made his mark in this new world he’d chosen. A life re-invented, full of fresh hope, it was like setting up your own avatar in a computer game. Create a new character, fashion its life how you want, immerse yourself in it. No one here knew him, his background, his likes, his dislikes, his personality. He would erect a permanent barrier to those ghosts.

It was fight or flight – a choice that was as old as man, where Neanderthals either raised their inadequate weapons to ward off predators or headed for the nearest cave and built an impenetrable defensive wall. He’d had enough of fighting long ago, still bore the scars physically and mentally, so flight was the easier option… perhaps the only way in the circumstances. Having made his choice he was on the runway, engine ticking over, waiting to hurl himself along the tarmac and into the unknown.

This was the culmination of meticulous planning. He had yet to write a word, to sit down at a computer and type something to be immortalised in print or loaded onto the website. He wanted to set a standard, to show people who knew little of him that he had what it takes, the talent, the way with words, the gift. Fair enough, it wasn’t the gift he at first intended to show the world, but the fait accompli was a suitable alternative in desperate circumstances. If he succeeded it would at least be a reward for his mother’s dedication to his lost cause.

She, after all, had made the fall-back scenario possible.

Fall back. That was a strange phrase. It took him full circle to the nightmare again. No good. He reached over to the bedside table, grabbed a small bottle and shook a painkiller into his hand. Putting it on his tongue, he washed it down with water from the glass by the bed. He couldn’t just lie here and wait for the ghosts to resurface. Perhaps there was somewhere open for breakfast, a greasy spoon to set him up for the day. He’d sleep later. Hopefully by the evening he would be so tired even the nightmare would be hard pressed to wake him. He threw back the quilt cover and headed for the shower.

Later, dressed in a silver tonic suit and wearing a black pencil tie and retro loafers, he posed in the long mirror in the bathroom, scrutinising a figment of his imagination made flesh.  He nodded to himself, acknowledging that overall he’d done a good job. Of course, there were some things the transformation couldn’t wipe away completely, the fact he was running to paunch around the midriff, and that his chubby legs pressed hard against his trousers. Though he was 28 his body looked to be pushing 40, another side effect of the incident, which had turned him from natural athlete to physical reject in less than a minute. If he scrutinised the situation more closely, though, he would have to accept his surrender to circumstance was a big contributory factor. In this new life, internal reflection would be a definite no-no.

His hair, thank God, was more easily re-structured. It was almost black and neatly cropped thanks to a dye his girlfriend had given him. There was more padding around the cheeks and chin than he would like, but at least it was doing a decent job of hiding the old model, like one of those comedy fat suits Hollywood actors wore when they were going incognito. He brought some colour to his face by slapping his cheeks with after-shave, took one more glimpse at the character he had created, slipped his comb into his inside jacket pocket and headed for the office.

 CHAPTER THREE

 “HELL’S TEETH! WHO comes up with these bloody things? I bet Barack bleedin’ Obama didn’t have to go through this when he arrived at the White House. ‘Now, Mr Obama, being the new boy I wonder if you wouldn’t mind filling out these forms pretty please? We need to know all your intimate details me old china, inside leg measurement, what you had for breakfast over the last year, how many times a week you and Mrs Obama do it’… No bloody chance!  And, just for curiosity’s sake, what’s this doing for the planet? These companies are always banging on about being environmentally friendly, but there’s half a bleedin’ rain forest here. Not very ‘green’ is it? Paperless offices? Ha! What a myth! That was supposed to happen years ago. Why a questionnaire? People just lie. Give everyone a lie-detector test I say – much quicker and at least you might get facts, not fiction. The powers-that-be always insist these things ‘will only take five minutes’. Yada, yada, yada. Five hours more like… and I bet whatever answers you scribble down either come back to stitch you up in the end or are filed away so deep that future archaeologists will fail to recover them. And, anyway, surely the clue is in the title. It’s an application form and should be filled out BEFORE they give you the job. You should be in the midst of applying, not already sitting in your chair, filling the role you were appointed to a month ago… Jesus Christ in a flamin’ handbag, now the frigging pen’s run out…”

The entire diatribe was delivered with lips barely moving, a faint mumble escaping, words tumbling around inside his head like a washing machine going through a high-speed spin cycle. The anger directed at the pile of papers in front of him could easily have targeted something else, the slightly burnt toast from the canteen, the temperature of the vending machine coffee or the time it took to load e-mails on his computer.

This inner fury grew and mutated like a hungry parasite, feeding off scraps of minor irritation. If he took long enough to think about it the anger had originally manifested itself in his teens, the by-product of a number of inter-related personal crises. He hadn’t always been like this – he didn’t think so, anyway.

“Fuck!” Having shaken the pen a splurge of ink clotted like a blue blooded wound on the paper and simultaneously smeared itself haphazardly across the cuff of his brand new, clean white shirt. He’d only taken it out of the packaging that morning. All that time in front of the mirror wasted. Did these things only happen to him? He wondered sometimes.

Momentarily appraising his surroundings, he saw people stealing sly glances at him, trying to work him out. “Best of luck with that, you nosy pricks,” he sneered. “I’ll give you all a photocopy of this damn questionnaire. You’ll be none the wiser.”

At the top of the form was a simple four-letter word. Name. An easy one with which to start. In bold capital letters he scrawled it down, realising as he did so that it actually sounded Welsh.

Gareth Prince.

That was sure to create more confusion for anyone who actually bothered to read their way through this nonsense. As far as he knew, he had no Welsh in him whatsoever. It was his mother’s maiden name, but she was as Cockney as Bow Bells, Viccy Park, the Rotherhithe tunnel and West Ham United. He had never heard her mention any link to this miserable country, a place he was beginning to detest more and more the longer he was here, even though in effect this was his first day.

When people had greeted him on his arrival he had reciprocated with a cheery grin and a firm handshake while his cynical brain thumbed through an internal rolling index searching for ulterior motives for their hearty welcome. He had never liked the Welshies, thought them sly and overly aggressive, and could envisage them plotting the downfall of the English invader as they studied him from behind computer screens, holding him personally responsible for everything from pit closures to the fact that their football team was bloody useless.

He knew exactly when this particular branch of his ire took root. It was on a Saturday way back in his formative years when he and his best mate had been chased down the street by a gang of Cardiff City yobs after a Hammers match in the Capital. Horrible bunch they were, spitting hatred and vile insults about everything English, their values in stark contrast to everything he knew and cherished.

That initial impression, of a nationality with a large chip on its collective shoulder, had only been reinforced by the country’s comedians, musicians and actors, who spread like an epidemic through popular culture, smug in their misguided beliefs that their singing ability was superior and their rugby-playing prowess unrivalled. United in their hatred of everything English, it didn’t discourage them from moving to London, taking good jobs and setting up their own little enclave of Welshness in the heart of the Capital. Hypocrites.

His scattergun antipathy towards an entire nation had hardened during an argument the previous day with a toll-booth operator who insisted he couldn’t pay to enter the country on his debit card. “Cash only here, man, it’s all about the spondooliks,” said the tattooed creature, speaking and acting more like some bling-crazy rich boy rapper than a mere downtrodden employee of the highways department hailing from ramshackle Newport. Coming from a land where plastic was king, Gareth had felt he was stepping back in time. The ensuing row had done him no good and in the end he had been escorted back into England by the police so that he could locate an ATM in Bristol. Unbelievable. This, of course, had made him more angry than usual as it delayed his arrival in Cardiff until just before midnight. He had completed the last leg of the M4 cursing uncontrollably, gripping the steering wheel of his Vauxhall Corsa so tightly the rage turned his knuckles white.

Age: 28.

Date of birth: 26/09/82.

Birthplace: Barking, East London.

Reason for applying: At last an interesting question. He thought about it. Considering his bizarre Welsh phobia, at first glance the decision seemed a monumental paradox. Why turn your back on everything you knew and wholeheartedly commit to a place which raised your hackles? Even now he questioned his logic, wondering if the ‘incident’ had somehow damaged the internal workings of his head, too. Looking closer, though, the truth was he simply had to get away and where better to hide than a place where most people believed you wouldn’t be seen dead. If he hadn’t chosen Wales then it would have been somewhere else, Scotland perhaps, and in his warped view of the world those Sweaty socks north of the border were even worse. Their hatred of the English was more vehement, and at least he could understand what the Welsh were saying. Most of the time anyway.

At one stage he considered emigrating. There were plenty of jobs in the Middle East advertised in the trade papers or on Twitter each week and for a brief instance he had thought about moving lock, stock and barrel to Dubai – tax free, company car, the works. But did he really want to live among rich Arabs, picking up his cheques but slowly dying inside? He imagined that was more suited to a youngster trying to get a foothold in the profession or an older person, perhaps divorced, intent on making a few quick bucks before returning home to retire and die.

Not for him. Besides, he needed to stick around in case at some stage he was able to return to his former life. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where he could repair all the damage done, though people said time was a good healer and he was prepared to cling to that hope however much his inner voice told him it was nonsense.

He wrote none of this down, of course, just settled for the simple answer, career advancement, explaining it was a golden opportunity to “build on the newspaper experience I have gleaned to date from working on the weekly New Cross Advertiser”.

Job title: An easy one. Sports reporter.

Publication: The Sunday Tribune Despatch.

Last job: Sports reporter, New Cross Advertiser.

Previous roles in support of the application: Now here was an interesting story. Apprentice professional footballer with… forget it. It didn’t matter. Water under the bridge. Spilt milk. Whatever you cared to call the whole sorry episode. He rubbed at his leg, the pain a constant reminder of when things had gone wrong. He’d rather not provoke questions by going there again, reviving the misery of the moment his chosen road to success hit an insurmountable roadblock. He drew a thick line through the words with black felt tip, making further mess of the form.

Skills in support of the application: All the usual journalistic qualifications plus some you didn’t need to scrawl on an exam paper, thought Gareth. Like blagging. Even if he said so himself, he was a seriously good blagger. He wouldn’t have been sitting here otherwise. When he had travelled down by train from Paddington to meet the Despatch sports editor he had made a good job of “embellishing” his credentials. A working knowledge of the minority sport of rugby union was a big deal in these parts so he had revised his chosen subject and feigned an interest in the game. His plan was to secure the position, then manoeuvre himself in such a way that he would end up reporting on one of the football teams, Cardiff City, Swansea City or Newport County. It worked. Two days later he was informed he had landed the position. The word blagging never made it to the form, of course.

A few basic flaws in his plan had unravelled almost the moment he walked through the door. Listening to the conversations of fellow staff members, he was becoming increasingly aware that he had sorely misjudged the scale of their devotion to the 15-a-side free-for-all they had the cheek to call Rugby Football. The clues had been there, too. His new working environment was festooned with posters of big brawny men in red jerseys treading opponents into the mud, red scarves sat handily placed on the tops of computers in case of emergencies like the heating system breaking down and nearly every mug, coaster and mouse mat bore a three feathers motif with the simple word Wales inscribed beneath.

That morning, of all the discussions that had been burbling around the newsroom, none of them had taken on quite the importance of the story of how a rugby icon simply referred to as The Legend had disappeared. There was a bout of whispering, little asides swapped behind protective hands, followed by an epidemic of giggling. One of the infected rose from his desk and sneaked across to a giant poster displayed on the wall, attached a piece of paper to the bottom of it and beat a hasty retreat. Gareth, not party as yet to office in-jokes, shrugged off the shenanigans, smiled half-heartedly and focused on his form-filling initiation test. He popped another painkiller.

Married: A simple one. No.

Children?

He felt a presence loom over him and looked up to see a wizened old face with absurdly overgrown eyebrows and unruly grey hair. Sports editor Hugh Jackson reminded Gareth of an exotic species of owl. “Oh, hi Hugh,” he said.

“Not Hugh, mun… Jacko,” replied the owl, traces of the windswept Welsh valleys peppering his accent. “Everyone calls me Jacko, and I won’t have it any different. I see you’ve got the forms, lucky you. Well, leave them for now. I’ve got a much more important assignment for you… Come over here, son.” Gareth pushed himself up out of his seat and hobbled around the table towards where Jacko was staring admiringly at the poster on the wall. His features screwed up in concern when he noticed the hastily scrawled note and his eyes travelled the room in an attempt to establish who was responsible for the seditious act. As Gareth approached the owl quickly unpinned the note, screwed it up and tossed it in the bin. Not before Gareth had spotted the treasonous message, though. “Missing: Presumed Drunk”, it said.

As Gareth contemplated this snippet of information, Jacko tapped his finger against the restored poster. The reporter’s attention was drawn to a rugby player resplendent in red, diving to the ground with ball held out in front of him, people celebrating wildly in the background. “Meet the Legend. JW Owens, finest fly-half Wales has ever produced. We need to find him, see?”  As Jacko said this his eyes took on a milky hue and watered up badly, as if he was having flashbacks to an affectionately remembered loved one, recently departed. “As you are no doubt aware he’s a figure who bestrode the 1970s like a colossus – think Godzilla on the streets of Manhattan in that film… what was it called?”

“Godzilla,” prompted Gareth.

“Ah yes, that’s it. Know your films, do you? Well, I’m proud to say I saw him in his pomp… The Legend, not Godzilla. I covered that memorable Lions tour to Australia back in the day. JW was simply phenomenal. Really packed a punch – and only 5ft 10, too.”

“Hardly a colossus then,” muttered Gareth.

Jacko gave him a strange look. “Sorry?”

“Oh, uh, nothing Jacko, just got a bit of a frog in my throat.” He manufactured a pathetic cough.

“OK. Well… it’s like this,” said Jacko. “JW was doing regular columns for us until recently. Unfortunately he was a bit, um, unpredictable. His contract ran out about a month ago and some people had reservations about renewing it, which was understandable I guess. Whatever, I’ve decided we can’t do without him. You see, we have a massive World Cup coming up and we need all our big guns firing. Our circulation has been falling steadily and this is our chance to stabilise, maybe even put on a few sales. The Legend would be a fantastic addition to our overall package. I can see it now: Sunday’s paper – “the Prince meets the Legend”. You can interview him about who will win, who will crash out early – England hopefully, no offence – and who the stand-out performers will be. After that I’ll discuss renewing his agreement with us. Word on the street is he could do with a few extra shillin’s.”

Suddenly Gareth’s nerves kicked in. He feared tracking down this Welsh sporting God might be a bit beyond his skill set. He wasn’t intimidated by the idea of the search, but wondered what form the conversation might take once he found his quarry. “Hi, you must be The Legend. Apparently you’re the most famous person around these parts but I’m embarrassed to admit that until today I didn’t have a clue you existed. You starred for the Lions, I’m told. I know sod all about the Lions, Welsh rugby, the whole weird subject. Care to fill me in?” No, this was a job more suited to a dedicated rugby man.

Not wanting to expose his blagging pedigree, though, he merely nodded. For all the holes in his knowledge, and these were giant chasms rather than minor pin pricks, he figured a few hours spent in the company of a Google search engine would plaster over the cracks. Why should investigating rugby be any different from other journalism research tasks? It stood to reason he would have to bolster his knowledge at some stage, with the world’s biggest rugby event taking place in Australia in a couple of weeks’ time.

As Gareth gathered up pens, notebook, dictaphone and mobile Jacko piped up again, waving his hand indiscriminately in front of him, a finger poking out in the direction of a youngster with a cherubic face and bodybuilder’s physique who was sitting at the desk opposite. “Oh and you can take him with you. It’ll be a nice trip out for him.”

Gareth saw a white lead running from the inside pocket of the kid’s denim jacket to the vicinity of his right ear where it disappeared under oil-slick black hair. “Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered. He preferred to work alone and didn’t want to hold anyone’s hand or have to make pointless small-talk. He could only see this kid slowing him down, if that were possible in his current physical state.

Jacko gave him another inquisitive look. “Problem?”

“Oh no… no,” Gareth lied again. “It’s fine.”

“Oi Jason!” shouted Jacko. No response. He lent across the desk and pulled out the boy-man’s ear plug. “You with us, son?”

“Oh, s… sorry,” the boy replied, startled.

“Fancy a trip out?”

He nodded.

“Right then. Your mission is to go with our new man here, Gareth Prince, and track down a missing person – JW…”

“JW Owens?” the boy’s interest was piqued. All week his work experience duties had been restricted to re-writing small articles from local papers, dashing out to buy bacon sandwiches for the senior staff, making copious cups of coffee and tea and all the time being expected to feign an interest at the goings-on around him. He, too, had overheard the conversations relating to The Legend and this was undoubtedly the high spot of his week. “My dad’ll be so jealous, like,” he said, beaming. “JW’s his hero. Best rugby player there ever was.”

Gareth noticed a theme developing. Just what I need, he thought, a star-struck fan in tow. “Come on then, pal,” he prompted. “We’d better get moving.”