Chapter 60
Leo
I’m out the front, eating one of those mad fucking book biscuits.
It’s nasty as fuck. Tastes of absolutely nothing. I want to spit it out, but I’ve been cornered by a man in a yellow corduroy shirt called Julian who came out to smoke. It’s mad, cos if someone asked me to draw a book in human form, I’d actually draw Julian. And I’d call him Julien.
He’s talking a lot. In fact, he won’t shut up.
About himself. There’s not much else. He hasn’t come up for air in about four whole minutes.
He’s an editor at the same publishing house that did Slay, but he works with crime fiction.
He has just had a very stressful situation pushing the publication of a book by some famous fucking author that I’ve never fucking heard of that the industry has projected to be a hit. He’s worried it’s going to be shit.
Fucking well fascinating how much he thinks I care.
‘Have you had one of these?’ I ask, holding up the biscuit.
‘Sorry?’ he says.
‘These biscuits.’
‘Oh, are they good?’
‘Yeah. Have one.’
I dunno if he heard me, cos he just launches into something else, about a book-prize shortlist. I could probably just turn around and leave.
There’s a big chance he wouldn’t even notice.
But I realise I might need Julien and his yellow corduroy shirt.
Need him to answer some things I wanna know, then I can fuck off.
‘Have you read it?’
Oh, would you look at that. I think Julien just asked me a question.
‘Slay?’
‘Yes!’
I haven’t. ‘I have, yeah.’
‘Isn’t it just marvellous. So dark.’
‘So dark.’
‘You know...’ Julian glances around himself quickly, then leans towards me as if he’s about to pass me intel on a terrorist attack. ‘I think some people are wondering if Mark – you know, Mark, the man who was abusing Liam and was pushed in the canal...?’
‘Yeah, I know Mark.’
‘Well, apparently, she was inspired by a story on the news. A man fell in Camden canal.’
‘Oh right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting that.’
‘Very fucking interesting.’
He looks a bit taken aback, then thrilled. That I swore. ‘Fucking interesting indeed,’ he repeats, with delight, like I gave him the permission to do it.
I didn’t push Mo.
I went to speak to the police after the body was found. I spoke it through with my sponsor, cos it was eating me up. I did secretly hope that he had fallen in.
But I didn’t push him, and I do remember the whole thing even though I was high as a fucking kite. He just left me under the bridge, stumbled away and never came back.
‘Fucking insane, the whole book!’ Julien says, still giddy with the swearing.
I wonder if I can find out. ‘And that ending...’ I say.
‘Oh my God...’ he agrees. ‘Leo’s death. Brutal.’
He dies.
She killed him.
She fucking killed him.
I feel a tug in my stomach, like a hook behind my ribs, rupturing my insides. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Brutal.’ It burns. She wrote me off the page, and out of her life. She fucking got rid of me in every way she could. That’s all she saw me as. A walking fucking wound.
‘Are you OK?’ Julien says. ‘You look shocked. I thought you said you’d read it?’ He stops and looks at me like he is properly noticing me for the first time. ‘Sorry, who did you say you are again?’
‘Just a fan.’
‘Oh, one of those BookTokers?’
‘Yeah. One of those.’
‘Jesus, you guys have a lot of sway with the sales. It was never like that in my time.’ He pauses. ‘Well, I mean. No. She did catch the zeitgeist. I can’t give you all the credit.’
You fucking should Julien. ‘The zeitgeist, yeah?’
‘Yes.’
‘I guess a lot of your job is predicting that.’
‘Well, we are only editors, we can’t tell the future,’ he says, in a way that looks like he thinks he actually can. ‘But we get an idea of what people are looking for.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Next?’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘Well, horror is about to come back around, in a big way.’ He gives me a look, like he has just let me into a massive secret.
‘Oh, cool.’
‘Do you like horror?’
‘Depends.’
‘I think more... rural horror is going to be in.’ His eyes widen, surprised at his own choice of words, like he has just coined the next literary trend. ‘People are looking for spooky, psychological horror. That kind of thing.’
‘Spooky horror. Is that right?’
He makes a little shrug. ‘Who knows. It’s what Stan thinks. Have you met Stan?’
‘No.’ I haven’t, but I have spoken to him. Not that he would know.
‘Do you write... erm... Sorry I’ve forgotten your name?’
‘Luke. I write a bit, I’m a poet.’
‘Ah, wonderful. So, Poet Luke... Is your writing sort of...’ He eyes me up and down. ‘Edgy?’
‘I wanna write something else now.’
‘Good idea. Poetry is a hard sell.’
I know. Stanley told me, when I sent him my poems under a pseudonym, before I relapsed, six months ago.
I wanted money, and I was done with the men.
Couldn’t fucking stand them any longer. And I’d taken his email address from Mallory’s laptop in the kitchen that night.
He replied. He said his LGBT list was full, and he was only really being drawn to the proper authentic stuff.
That mine was a bit too scrappy and forced.
He said to come back with something better. That he liked that I was working class.
‘Well, we’re always looking for new voices. It’s a big part of our ethos here. Championing new and underrepresented voices.’ His eyes move up and down me again.
‘Yeah? OK.’ He looks like he wants to get away from me now. Maybe my working-class anger, bubbling up under the surface, is too much for him.
‘Oh, speak of the proverbial devil!’ Julien says, turning to a small man in a suit. ‘Stan!’
‘Jules!’ the small man says. They kiss each other on each cheek.
‘Stan, I heard,’ Jules tells him.
Stan raises his eyebrows. ‘Heard what?’
‘Half-a-mil deal in America?’
Stan looks behind him. ‘Shhh...’
Half a mil.
Half a fucking mil.
Julien shakes his head. ‘The book isn’t even that good, Stan. Don’t know how the hell you pulled that one off.’
Stan winks. ‘It’s all about positioning. About timing.’
‘Well. You’re a pro.’
Stan suddenly sees me watching.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Julien says. ‘This is...’ He pauses.
‘Luke, I’m Luke.’
‘Luke! Yes.’
‘Hello, Luke. Have you been at the event?’
‘Yeah. I was in there.’
‘He’s a BookToker,’ Julian whispers into Stan’s ear.
‘Ah! Well, we love what you do,’ Stan says. ‘You are so important to getting stories out there. Thank you, Luke. It’s great to meet you.’
‘I’m also a writer. Well, a poet.’
Silence.
‘Well,’ Stan eventually says. ‘I hope you’ve learnt something this evening, Luke. You never know, it could be you up there one day!’
‘Nice to meet you both.’
I turn, and I am fucking gone.