Catastrophy Part 2 of A Cat's Tale

 My nose led me to a table top in the middle of the kitchen . Among the bottles of  jam and wine and boxes of biscuits and cereals  on it, was a pair of kippers. In my previous existence the idea of jumping on to a table would never have occurred to me. I knew my place. And my place had been instilled in me from kitten-hood . But here amid the mess in which these serial destroyers of order managed to live,  my inhibitions fell away. In minute I was picking with my paws at the sweet and delicate flesh and working it away from the bones.

 Reader, dear reader, I have never enjoyed a meal like that, and I doubt if I ever will again. Because of the bones it took time, but every minute was exquisite. Even now I dream of that smokey, oily flavour, lick my lips, and try not to wake up. All I needed now was a drink. Beer. I had never tasted the stuff. I disliked  it as much as I  had loved  the kippers. But there was a glass full of it which I managed to tip over. Despite its bitterness it was a relief to quench my thirst and I lapped up every drop.

After such a meal two things were foremost in my mind. One was sleep and the other, an urge, which in common with human beings I am reluctant to describe in detail. Certain pressures let us say had to be relieved. But how and where? In the old days it was easy. A cat flap had been built into the back door, which allowed me into the garden. I never, at least not as far back as I could remember, crapped in  our own garden. It was my territory and sacrosanct. As to the neighbouring  gardens. I never gave much thought to their purpose. They were  pleasant spaces which I took it for granted were intended for my use. There I  would do my business where the neighbours had conveniently turned the soil in preparation. What to do now? I wandered into the next room where a computer sat in solitary splendour on a desk. It was  the only place I had so far encountered where I sensed tidiness. On the floor beside the desk was a  neat pile of manuscripts.  On the sheet on  top of the pile I read : Page 1  Quantitative Easing: A Necessity? Whatever this was originally intended to mean (something to do with economics) it contained one clear and relevant direction for me, and  it was with  intense relief that I crouched over the paper and supplied an answer to the question.

Now for some sleep. I left the room where I had left my deposit and as quickly as possible. Stairs are for climbing and I glided up the staircase  in front of me, vaguely aware of the continued conversation between Cheetah and Kangaroo in the room where I had left them. At the top of the stairs I encountered the place which I have always thought of as "the room of the falling waters". I didn't like the disinfectant smell too much but I was driven to explore it. And what was this? A basket full of  what seemed to be soft material, cosy and comfortable. Just what I wanted after my series if ordeals.  I jumped in and realised immediately that I had made a mistake. In the first place the basket toppled over jamming itself against the wall and trapping me inside. In the second I found that  the rags had the revolting  human smell of clothes intended for washing. I was trapped in Cheetah and Kangaroo's laundry basket.

One quality -  or perhaps you will think it a fault - which I possess is never to make the pathetic moaning noise that cats are supposed to make and which is usually transcribed as "miaow".  So I kept quiet. I gathered my thoughts, fuzzy as they were as a result of my unaccustomed intake of beer. One  good thing was that  thanks to the gaps in the walls of the wicker basket, I could breathe. Another was that I had somewhere that seemed safe and comfortable to sleep.

No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard  the voices of Cheetah and Kangaroo ranging the house. What were they saying? It took me a minute or two to catch the words  repeated over and over again.  Then I got it. "Catastrophe ... Catastrophe..." Oh God, I thought:  Is the  house on fire? Have we been burgled?  Not a sound emerged from my throat. Then I got it.  They were calling me, and calling me by a new name which they had bestowed on me. And what a name! Bloody hell, I thought. I have always despised cats with names based on puns on the word "cat". And now this was to be my fate. Henceforth I was going to be called Catastrophe. Cats don't sigh. They make a noise like a human fart. And that, reader, is what I did before sinking into a troubled sleep.
                                            End of part 2
 

Crisis Part 1 of A Cat's Tale

For most of my life I lived with an old woman. She  was clean and compulsively tidy, characteristics which to some extent have rubbed off on me.  She was my only companion in the house where we used to live,  and it did not disturb me that she never stopped telling me what she was thinking. As though I didn't know!  What I liked least was the baby language.  I am not, nor ever have have been, a human baby. Smelly  little creatures. I hate them. Being addressed as one makes me want to throw up.

Nor did I enjoy being called Mr Toffee, a ridiculous name which had nothing to do with my appearance nor with my temperament, which is far from sweet. I would like a name that  I can be proud of. Hercules has a certain appeal. Likewise Tamburlaine. But as it is not in my power to  name myself I have to put up with what I am given. So I was glad when fate arranged that "Mr Toffee" should be dropped.

Though what  came with my new name completely changed my life. I don't like change. And this was shattering. A major crisis.  It happened a year or so ago, when the old woman one day put me in a wicker carrier and took me down the road to a neighbour's house. She didn't talk much on this occasion, and seemed sad even to the point of whimpering. When we reached the other house which belonged to the same terrace as the first, she rang the bell . It was answered by a woman. She was much younger than my old woman. She had a wild look,  an animal quality which appealed to  me. It was something about the way she stood, relaxed, one hip jutting forward, her mouth half open as though she were about to  protest. There was something fearless about her.  I immediately named her Cheetah.

My old woman began talking without delay and rapidly. She was talking about me.  It seemed that the next day she was to enter a retirement home. And she wanted to hand me over to Cheetah.  What was else was she to do?  Her daughter  had been going to look after me, but she had resolved to go to Australia at the last minute. I knew the daughter. The screaming woman, was how I thought of her. Not to my liking at all.  She smelt of embrocation. And now it seemed she preferred Australia to me. No taste. No judgement.  A lucky escape.

 We went in. I was still in my hateful carrier. It was the first time that I had been inside a house other than my old woman's, which, naively as it turned out, I had thought of as my own. On entering, even with my view limited by the sides of the carrier,  I had  probably the biggest shock of my life. The hallway was stacked with books, newspapers, boxes, items of furniture, which made it almost impossible for my old woman with me in the carrier and Cheetah jammed against us to make any progress. I could - athletic and supple as I am -  have managed very well  on  my own, by clambering over the obstacles.  But I felt  sorry for the old woman, who was not  steady on her pins. "I am afraid," said  Cheetah,  "that  although we've been living here for nearly a year, we still seem to be moving in. We've been so busy both of us".

 The next  thing I knew we were in a room stacked to the ceiling with  more boxes of books many of which were overflowing.  The floor was covered with stuff,  files and bulging envelopes, gadgets of one kind or another, a radio, an electric iron, an ironing board,  a vacuum cleaner. With a sweep of her hand, Cheetah moved some books and folders from what turned out to be a sofa. "Sit down," she said. "I'll get Keith." My old woman put my cage on the floor at her feet and cautiously sat on the edge of the  sofa. Keith was a narrow man, with large glasses and  long arms  which made him look like a tall monkey.  "You know my husband, don't you." My old woman did, and so did I. For I had seen him walking past the house head bent forward looking neither to left nor right, blinkered like a horse or a greyhound in a race. He tipped some stuff off an arm chair and sat down.

My old woman started talking again her words now interrupted by sobs. "Look," said Keith, abruptly. "We'll have the cat." He sounded bored by the thought of it, and I had the feeling that he just wanted the old woman out of the house.  I don't think he cared a damn about me. Cheetah was meanwhile trying to be kind to the old woman and me and to humour Kangaroo  (my name for Keith) who was beginning to twitch and bounce up and down.

What followed was mercifully quick. The old woman opened the door of the carrier and I stepped out into my new life, the unaccustomed smell of dust and mould, and a  maze of junk for me to explore and hide in. I stuck my tail up in the air and slipped into the jungle.  As I penetrated the unknown,  I felt  like Christopher Columbus or David Livingstone.  I heard talking and the front door closing , and more talking as Cheetah and Kangaroo were doubtless discussing me, their new charge.
Oh and the old woman? it seemed that I had blinked and when I opened my eyes she was no longer there. Ahead of me a brave new world, behind me, one which I would quickly forget. I sniffed the air and through the dust I thought that I detected the smell of food. Do you blame me? It was in that direction, towards what turned out to be the kitchen,  that treading with care, slipping through encumbered doorways, past a hat stand on its side and a sealed carton marked Fragile, I set my course. I was hungry. Definitely hungry. And indignant and scared.

                                                  End of part 1.

Making it up

 She didn't fancy the Valentine's  dinner. Certainly not in her husband's company.  It was as intended a surprise. Not enough notice to turn it down.  "Why did you suggest this, she said as they were led into the candle-lit dining room? " I should be flattered but I'm not. You must want something from me. But I can't think what." They sat side by side on a  cushioned banquette in the richly decorated restaurant where other couples examined  the menu with signs of animation.

"That's not very gracious." He spoke as though he didn't care one way or the other. Her reaction  had been no surprise.

It's how I feel. We haven't talked properly for months. Today you left for the office without saying goodbye. Not a word. Typical. Cold, self-obsessed. Even now  when we met in the bar you didn't notice  what I was  wearing.  I took the afternoon off to have my hair done. I  put some decent clothes on.  Not to let you down?  My metier for the last nine years.  Not to let you down. To be truthful  it was not to let myself down.  Not that you would care either way.This was after all  just another  appointment in you diary.

"I thought it might break the ice.  The menu and the wines seemed  OK. I thoughts perhaps we might remember better times.

"That demands a long memory and a high pain threshold."

A waiter slid into place and handed them each a leather folder. Options were few and discouraged. This was a special menu devised to restore romance to the jaded lives of the rich.  "For the first course we suggest a truffled consommé with gold leaf. To accompany it a glass of chilled manzanilla." She nodded her assent. Her husband did the same.

"I was thinking just now," she fixed him with a steady gaze, "that this might be an opportunity to have a serious talk about our future. But perhaps that would be ungracious."

The consommé  glittered in the candlelight. Slices of black truffle bobbed beneath it. The   perfumed  bowl proved enough to take their minds off her recent outburst. As they sipped   they looked across at other tables. She was afflicted by a sense of inadequacy. A sort of loneliness.  Should they not be enjoying themselves or at least pretending to? But her doubts didn't last. He never felt inadequate. Why should she?

"Not bad," he said.

"Must have cost a bomb," she bit into a generous tranche of fungus: "Truffles are scarce in the Dordogne this year, like eating banknotes."

"To go with the gold leaf."

They fell silent. The silence lasted a long time.

It was a relief when the waiter appeared: "Next there is artichoke heart filled with chicken liver parfait.  With it we suggest a glass of St-Amour.   We prefer to serve it  slightly chilled.

Again they nodded it through. "I detest the Gamay grape," she said, "even in a Beaujolais Cru.  But never mind Amour conquers all I suppose. "How's the bank? Still raking it in despite the crisis?

"I can't bet on much of a bonus this year, but I shouldn't complain.  Some will get none at all and I can think of at least one person with a prosecution round the corner. It will be alright for commercial lawyers like you particularly with connections like me. At least I have some uses where you're concerned. "

"Sometimes I think I would  run a restaurant with gastronomic pretensions somewhere rural, with bunnies in the garden and pheasants in the woods".

When  the  artichoke arrived she said: "You know, this Beaujolais was a good idea. I must rethink my Gamay phobia."

The waiter again: "Would you like a pause before the next course?"  "No,"  they both said  almost in chorus. "Bring on the duck.

 "To accompany  the Duckling with Poached Cherries,  we propose a glass of Château Mouton Rothschild 2000."

"Makes a lot of sense, it should be drinking well just at the moment. Thank you, " she said.  And was that a skeletal smile?  She thought  maybe she had managed one. No one could say she wasn't trying.

"Banking is no longer a respectable profession. People look at me as though I were a pimp or  convicted rapist. Perhaps  I should take off to the country, forget the boardrooms and the politics. Would you come with me though?"

" Fine talk, darling, but you couldn't let go of the power and the thrills. Not for a  moment."

"I might if I had to contend with another parliamentary committee and the threat of some sort of investigation...

"You don't mean ...."

No I don't but.... if it's not  a dirty business, it too often looks as though it is. If I retired while the going was good, I could expect a reasonable  handshake, enough to leave us comfortable..."

"Comfortable maybe, but happy ...How would we spend it?   Managing a restaurant is a lot harder than playing with investment when it comes down to it. You're no golfer.  You're not suited to country life. Nature is not exactly your cup of tea. What would we talk about?"

The waiter: "Something for love and romance  to celebrate St Valentine there is a Délice aux Fruits de la Passion, a delicate assembly of passion fruit custard, with fine layers of sponge and meringue" and to accompany it a glass of d'Yquem 2005.

"I  would be happy with that,"  he said. His wife blinked her agreement.

In the moments of anticipation before the arrival of  the passion fruit he said to his wife, "I wonder if you have noticed that couple over there, do you think they are enjoying themselves?"

"They are not really a couple,  I'm afraid my dear, despite your efforts.  Vain as ever, you are not wearing your glasses. If you were you would have recognised yourself in that  mirror and perhaps  noticed who it was  who was sitting next to you."

Near miss

He on the  down-escalator, she on the up. Who saw the other first? They waved more or less at the same time. It was five-thirty on a Friday afternoon.  The London rush hour. Time to go home or to meet friends for a drink.   There was no room for either of them to turn on the moving segment of stair on which each was wedged.  He shouted her name across the well, "Sylvie'". She managed only a smothered cry.

He thought: What to do? What would be in her mind? Had she shared the intensity of his feelings? They were different people then. How long was it? Ten or eleven years? Should he when he reached the bottom of the escalator turn and go up?  Would she wait at the top? Or even turn round and transfer to the down-escalator? Time would have changed her as it had changed him. He could not, as he might  once have done, guess her thoughts or feelings. Or predict her behaviour.  Just follow your instincts, he said to himself, and  edging into the jostling crowd, up he went back where he had come from.

She thought: What to do? More than anything else she wanted to tell him that she had missed him. She repeated his name under her breath, "Tim, Tim",  as though chiding him. More recently since her marriage break-up, he had been continually on her mind. At least the Tim she had known. No question,   she would turn at the top of the stair and go down in pursuit. With luck he would be waiting for her. With luck. She wanted to throw her arms round him. To say sorry, though she was not sure for what she was sorry.

What happened? They both retraced their steps, he on the up-escalator, she on the down. They passed for the second time midway, and waved frantically. He tried to indicate that this time  she should wait for him at the top but his signals were open to misinterpretation. And uncertainty was beginning to gnaw on either side.

She thought it likely that he was hurrying home to a girlfriend or a wife. Or perhaps he was on his way to an appointment. Perhaps one  that would affect his future. She felt guilty about her own loyalties, the new lover she was on her way to meet.

This pursuit is about to become absurd, he thought, a perpetual hell of passing escalators sweeping them off for ever in opposite directions. What if they succeeded in making contact? What would be the outcome?  Life was complicated enough as it was, in the office and at home. An ache hollowed his stomach.

He realised then as did she that to resume their journeys they would anyway have to retrace their steps, he on the up and she on the down-escalator. This time they glanced across the well but there was an awkwardness in their wave, something half greeting, half farewell.

At the top of the escalator the crowd grew even busier and more urgent and she felt herself swept on towards the station exit.  In the sharp  air of  the winter evening laden with fumes and the smell of food, a tear came  to her eye. She wiped it away impatiently. She had promises to keep.

At the bottom of  the stairwell for the second time he half turned and tried to join the opposing stream of people to go up again, but he was troubled by doubts and fears.  He was older now. Suspicious of impulse. He gave in and allowed himself to be dragged by the flow towards the Northern Line platform and the train that would take him home.

The Book

From the cave in the mountainside  the procession follows a rough, winding path down to the plain below. Three tall figures  - two men and a woman, the woman taller than the men - lead the way. All three wear garments of a grey,shining material. Behind them six men similarly clad carry,  on a sort of stretcher, a large solitary  book with a worn leather cover. Beside the book, a structure,  about 5ft high, rises from the stretcher  towards the sky. Its uneven, knobbly surface, gives the impression of a giant anthill. It is secured to the stretcher by cords made from the guts of animals, tough but elastic enough to allow it to sway as the stretcher advances.

On the plain in a natural amphitheatre in the rocky ground  a crowd of people has gathered. In the early morning sun their faces have a golden tint but are otherwise white and expressionless. The men, women and children all  wear animal  skins. Many sit on  the ground. Their eyes are fixed on the procession which moves slowly in their direction.

When it reaches them, the people part to allow it through to an elevated area in the centre of the circle. Here a flat stone serves as a stage. A boulder provides a stand for the book. The woman sets it  down  and bowing her head backs away respectfully.  The tower meanwhile  is unloaded beside it. The six stretcher-bearers bow towards it and towards the book.  Once in place as you look towards the horizon, there is no mistaking the tower's resemblance to a mountain and  specifically to the central peak of the range which extends along the skyline.

The procession consists  of people known as "guardians of the book" The word for book is sad, plural sadth. It is a word rarely employed, for books are objects of mystery and written words are neither considered nor conceived of.  This, the only known example of a book, was found buried in the cave in the mountainside, but the guardians have long speculated about the existence of others.

With the book in place and the replica mountain on the floor beside it, the tall woman, chief of the guardians, steps forward and begins a prolonged wailing chant.  Its  harmonies  owe much of their rhythm and tonal variety to  the  sound wolves make at night up in the mountains.  Regularly in the long hours of darkness  her listeners are thrilled and terrified by the howling of wolves. As they are now in the light of day, by the  sound similar, but more formal and  more cerebral, which emerges from the guardian's throat tilted  back, like a wolf's. As she breathes in and out her breasts rise  and fall to the cadence of her chant. It lasts about five minutes and ends suddenly leaving a silence hollow as a cave.  Pairs of eyes in the white upturned faces topped by tangled manes follow her as, bending over the boulder, she lifts the book above her head, and turns it to left and right to make sure that everyone had been able to see it.

The book back on the boulder, with reverential slowness and solemnity, she opens it. To her watchers, who  have never seen it close to,  it is as though she has effortlessly doubled its size.   She leans over it as a mother over a child.  She spreads her hands above it in a gesture, half of blessing, half of caress, before with deep deliberation she tears one of the pages from the spread. It is not the first page to go, as the tattered margin bears witness. She  raises the page above her head and shows it  to the crowd. Lowering the page she tears it into three pieces. One piece she hands to each of her fellow guardians. The third she stuffs into her mouth and began to chew it. The other guardians follow suite. The six stretcher bearers sit on the ground cross legged.

As the guardians masticate the strips of page, the crowd begins to intone, "chew, chew, chew... chew the Sad."

When the paper in their mouths has been reduced to something soft and pliable, the guardians spit out the  papier mâché and one by one stick it still wet and pliant on to the model of the mountain, adding  proportionately but minutely to its stature.

 "Sad. Sad. Sad..." chants the crowd.

The sun is high in the sky. It is the longest day of the year. The mid-summer ritual has been handed down from  ancestors and practised as long as anyone can remember.

Understanding

It 's Christmas Eve. God's in the air. Thomas Fastnet doesn't believe in Him.  His brother Chris does. They are good friends and argue at length but amicably.

Thomas says: "Why do you think that  this world and its inhabitants are important enough to receive divine attention? Of the millions of possible worlds, circling millions of stars in millions of galaxies, why this one? And if this one, why is it in such a mess?

"The world is God's. The mess is ours."

Again Thomas says: "Let's get it in perspective. The universe is 13.8 millions years old, the Earth three and half billion. We've been around for 200,000 years.  Crocodiles and ants, fish  and dinosaurs for much longer. The  whole lot is supposed to have started with a bang, from a pinpoint. How can apes like us, clearly bent on self-destruction, matter in the scheme of things?"

The big bang theory may be true but that doesn't mean that it didn't have a cause. There can be no effect without cause. Something must have created your bang. Yes or No?

And so it goes on.  Chris opens a bottle of Madeira, sercial, the dry stuff. They savour it together. Chris's small children are asleep upstairs.  Or supposed to be. Empty stockings  hang at the ends of their beds.  And their heads are buzzing with speculation and mystery. They are awake and whispering.  Chris's wife Pat and Thomas' wife Alison are at Midnight Mass at St Nicholas just round the corner from the house. If they listen carefully they can hear voices, "Hark the herald angels sing..."

"Where's peace? Where's goodwill?  Where's the justice? Just endless fighting over frontiers and tribal differences.

"Perhaps," says Chris, "justice and peace are in the balance of chemical elements in the universe which makes life and this conversation possible. Something of a miracle in itself.  Or one almost achieved.

On that they seem to agree. And so they talk on with long companionable pauses in which the fire mutters in sympathy, until the quiet is  suddenly disturbed. With a popping sound, the  Christmas tree lights go out. In the dark the church clock chimes midnight. When Chris restores the fuse they see that the star on top of the tree is no longer alight. The  bulb inside the  plastic casing has blown. "A surge of current," says Chris.

"Or divine disapproval of my views?" says Thomas.  "Or the state of the world?"

"Chris goes into the kitchen and brings another bottle. They drink in silence.

Outside,  gravel crunches under foot, voices and... "I thought I heard a baby cry," Chris says, and gets to his feet.  The sound of a key in the lock. The front door opens and into the room comes Pat and Alison, and in Pat's arms indeed is a baby wrapped up against the cold. "It's the Vicar's," she says. Her husband broke his ankle. Fell off a ladder trying to fix the lights which fused. At midnight would you believe it! Vicar's seeing him to the hospital. We're looking after the baby till she gets back. Jesse is his name." 

The baby looks  solemnly about him. He has that superior look of very young babies which seems to say, "I know more than you do".  She holds him up to show him the Christmas tree lights. He gurgles, wide awake now. He enjoys the attention.

Thomas, who has no children of his own, on an impulse, takes Jesse from her and raises him in the air. He jiggles him up and down. Baby and man catch each other's eye. In a moment of understanding they both laugh.










  

The Stalker

"Move over Dermot. You're occupying my space"
London underground trains do not lend themselves to social niceties. Passengers avoid each others' eyes. In the rush hour, you shrink into yourself to minimise physical contact. The man sitting next to me, apart from accusing me wrongly of taking more than my fair share of space on the seat which we share, overflows liberally. His bum bulges and his elbow digs into my side. And now to make it worse he is talking to me.  Reluctantly I turn towards him.  Though he has obviously recognised me, I have no idea who he is.
"Another novel on the stocks, I suppose?"
For a moment I am flattered. I am not the sort of writer who seeks publicity, but confirmation that a stranger  knows your work, can sometimes ease discomfort. Not  this time. My neighbour is unsavoury as well as presumptuous. "Name's Shadwell," he says, "Tony Shadwell". Feeling as though I had been kicked in the stomach, I turn towards him. I sense some sort of bad joke. Tony Shadwell is a character in my last published novel and in the one which preceded it. A mean and ingratiating inhabitant of the corner of London where it is set. He makes a living by spying on people in public life and selling information to any one who will pay for it. He is a blackmailer and persecutor of women.  Much of the dirt he gleans turn up on the Internet, or worse specifically in the hands of hostile foreign powers.
"So you recognise me?"
" I suppose I should  be flattered," I say,  that you want to  enter into the spirit of  two of my books. The only thing is, your shoes are wrong, cheap and unpolished; that brand of wrist watch is not right for  Shadwell - he wouldn't wear a Swatch - and you have fat, pudgy hands, instead of sneaky, bony hands"

He laughs. He has a particularly unpleasant laugh. Something I recognise and have attempted to describe, though my description does not match the vomit-inducing, staccato snicker I now hear.
What is this? The beginning of some sort of blackmail attempt? Or an even even more sinister threat? The threat of mischief?  I think about my enemies. Who would resort to such a weird trick? And why?

The next stop is Charing Cross where I get out. Will he follow me? I stand up and leave the train without looking behind me. As I follow the familiar route of brightly lit tunnels and moving staircases which lead to the main line station, I persist in keeping my eyes in front of me. The Hastings train is waiting  on Platform 6 and I make straight for the barrier. Even when I enter a carriage half way to the front I refrain from looking back. Relieved I sit down. But my relief is short-lived.

As the train  leaves the station a body thuds into the seat beside me. Making use of its bulk it edges me to  one side. No question  now that I am being pursued by a persistent and sinister stalker. "Not going to greet me, Dermot? I am yours after all, Mr Dermot Frankenstein, your very own handiwork. I now have  a life of my own;  and, I don't mind saying, with rights and in particular the right of self-determination."

"I hope you are enjoying the joke" I say.

"What joke? The crime writer Dermot Martin has responsibilities, like a father for his children. Like a bitch for her pups. Jokes don't come into it. "

"What do you want?"

"What would you want in my place, Dermot? OK, I'll tell you what I want. I want respectability. I want to be ordinary, dull, banal, a bit  like you Dermot. And  I want to be looked up to at least  by a few people. To put it at its simplest, I want to be loved."

I fall for this. "But in that case you would be someone else. The person  in my books has no outwardly attractive qualities . He is a bastard, a liar, a thief and a bully. It is too late to change that. And you, meanwhile " I add to make it clear that I am  not myself nutcase enough to take my stalker seriously, "you are a nut case."

"But you could, if you wanted to, change me. You have already featured  me in two novels. Your Shadwell is a wanker but not a wally".  The stalker  is bright enough to come to terms with his weak and evil side, to pull himself up, brush himself down. "I suspect that I am already in the plot of  the next  book unwinding in your predictable, little brain. You could plunder your imagination for a change  to show a deeper side to my character, one ready to be rescued, to be redeemed..."

Please don't talk to me any more," I say looking out of the window. "I'm thinking." I am not  thinking. My mind is a blank. But may be  the belief that I am thinking will keep him quiet. Even encourage him to leave the train at the next station.  Some hope. My character lives in South East London in a flat above a seedy shop on a street corner.

From Hastings station it is a short walk  through a street of Victorian houses to my house. I walk quickly and don't look back. "Give me a few minutes" I say to my wife". I know there is a drink waiting and a meal in the oven, but I have a  chore before I can relax. From my study window I can see the street below and sure enough there is Shadwell leaning against a wall under a street lamp just flickering into life. At my desk I begin to type right away what is in my mind.

 '"Come with me," said Lorraine taking Shadwell's arm. She smelt of violets, Her blond  hair brushed his cheek.  Surprised he followed her. It was a new experience  for him to meet a willing partner. And the woman who called herself  Lorraine Price was  to his fevered mind something out of the ordinary. Carpe diem. The pick-up ruse had worked. The man  may have been cunning, coniving and and dangerous, but vanity drove caution out of the window. They left the pub together. "I'm staying here," she said, indicating a small private hotel. Looking over her shoulder she led him upstairs, unlocked the door of her room, and ushered him in. "Make yourself comfortable, " she said, "I won't be a minute" , and  disappeared into  the en suite bathroom. There, opening her hand bag she produced a syringe which she expertly loaded, holding it up for a moment to the light.  Hiding it behind her back she returned to find Shadwell as she had hoped naked and on the bed. "Ah," she said approaching him as though to negotiate an embrace, but instead plunged the syringe into his left buttock ..."That will settle you."'

Would that do at least for the moment?  Some polishing perhaps but positive enough. I looked out of the window to find that Shadwell was no longer in evidence.