Burley Cross Postbox Theft. Nicola Barker
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technical know-how and a personal knowledge of ‘the business’, so to speak.
This is not to imply that I am a caretaker myself – heavens no! I was lucky enough to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a member of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy where I trained as an electrical engineer. Since leaving the forces I have made an excellent living in the security industry (running a company that manufactures burglar alarms. My son, Nick, has continued this upward gradient and is currently working in astro-physics).
While I’m about it, I suppose I should make a glancing reference to your latest novel, Fast Track, where failed policewoman turned British Rail Station Manager Hilda Fisher is horrified to find a number of her regular passengers (or ‘customers’) dying in a series of lethal ‘accidents’ and is obliged to step in to stop clod-hopping local detectives (and BR big-wigs and PR gurus) from botching up the investigation.
I haven’t read the book myself (it’s way out of my ‘comfort zone’), but my wife Moira did after it was selected by her local book group (I think their interest was piqued by the Harrogate setting).
The novel was systematically ripped to shreds, Moira said, because most of the group (all women) said the female lead ‘thought and behaved just like a stupid man’. I wouldn’t let this get you down, though. Moira said most of them didn’t know what they were talking about, having cast the book aside, in disgust, after only the first chapter.
On a more personal note, I have long been fascinated by your unusual name. It’s a strange combination of Vespers (evening prayer) and Vespa (the Italian scooter manufacturer). I looked it up recently in my Encyclopedia of Names (I’d been considering giving the name to the hero of my first novel, a reformed sex abuser who has been made sole custodian of a small Romanian boy – I won’t bother you with the backstory, but it’s all perfectly credible – and is then obliged to go on the run with him to keep him from the clutches of a Russian crime syndicate).
Your name wasn’t actually listed in the encyclopedia (the closest it came to was Vesta – the Roman goddess of the hearth, used in the UK during the 1850s). When I looked in my dictionary, though, it said: Vesper n. [L.] 1. a) orig., evening b) {Poet.} [V-] same as EVENING STAR.
In the end I decided it was simpler just to call the character William (after my paternal grandfather).
The aforementioned novel, tentatively entitled Ceaucescu’s Child, is still very much in its infancy, but I am hoping that you might do me the honour of casting your eye over a couple of pages from the opening chapter to see if you think I’m heading in the right direction (also whether the characters and language have the right kind of ‘feel’ to them).
I have provided you with a brief summary of the plot (above), but do bear in mind that I am planning an extremely shocking and dramatic denouement towards the end which I won’t describe here on the off-chance that you end up using it in your own work (inadvertently, of course!).
As a ‘famous’ writer I fully understand that you must get pestered with requests like this all the time, and so will appreciate any input or advice you can offer me, however sparse (although the sooner you can manage to get back to me the better; it would be irritating to do too much new work on the rest of the book only to discover that you feel a certain amount of ‘tweaking’ is needed in the early stages. I’m hoping to get the whole thing done before Easter, when Moira and I are heading off to Madeira for a month).
Wishing you well over the festive season (if you are an adherent of the Christian faith),
All the Best,
Matthew Endive
an exclusive excerpt from
CEAUCESCU’S CHILD BY MATT ENDIVE
‘NO WAY, MAN! FUCK YOU, WHITE BOY!! I IS HAD E’NUFF!!’ THE BLACK GUARD SCREAMED.
WILLIAM LAY ON THE FLOOR, SHIVERING, LOOKING UP INTO THE SEEMINGLY-INFINITE TUNNEL OF HIS TORMENTOR’S RAGE-DISTENDED NOSTRILS. HE WAS DOWN, YES, FOR THE MOMENT, BUT HE KNEW HE WOULD NOT BE BROKEN BY THIS VAINGLORIOUS JAMAICAN THUG – HE COULD NOT BE BROKEN. NOT HERE! NOT NOW! HE HAD COME TOO FAR! HE HAD SUFFERED TOO MUCH!
AND HE HAD LEARNED – OH YES! THE PRIMITIVE DISCIPLINE AND RANDOM VIOLENCE OF THE CARIBBEAN PENAL SYSTEM HAD SEEN TO THAT! WHAT LITTLE DIGNITY HE’D ONCE POSSESSED WAS NOW VANQUISHED. THE ARROGANT CONFIDENCE AND POLISH HE’D ONCE EXUDED – THOSE INDELIBLE MARKS OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM – HAD BEEN ALL-BUT SCRUBBED AWAY.
WHEN SOMETIMES HE CHANCED, IN AN IDLE MOMENT, TO PONDER THE ISSUE (LOOKING BACK, SADLY, ON HIS SCHOOL DAYS, AS IF ON A DISTANT DREAM), THE IRONY DIDN’T ESCAPE HIM THAT THE RIGORS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL HAD ESSENTIALLY TRAINED HIM FOR THE DEGRADATION THAT WAS TO FOLLOW. THEY HAD ACTIVELY HELPED – NAY ACCLIMATIZED – HIM, IN POINT OF FACT!
AFTER ALL, WAS THERE ANY CRUELLER OR MORE MORALLY-CORRUPTING PLACE ON EARTH THAN THE LOFTY INSTITUTION HIS OWN, DEAR PARENTS HAD SO TENDERLY BEQUEATHED HIM TO: ETON [I SHALL ‘MODIFY’ THIS NAME IN THE FINAL TEXT, OBVIOUSLY – TO SOMETHING LIKE‘RENTON’ OR REATON’ TO FORESTALL ANY KIND OF LEGAL REPERCUSSIONS]?
WASN’T IT HERE THAT HE HAD BEEN TAUGHT – ALONGSIDE ANCIENT GREEK AND CHORAL CHANTS – THAT IT WAS NOT ONLY GOOD, BUT NECESSARY TO FIND PLEASURE IN THE HUMILIATION OF WEAKER AND YOUNGER BOYS? HE’D SEEN THE MASTERS DO IT, OFTEN ENOUGH, AND THEN, ONCE LIGHTS WERE FINALLY OUT ON THE DORM EACH NIGHT… THE HORROR!
WILLIAM KNEW THAT HE HAD BEEN WEAK. JUST BECAUSE IT HAD HAPPENED TO HIM, THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT RIGHT FOR HIM TO VENT HIS RAGE ON OTHERS… NO. HE SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP AGAINST IT, HE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN A STAND (PER – HAPS EVEN SOLD HIS STORY TO THE PAPERS) BUT HE HADN’T. HE’D JUST ‘GONE WITH THE FLOW,’ AND SOON, WHAT HAD ONCE BEEN JUST AN IDLE AMUSEMENT HAD BECOME SECOND NATURE TO HIM, A DEEPLY-INGRAINED HABIT… ALMOST – HE FLINCHED AT THE THOUGHT – AN INSTINCT!
WHEN WILLIAM CAST HIS MIND BACK OVER IT, HE REALIZED THAT ALL HE HAD EVER TRULY DESIRED – PERHAPS MORE THAN ANYTHING, EVEN A MOTHER’S LOVE – WAS JUST TO FIT IN. TO FEEL AT HOME. HE WAS AN EMOTIONAL COWARD, YES, BUT THEN HADN’T COUNTLESS GENERATIONS OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS THROUGHOUT BRITISH HISTORY BEEN EXACTLY WHERE HE HAD BEEN, DONE EXACTLY AS HE HAD DONE?
GLADSTONE? PEEL? DISRAELI? HAD ANYBODY EVER TOLD THEM THAT WHAT THEY WERE DOING WAS SICK AND WRONG? WILLIAM SMILED TO HIMSELF, WRYLY. NO. SOMEHOW, HE SERIOUSLY DOUBTED IT.
SURE, HE’D BEEN TO HELL AND BACK, BUT THE ONLY PART OF THE JOURNEY HE CARED ABOUT NOW WAS THE RETURN: HE HAD EMERGED FROM THIS HELL-PIT A NEWER AND A STRONGER MAN. YOU MIGHT ALMOST SAY HE’D BEEN STRIPPED CLEAN, PARED TO THE BONE, REDEEMED, NOT BY YEARS OF INDULGENT MOLLY-CODDLING AT THE HANDS OF SOCIAL WORKERS AND PSYCHIATRISTS, BUT DOWN ON THE SKIDS, ‘INNA DA HOOD’, AN UNWILLING GRADUATE OF THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS.
‘HANG ON A SECOND…!’ WILLIAM BLINKED – ‘THE GUARD!’ HE TRIED TO REFOCUS, STRUGGLING TO PULL HIMSELF OUT OF HIS SUDDEN REVERIE. ‘I CAN’T PLAY INTO HIS HANDS,’ HE THOUGHT, TURNING TO FACE THE WALL, ‘HE WANTS TO MAKE ME LOSE MY COOL. HE WANTS TO GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO CANCEL MY PAROLE SO THAT I END UP ROTTING TO DEATH IN THIS MISERABLE SHIT-HOLE.’
HE THOUGHT BACK ON THE TREATMENT HE HAD RECEIVED AT THEIR BEHEST OVER THE SEVEN YEARS HE HAD BEEN INCARCERATED. THEY HAD TRIED TO DESTROY HIM WITH THEIR RACIST JIBES (‘YOU STUPID, WHITE MAGGOT!’ ‘WHITE DONKEY!’ ‘YOU DAMN UGLY WHITE ASS!’) AND HUMILIATING RITUALS: THE MOULD-ENCRUSTED DAILY PORTION OF ‘RICE AN’ BEANS’, THE DEGRADATION OF THE SLOP BUCKET.
HOW THE HELL HAD HE SURVIVED IT? MORE TO THE POINT – HOW ON GOD’S EARTH HAD HE EVER ENDED UP IN THIS STINKING SEWER IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
OH YES…’ WILLIAM SMILED, CLOSING HIS EYES FOR A MOMENT, ‘POLLY!’
HE BRIEFLY REMEMBERED THE SWEET, BLACK-HAIRED GIRL HE HAD LOVED SO DEARLY AS A BOY. HER BROTHER WAS RUPERT, A ‘SCHOOL FRIEND’ (A NOTORIOUS REPROBATE AND SEXUAL PREDATOR WHO GAVE NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE ‘KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE AND YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER’). HE HAD INVITED WILLIAM TO SPEND A FEW WEEKS RECOVERING FROM HIS A’LEVELS AT ‘DADDY’S