What did I do while I was drinking? I started by opening my laptop and reading through the news sites, followed by the literary pages, keeping up with every book review and author interview that I could find, searching for clues that might answer that most tedious but prolific of questions, Where do you get your ideas? I had bookmarked the culture section of all the major newspapers and made it my business to study every trend, every bestseller and every word of wisdom that was sent my way, trying to understand the secrets of others. And then, when I’d soaked it all up, I read for a while, devoting myself exclusively to contemporary fiction. I visited a bookshop once every few weeks to stock up, and even though the ‘New Titles’ section infuriated me because I had nothing to offer it, there was no question in my mind that I would reclaim my place there soon.
I’d devoted myself exclusively to young writers since my first arrival in New York, when I set up Storī and was attending parties three or four times a week, making sure to be familiar with the work of my peers in order to be part of the conversation. I had an opinion on them all and I was happy to share those opinions freely, delighted when I could cause an occasional controversy with a well-judged put-down, which I would innocently claim had been taken out of context when I next encountered the writer in question.
‘It’s the media, darling,’ I would say, leaning in towards my opponent’s ear. ‘You know what it’s like. You can’t say a word without it being misinterpreted.’
And I was generally believed too, for I knew them and they knew me and, anyway, we were all at it. We drank together, had countless spats, made up, pretended to take pleasure in each other’s successes and to commiserate over each other’s failures. What mattered was that I mattered, that I was taken seriously.
Now, however, sitting in the pub and tired of reading, there would be nothing left for me to do but open a Word document on my laptop and stare at its accusatory blankness while I got drunker and drunker. But to my frustration, not once did my fingers ever touch the keyboard other than to write the words ‘Chapter One’ at the top of the page. The simplest phrase of all, but the most intimidating.
It was on a Monday afternoon in the Crown on the last day of April – coincidentally, my birthday – that I read Theo Field’s letter and saw an opportunity to forsake this rather humdrum existence and return to the one that suited me best. My afternoon was passing in its usual manner and I was enjoying my third pint while staring at an empty screen when I remembered an envelope that had arrived from my literary agent’s office that morning, an all too rare offering those days. I’d thrown it into my bag as I left the house but reached for it now, tearing it open, and I was immediately impressed by the quality of the stationery that the writer had used, not to mention the fact that he’d gone to the trouble of writing instead of sending an email. Old-fashioned, yes, but something I appreciated.
Dear Mr Swift [it began],
Forgive this unsolicited letter but I write to you as a great fan of your novels. I remember reading Two Germans when I was a boy and it sparked an interest in the war that remains with me to this day. I don’t believe that a novel set during those years has ever moved me quite as much as yours did. The Tribesman, The Breach and The Broken Ones are among my favourite works of contemporary literature but I’m a particular fan of The Treehouse, which, for me, is an underrated classic. I’m currently a student at the University of London, where I’m in my final year of study in the English department, and I hope to make your work the subject of my final thesis, although I have ambitions towards ultimately developing that thesis into a book. For me, you are the finest British writer of your generation. If you’ll forgive the flattery, the range of your work is so extraordinary that somehow it seems astonishing to me that it could all have come from the same mind. That’s your genius, I think. Surprising the reader with each new novel.
I wondered whether I might meet you at some point and learn a little more about your work and your life, in order to better inform my thesis. It’s important to me that I write something honest and singular, as my ultimate ambition is to be a literary biographer and this will be my first effort to forge a path towards that career. My father, an editor at Random House, has been very encouraging in this respect. (I’m not a fiction writer, you’ll be pleased to know, and have no ambitions whatsoever in that direction!) Anyway, I assume that you’re working on a new novel and have very little free time but I would appreciate if you could spare a little for me one day. It would mean an awful lot.
After reading the letter I reached for my pint and noticed that my hand was trembling a little, so I returned the glass to the table and closed my eyes for a moment while breathing slowly and carefully through my nose, using a technique that I’d been taught which often helped at moments like this. I could sense Daniel near me at that moment, could almost feel his hand in mine, his voice whispering in my ear in that accusatory way he developed towards the end. He was telling me to throw the letter away and leave the boy alone, that he was just an innocent student trying to get a start in the world, and I knew that I needed to step away if I were to block him out. And so I made my way into the Gents, where I stood before the sink, my eyes shut, my hands pressed against the cool white porcelain, and waited a minute or two before throwing water on my face and staring at my reflection in the mirror, uncertain whether I even recognized myself any more.
I rarely bothered looking in mirrors at home but there, in that narrow bathroom with its dull neon light flickering, I could see how altered my appearance had become in recent years. All my life I had been handsome. I took no particular pride in the fact, but a fact it was nevertheless, and one that I’d been aware of since the age of thirteen or fourteen. Both women and men had been attracted to me since I was very young and I understood the power that I held over them, a power that had always been very easy to exploit. Several had fallen in love with me. One had married me.
I had long since come to understand, however, that I was different from other men in that I had no particular desire for the bodies of others and that whatever instinct guided people towards the bedroom was somehow lost on me. Whether or not this has been a blessing or a curse is hard to know but I suspect it’s the former. I’ve seen so many people’s lives destroyed by failed love affairs or unrequited passions that I’ve always felt rather fortunate to remain essentially disinterested. Why would anyone want to be part of such calamitous drama, after all? It had been years since I’d enjoyed a romantic encounter or even desired one. During my time in New York, there had been plenty of people who’d expressed an interest, but I’d taken none of them up on their offers.
Staring at my reflection now, however, I wondered whether I would ever have the opportunity to turn someone’s advances down again. My hair was turning grey and my blue eyes, which had once shone so bright, had grown dull. Worst of all, however, was my skin, which appeared grey and was tinged with red capillaries, probably from the excess of alcohol. I glanced down at my hands, which had spent so much of their lives typing away at a keyboard before me. My recollection of them was as smooth collaborators with just the hint of a blue vein running from the wrist to the middle finger, but now, the skin was tight and my fingers appeared bony, the nails pockmarked, with large semicircles spreading outwards from the cuticles, like slowly exploding planets. I was growing old, it was clear, and not gracefully.