Don pays me thirty thousand pounds a year. That might not sound like much when you compare it with what he gets, but I don’t pay any tax of course — I don’t even have a National Insurance number — and down here thirty thousand a year is still a fortune. Besides, there’s nothing to spend the money on anyway. The local shops are full of pasties and tourist tat — hideous ornaments and ghastly paintings of Cornwall. I get a Tesco online delivery once a week, paid for by Don, as is almost everything else: oil for the Aga and the heating, electricity, water, broadband charges, books and DVDs from Amazon, the car — even my Celestron telescope was paid for by Don. So that thirty grand is mine to do whatever I like with. But mostly the money just stays in the bank.
Yes, Don has been a good friend to me. But for him I’d be in prison, I’ve no doubt about that. True, I get a bit depressed, sometimes. It can be lonely here, especially in winter when the ferry across the estuary stops and if you want to get to the other side you have to drive all the way around the river, which takes exactly forty-one minutes. There’s a woman called Mrs Trefry who comes in to clean and we chat a bit sometimes, and there used to be a gardener, too — Mr Twigg — only I discovered I liked doing the garden myself, so he stopped coming because there was nothing left for him to do; after a morning sitting in front of a computer there’s nothing I like better than a bit of gardening. Kipling used his Nobel Prize money to add a rose garden and a pond to his house in East Sussex. I’m thinking of doing something similar so that I can see more of the bird life that is abundant in this part of the world. I’ve already built a small observatory in the old cider house, where with the aid of an eight-inch telescope I can look at the stars and the planets; the skies down here are remarkably clear. It makes me feel small but I don’t mind that. I’ve discovered a kind of humility I never had before.
I also grow all my own vegetables and quite a bit of summer fruit; and I have a small boat to go fishing in. You have to sail out of the harbour to catch anything worth eating. Most of the decent-sized bass are gone now but there’s still plenty of pollock and eel. To my surprise I’ve become quite an accomplished fisherman. Fishing makes you patient.
One thing I do miss about Monaco is the weather. As the people in The Bodinnick Arms are fond of saying, there’s a reason Cornwall is so green; it rains a lot. When it’s fine, it’s very fine indeed, but when it’s wet it’s bloody awful. This is a place where rain really does set in for the day. The present summer has been especially bad. It seems that it has been raining for ever. So thank Christ for Sky TV, especially in the winter. I’ve a nice big widescreen set in my sitting room, with HD, and — like any writer — I like to watch the daytime scum shows and the footy, of course, when it’s on. And I’ve managed to put together a complete collection of first editions by Daphne du Maurier and Q. But what I most like now are books on tape; I’ve become especially fond of listening to Dickens as read by people like Martin Jarvis and Sir David Jason.
Don comes down from London once a month, rain or shine, in his nice big Range Rover — which is the same model that I used to have myself — and stays the weekend. We go to the pub and talk about the storylines for the next novel, or I might hand over the edited manuscript of the last one; he still has a tendency to overwrite — to use three words where one will do, and to quote other writers like they’re fucking saints — so I give him quite a lot of the blue pencil. He has a nicer flat in Putney now — a penthouse that overlooks the river — but he’s just acquired a small apartment in Monaco where he’s planning to live permanently when he starts to make the big money. Which he will, I’ve no doubt about that. I’m not bitter about this. Even before Orla died I’d already had enough of Monty. The place is about as shallow as a Martini glass. It’s all supercars and fancy overpriced restaurants, private beaches, gala nights with royalty and ghastly film premieres. I’ve told him he isn’t going to like it there but he won’t listen. In Monaco there’s just shopping and more shopping and always for something you don’t really need; there are no art galleries or museums to speak of, no social life, and the women are just out for what they can get; Don says he likes women who know what they want and he’ll be quite happy to let them have it. But everyone has to make their own mistakes, I guess. I should know, I made more than my fair share of them.
If he suspects that I once shagged his missus he’s never mentioned it. Fortunately, he sees very little of Jenny — Lady Muck, he calls her — so I think there’s no chance now that she’s going to fess up to what she did with me. Which is just as well, as that would spoil everything. I had a small moment of panic last May bank holiday when I saw her and the judge in a tea shop in Fowey, but fortunately she didn’t see me. I even managed to go back and get another squint at her. Frankly it was hard to believe that I’d ever fucked her at all. Her hair was so grey she looked like a High Court judge herself. Quite a contrast with the woman wearing a basque and suspenders and string panties who sucked my cock so enthusiastically in the Swan Hotel at the Hay-on-Wye Festival while Don was interviewing some crime writer from Baltimore. To my surprise it was the best blow-job I ever had.
In spite of that — the blow-job, I mean — Don is well out of his marriage. By contrast he looks like the bestselling author he now is. With a hair-transplant, dental veneers, a good tailor (I sent him along to Huntsman) and a permanent tan, he’s hardly recognizable as the backroom boy who used to be my loyal writing devil. GQ magazine recently asked him to model some Philip Marlowe-style raincoats. His transformation has been quite startling.
And for once virtue has not been its own poor and always inadequate reward. Don was just made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, which pleased him enormously; last year he won an Edgar Award for Passing Strange; and he’s already shortlisted for this year’s Golden Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association for A Murder Not to Solve. The material rewards have come his way, too. Quite apart from the Range Rover and the Aston Martin Vantage he drives in London, he seems to have a string of young and willing girlfriends. One of them, Serena, is half his age and looks like a model; but she actually works for The Daily Telegraph so I don’t suppose I shall ever meet her in person, just in case she’s the kind with a nose for a story.
If I need a woman there’s a lady I go and see at her beautiful home near Padstow who looks after all my needs. She’s very kind and thoughtful, and has a lovely personality. Her name is Myra. Do I envy Don? No, not at all. He’s worked hard and deserves every success. Me, I’m just lucky to be at liberty. On the whole it’s much better here in Cornwall than in some air-conditioned cell in Monaco. I’d have gone mad if I’d been cooped up all day, unable to see anyone or go anywhere. I’ve got much to thank Don Irvine for. He risks a great deal by hiding me down here. I’m better off here and no mistake. The dust and the damp here aggravate my allergies sometimes, and once I had a severe attack of asthma, but apart from that my health has been good. True, I’ve put on a lot of weight. I have a bicycle to try and stay fit, but the hills around here would defeat Sir Bradley Wiggins.