Arvon shortlisted entry- Ghosted by Michael Yates

I CAN remember exactly where I was when I heard Tommy was dead. I was in Mark Sandler’s office to sell him the idea for my novel Valiant Heart, which you won’t have read yet.

I was sitting with my briefcase on a chair with no arm rests. My idea was to leave the case unopened till the end, to charm Mark with my eloquence, then produce the half-dozen sheets of A4 which contained the crux of the book, present them to him with a flourish, and leave on a high note to give him time to think it over.

Because it’s lonely trying to sell your book.  There’s nobody to share your feelings with. All you can do is wait on other people’s opinions.

When Mark came through the door, his head was in his hands and his body trembled. When he spoke, his voice came in sobs. “Tommy,” he said, “it’s Tommy…”

Tommy? What was Tommy?

Mark slumped on his desk, looked across at me and said: “Andrew, I have to tell you Tommy killed himself last night. Barbiturates. Priscilla just phoned.”

“Priscilla?” I said, because I’ve always had a sense of what makes dialogue work, and this habit my characters have of repeating the last inconsequential word of the previous sentence in order to create suspense is something that has carried over into personal habit. “Barbiturates?” I said.

Priscilla I knew as Tommy’s beautiful secretary and – though I could never prove this – his casual lover. Barbiturates I knew as a regular suicide method, popular with authors, though in reality far from effective (take the wrong amount and they just leave you brain-damaged). But the picture had now become clear. Tearful Mark was in no mood to discuss publishing my novel. I could have cried as well.

You all remember the newspaper coverage. Best-selling author’s suicide is always a good story because it has schadenfreude, sitting well with our fondest beliefs that the rich and famous are damned if only to compensate for their triumph over us. And it fitted well with Tommy’s persona – a womaniser with a quip for every conquest. The pictures on the pages reminded us of his youth and blond good looks.

The detail of the story even included a ‘mystery woman’ who was supposed to have been with him at the Dorset hotel when they booked in as Mr and Mrs Polly, Tommy’s last literary joke. She was variously described as blonde and auburn, tall and slightly built, young and mature. Where was she now?

And why had he done it? Why had Thomas Standing MBE ended it all?  His farewell note had merely left the world with a curse, not an explanation. The pundits mulled over the self-destructive nature of his fictional heroes: hard-living Dan Jensen in Line of Most Resistance, Tommy’s Iraq war novel; alcoholic Lex Scrivener in Blank Screen, Tommy’s semi-autobiographical take on the life of a TV reporter; power-crazed Marcus Stroud, who bestrode the world like a temporary colossus in Fingerprint, Tommy’s 500-page exposure of corrupt political life. Some pursued comparisons with David Tempest, the idealist of Lost Days who turns to drugs when the woman of his dreams gives him the elbow. But I never reckoned that. Of all his creations, the love-lorn leftie seemed to me least like his creator. How wrong can you be?

I left Mark’s office and arrived back at our Enfield flat just before Jamie came in. She hadn’t had chance to see the TV news. She’d been travelling by rail from Edinburgh where she’d spent the last few days catching up with her old schoolfriend Amy Shanks. So I was the one who broke the story. And, to my surprise, it really hit her hard.

“I thought you’d only met him once,” I said as I made a pot of coffee.

“Yes,” she said, “but I’ve read Burn-out and Fingerprint. He was a great writer. I feel as if I really knew him.” Then she stopped because, I think, she saw she’d hurt me. “He was never as good as you,” she added.

“No,” I said, “he just had a better agent.”

There had been a time when Tommy and I had been friendly rivals. Ten years before, we’d bumped into each other in the offices of Glare, the seriously subsidised arts magazine which published our short stories. We then spent a great afternoon on Fuller’s London Pride and whisky chasers. Tommy told me how much he’d enjoyed Westering, my story about the grieving poetess. “That, old sport, is a bit of a minor classic to my way of thinking,” he said.

What could I do? I told him his latest effort Naked Presence, about an artist stalked by a woman he has never met who thinks she recognises herself in one of his nudes, was “interesting.” That’s my word for stuff I don’t really like.

We both continued to be published in Glare. And we both won two-book contracts with Frobisher Giles, a little known publisher of up-and-coming talent. Then came the divergence.

The fact that very few readers bought either of my novels – Forbearance and The Mediocre Mr Stokely – didn’t bother me much at the time. Just having my name on a dust jacket was sufficient. And it seemed they didn’t buy Tommy’s books either. The Northern Breaks, a fictional account of his childhood in Cumbria, and Morgan’s Stand, about an ambitious bank clerk who discovers money isn’t everything, were resounding flops. But then a strange thing happened.

Tommy started to appear in little gossip items in the tabloids. He had suddenly taken to hobnobbing with models, TV presenters and weather girls. Occasionally he’d be seen coming out of Arabella’s or The Blue Room, too pissed to stand up straight. Once, he even took a swing at a photographer – and the picture turned up in the showbiz column.

Frobisher Giles didn’t renew my contract. And they didn’t renew Tommy’s either – but for him they did much better. They sold him on to Hamilton Goldman, who were a big name even then. And Tommy also got this regular spot on a daytime TV chat show.

For me, the market dwindled. My agent failed to interest anyone in my next three novels: Prince of Darkness, about a minor member of the Royal Family spying for the Taliban; Lazarus Agonistes, about a man who apparently returns from the dead, only to discover he is really trapped in a limbo that looks surprisingly like our own world; and No Rest for the Wicket, about a family of Yorkshire gangsters who are cricket fans. About this time, the government changed its tack on arts support and Glare folded.

I remember that was the time I started going out with Jamie. I’d known for a while I needed a regular day job and, because I’d had local paper experience and knew an assistant editor on the Indie, I’d finally got onto the subs’ table there.  Jamie was a freelance feature writer who did some stuff for them. She’d read my stories in Glare and Tommy’s as well. I was the one who introduced them at a party given by the TV company. “What did you think?” I asked her afterwards.

“Interesting,” she said, “he’s interesting.” Which pleased me. Her using one of my words.

Now Tommy was suddenly in his grave, Hamilton Goldman stripped his office like locusts for unfinished titbits that might prove marketable. But the cupboard was bare.  And I, at least, still had my life and my writing ahead of me. I decided I would start the first draft of Valiant Heart, without waiting on Mark Sandler’s say-so.

It was six months after Tommy’s death when I finally got round to it. I had the Saturday off and Jamie was away on another of her Amy Shanks expeditions, so I had the weekend to myself. I turned on my computer, checked my e-mails, switched to Word, wrote in the title of the book and saved it. After a bit, I checked the time, poured myself a Famous Grouse and drained the glass. Then I had another. It worked. I started typing. It was three hours before I stopped.

I read it back. It said:

Hello, Andy. Tommy here.

“Tommy?” I said. “Here?” I said.

Here I am, stuck in eternity. So why come back? Why try to communicate with the living? Well, it’s the old story, old son. Guilt. I need to purge my sins and I’m starting with you. There was a lot of stuff in the papers about the mystery woman in my hotel room. I’m sorry to tell you this, old sport, but the mystery woman was your Jamie. All those weekends away with school pal Amy. By the way, this weekend she’s seeing Peter Grimble.

“Peter?” I said. “Grimble?” I said. He was one of the young reporters on the Indie.

Don’t feel sorry for yourself. You really neglect that girl, you’re so obsessed with your writing. Feel sorry for me. I loved her. I really did. I wanted her to leave you and she wouldn’t. That’s why I killed myself. Because I couldn’t have her on my own terms. I know that’s not what the note said. But I didn’t want to go out looking like an idiot who does himself in for a woman. I wanted it to look like an act of hatred against a corrupt and brutal society. That always seems a much more mature reason for anyone topping himself. Don’t you think?

“You?” I said. “Think?” I said.

So now that’s cleared up, let me make amends. As much as I can. I’ve always liked you, Andy. I still remember the day we met at Glare. We went to that pub and I was really depressed because I thought my stories were awful and I was ready to jack it in and join my dad’s firm selling motor insurance. And then you did a wonderful thing. You told me how much you liked Naked Presence. And I thought: well, if a writer as good as Andy likes my stuff, there must be something in it. So I thought I’d just keep on doing it. And because of you, it worked out OK.

“Out,” I said. “OK,” I said.

So I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you my next novel. Not tell you about it, Andy, but actually give it to you. To do with as you please. To make it your own if you like. All you have to do is type.

“… is type?” I said.

I resumed typing.

And here it is. Ninety thousand words. It’s taken Tommy and me 12 weeks. Though time is different over there, if you believe what he says.

I know some of you will think I’m wrong to pass it off as my own. But Tommy wants me to do it. He owes me, on account of Jamie. And anyway, I think deep down he worries that it was only his agent and his TV job that got him his success in the first place. I think in a way he needs to prove himself.

I’ve called the novel Valiant Heart because that’s the book everybody’s expecting from me. And you can get away with a lot if you choose a fairly abstract title.

Supposing nobody wants to publish it? Well, that’ll prove me right, won’t it? About Tommy. So. Either way I win.

I’ve already given Mark Sandler a ring. And his secretary says he’ll call me back when he gets out of a meeting.  All I can do now is wait. It’s just nice having Tommy wait with me. I don’t feel alone any more.

Any more.