Crazy and it was currently my most expensive coat rack.
I was in the hall, still standing by the bike, still holding the heavy Tesco bag and listening intently because I sensed something strange about the flat; something off-kilter. I crept towards the lounge, caught a glimpse of movement, a flash of blue and red, and I froze. But no. It was the reflection of the Tesco bag. Still, I waited and listened.
Despite what thriller writers want you to believe, no woman in her right mind goes into her flat, senses something suspicious and calls out, ‘Hello? Anyone there?’ No – the thing to do is to be alert, and at the faintest sound, run back out of the door as fast as you can. This is writing what you know. However, I want to point out that writing what you know doesn’t mean everything you know is worth writing about. I was holding the evidence right here. Just because a story is true doesn’t make it a good story.
I looked out onto Parliament Hill Fields. I could hear the distant repetitive thwok from the tennis courts. My desk was cluttered with pens, mugs and pages, just as I’d left it that morning when I was full of optimism. The table was clear. The cushions on the lemon sofa were plumped. All seemed as it should, but it felt wrong.
I put my typescript on the table and went cautiously into the shady bedroom. Duvet crumpled, blinds still shut. And suddenly I realised what was different. When I’d left that morning, Heartbreak was a literary tragedy that was going to support me and help me pay my bills. Now it was a worthless cliché. I’d been dumped by a guy; simple as that.
Here I was, surrounded like Miss Havisham by the relics of our love story – his unwanted bike, his discarded clothes, the last fumes of his aftershave. Stripped of literary worth, they were meaningless. No story here; nothing to look at, stand back, stand back.
Writing Heartbreak, I’d imagined Mark reading it and rushing back, begging for forgiveness, appalled at the pain he’d caused me. Now I realised he would have resented me for making him feel bad. Who wants a book that makes you feel bad? As Kitty said, that’s the sort of thing we can do for ourselves.
Well, I’d finally got the message.
It was like taking yellow sunglasses off and seeing the dull hue of reality.
House keys, bike, clothes, me.
Who leaves all that behind? Someone who doesn’t want them any more, that’s who.
Next morning I woke up, hungover, with my pillow over my head, fighting for air. I’d slept badly all night, just on the edge of unconsciousness, and rolled over, relieved to see dawn bleeding into the room. I felt shabby, with a pounding headache that made me squint. Even with the curtains closed, the room seemed unreasonably bright.
My failure crowded me in and I got out of bed, walking on a lean. Glancing at the empty bottle and the greasy pizza box, depression clung to me like a cold, wet cleansing cloth.
The letterbox rattled and there in the hall lay a letter from my publishers, forwarded to me by Kitty.
I tore it open, hoping that the publishers had made a mistake and they wanted Heartbreak after all, but no. Still, it was the next best thing. It was a royalty cheque.
For five pounds and seventy-one pence.
I studied it carefully. How could that be right? I pointed at each word as I read it, hoping I was delusional. But no.
How had this happened? I was now officially broke.
Fresh panic made my heartbeat thud chaotically around my skull like a squash ball.
I held my head in my hands to steady it and I sat at the table and suddenly recalled that I’d had some drunken inspiration for a new plot. Trembling, I checked my notebook in case I had become Stephen King under the influence. I’d written: Mopeds. Virgin. Stern letter. £10,000-ish. There might be a story there somewhere but I couldn’t remember what it was.
I got dressed and decided to address the main problem, insolvency, by going to visit my bank.
I had to wait to see an advisor. I sat on one of three seats by a low orange partition that acted as a wall for the desks behind it. The light buzzed like a bee in a jar. Although there were three desks set at angles, only one was occupied so I settled down to wait, and with nothing else to do I watched the advisor, a thin man with vertically gelled hair, greet his client, an old, bald Asian guy with an anxious expression. He sat down cautiously and pushed a paper across the table.
‘Is this your name?’ the advisor asked him.
The old man leant forward and confirmed it in a low voice.
‘What’s your address?’ the advisor asked, studying the screen.
The old man sensed my interest and glanced at me crossly. He turned back to the advisor and huddled further across the desk, like a man with something to hide – an exam paper, for example.
‘In Hong Kong?’
The advisor paused. ‘No, UK.’
‘No address in UK,’ the old man said sternly.
‘There’s nothing here under this name. But then how—’
The old man scribbled something down. ‘Try this way,’ he instructed.
Triple-tapping of the keyboard, and then … ‘Sorry. I’m not finding it. If you have your account number—’
‘I give you my money! Hundreds! Thousands!’ the old man cried out in panic.
Imagine that! What a nightmare! Putting all your money in a bank and suddenly they’ve got no record of you.
A slim, blonde woman stood over me. ‘Are you waiting to see an advisor?’
‘Yes,’ I said, so I don’t know how the story turned out.
Better than mine, I hope.
We walked over to one of the empty desks. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked warmly as I sat down, which led me into a false sense of security. She reminded me of Meryl Streep, with her glasses and her up-do, so I told her the whole sorry story about my book being turned down. As the horror of it came back afresh, I asked her for an overdraft to keep me going until I wrote another novel and got my advance.
She turned her attention from me to the screen. ‘You already have an unauthorised overdraft which is costing you five pounds a day,’ she said blandly.
‘Five pounds a day? No wonder I’ve got no money. If you could just authorise that overdraft so that I don’t have to throw money away, that will be great.’ I was showing her how astute I was, financially speaking.
‘You have already exceeded your overdraft limit.’
‘Well, I’d like to extend it. It’s just temporary, until I get my
