Previously, on SubGrubStreet:
Nathan awoke from uneasy dreams to find top Internet marketing guru and
vampire Nigella Seedlung had been turned into an even more horrible old
crone. Nigella’s accusation that he had abducted her and robbed her of
her youth failed to register as Nathan searched the house, at last
realising that he’s not seen Jane for months.
So, here I am again, in the offices of New Bastion Books, Louis
Lovestone’s bunker on the outskirts of Norwich (*). I have been summoned
by my publisher, though I can’t say that I’ve been swept up in the
glamour of this. I no longer anticipate chats with my editor about my
genius and my next moves while Bloomsbury hurries by outside the bistro
window. I no longer fantasize about falling in love with my editor (who
in my dreams would not have Louis’s sweet potato-shaped head, military
obsessions or gender) and going on to breakfast on white wine in
midwinter with the snow laying all around and diamonds strewn on a
smoked glass tabletop.
Here, the office still smells of fly spray and gas and there’s a pot of
tea and a pile of Ginsters pasties (**) on the table. More than this,
worse than this, the newly aged Nigella is here. I suspect that she’s
pulled Louis’s strings to get me here. I don’t care. I’ve got more that
this on my mind and over the last week I’ve come no closer to locating
Jane (****). I am, to be honest, incredibly worried, more worried than
I’ve ever been, even more than I when I woke up in the snow and thought I
was dead (*****); even more than after I realized what I had done
(******).
After I finally managed to oust Nigella from the house last week I
scoured every room looking for Jane. Not only could I not find her, I
couldn’t find any trace of her. Her clothes were gone from the wardrobe.
Her make-up was absent from the bathroom. The shelves that used to
house her collection of soppy books (*******) was empty and my library
of miserable and unreadable early Modernist classics had taken advantage
and annexed the space. For a while I thought that maybe she’d left me
while I was under Nigella’s spell (********), and perhaps all I needed
to do was track her down and explain that I’d been acting weird because
I’d been bitten by vampire Internet marketing guru. We have, after all,
lived through stranger developments (*********). The thing is, I rang
around. I rang her mother, she of the hennaed hair, and not only did she
say she’d never heard of me. She’d never heard of Jane. She was quite
rude about it and called me a hippy and a stoner. I rang in turn each
and every one of the Chorus (**********), Lou-Lou, Sandra and Buns. They
all knew who I am, and Buns even asked me out to a salsa class, but
none of them had a clue who I was talking about.
Jane has disappeared. I’m trying to take this in: it’s like Jane never existed.
I should explain this to Louis. I can’t be expected to talk about
marketing and promotions when I’m trying to find my imaginary
girlfriend. My life is becoming a plot that Mike Gayle would kill for. I
cannot be expected to whore myself when all this is going on.
‘Louis,’ Nigella is saying, ‘when I took on this assignment, as you know
one that I was very, very doubtful about, I did not anticipate that the
client was going to kidnap, imprison and assault me.’
This wakes me up.
‘Hang on,’ I say.
‘Look at me,’ says Nigella, ‘he’s aged me by thirty years.’
‘That’s bollocks. I don’t know what happened to you (***********).’
‘I’m afwaid,’ says Louis, ‘I have to agwee with Nathan on this one. You
look like you usually look, my black orchid. You appear to have taken
leave of your senses.’
‘I demand you cease supporting this author this very moment. He also killed my most lucrative client (************).’
‘I didn’t,’ I say. ‘It was Bollock-On John. Anyway, I could equally say
that you have persistently mucked me about, Nigella. You’ve done nothing
but suggest I do stupid and humiliating things and you hypnotized me
and you bit me and I suspect you’ve done something to my girlfriend, so
why don’t we drop all this and start again.’
‘Start again,’ she screeches, ‘start again. How on earth can I start again when I have been cruelly stripped of my youth?’
I give Louis a Paddington Extra Hard Stare until he’s forced to do something.
‘Calm down, dear,’ he says, steepling his pudgy fingers, ‘and I can’t
believe, Mr Flack, that Ms Seedlung bit you in other spiwit than to give
you a little fillip, which I think even you will concede you wequire
nearly all of the time.’ So, it’s Mr Flack now, is it? ‘And although I
certainly have difficulty swallowing that you went so far as to abduct
Ms Seedlung and know you well enough to wealize that you are pwobably in
the wight here I am a business man first and foremost. As such, I’m
afwaid that the gwand expewiment comes to an end.’
Nigella is nodding at me with horrible smugness.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I say.
‘Mr Flack, neither of us know what to do with you or your unweadable
book, which so far, I checked the pwint-outs late last night seems to
have sold no copies at all. We took you out and you disgwaced yourself
with our biggest customer (*************), you used the unfortuate
phwase in fwont of Mr Phelan (**************) and he’s been on the sick
ever since. At gweat expense to you I employed the services of Ms
Seedlung and you spurned all those opportunities, even making a fool of
this firm on live television (***************). And I hear fwom Ms
Seedling that you’ve wejected her ideas about writing something spicy
(****************) or something that people would actually like to wead
(******************).’
I’m feeling like I might go a bit mental, so I stand up and avoid
looking at the lovely Ms Seedlung, who I did appreciate much more when
she was undead and I was hypnotized, and although I really want to tell
Louis that whatever he’s just said about me at least I don’t have a head
shaped like a sweet potato, I know it’s best to be diplomatic.
‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘Why don’t I buy the stock from you? I’m sure I
can do better at car boot sales on my own than a slutty vampire and the
giant catacomb of massive bowels that you call a sales agent.’
‘Mr Flack. I must admit that I wather ambitiously only pwinted ten copies, and those I had incinerwated this morning.’
I am now walking away from Louis’s bunker, sort of numb, sort of
baffled, sort of not-really-surprised, sort of relieved, sort of back
where I started, at square one, the square one that’s the square before
the square I was sat on at the beginning of the Touching the Starfish story. Something hits me, though, a peculiar realization.
No one remembers the Death Metal Revelation (*******************). And
now no one remembers Jane. I have been attacked by The Old Man of Hoy
(********************), dragged around a seaside town that only exists
when Big Dump eats a particular combination of savouries
(*********************) and been under the spell of a vampire marketing
guru. Something is rotten in the state of Nathan. I’ve been here before.
The netherworld of delusion. And we all know who pulls the strings
there.
There’s something else. Something Shoutyknackers said now seems
incredibly pertinent (**********************). The way Shoutyknackers
died seems highly significant (***********************). Bollocks to
Louis and his rubbish press. The answers lie in the cache of papers
Nigella gave me: The Shoutyknackers File
To Be Continued …
* See SubGrubStreet 1: The Great Experiment.
** See SubGrubStreet 1: The Great Experiment.
*** See SubGrubStreet 31: Resurrection Lovesick Blues.
**** See SubGrubStreet 31: Resurrection Lovesick Blues.
***** See Touching the Starfish, page 351.
****** See Touching the Starfish, page 511.
******* See Touching the Starfish, page 248
******** See SubGrubStreet 21: Yes is the Only Word
********* See Touching the Starfish, pages 1-523
********** See Touching the Starfish, page 261
*********** See SubGrubStreet 30: The Murk and Meady Prod of Death.
************ See SubGrubStreet 17: Why I Hate Bob Dylan
************* See SubGrubStreet 8: Love and Bonnets
************** See SubGrubStreet 9: That Unfortunate Phrase
*************** See SubGrubStreet 25: I’m a Writer Get Me Out of Here
**************** See SubGrubStreet 21: Yes is the Only Word
***************** See SubGrubStreet 29: Autarky
****************** See Touching the Starfish
******************* See SubGrubStreet 3: The Duellists
******************** See SubGrubStreet 6: Ginster Rusting with Big Dump
********************** See SubGrubStreet 16: Between the Cauliflowers
*********************** See SubGrubStreet 17: Why I Hate Bob Dylan
WEEK THIRTY-TWO
Word Count – 1992
Sales – 0
Insults – 6
Next Week: The Shoutyknackers File
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