This is For You  An autobiography of sorts
The new novel by Pedro Silmon, serialised, exclusively for you on The Blog

As previously explained, the characters within this book are fictitious and any similarities to persons living, or dead, are coincidental but, like many first novels, This is for you, is an autobiography of sorts. At 26,000 words, it is relatively short, however, it was written, re-written, edited and refined over a five year period, spanning 2001-2007, in Germany and the UK. I am endebted to David Miller at the prestigious UK literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White, to whom I was kindly introduced by Sarah Spankie, Deputy Editor of the Condé Nast Traveller; having read a draft of the text, David suggested a few changes which improved it enormously.

Part 2 continued…
Bede was lying on his side. He woke with a start and felt the weight of an arm pressing down on his ribs. A man’s hand cupped his genitals. Loud, staccato snoring, which made the whole bed vibrate, came from directly behind his head. As he leapt up, his pyjama bottoms fell to his knees. The snoring continued unabated, and through the first dawn light he realised that he was in a shabby hospital ward. Two rows of beds were lined up along the walls. There were perhaps a couple of dozen in all, most of which appeared to be occupied.  He had no idea what he was doing there, or how long he had lain on these disgusting sheets. Who was the fat slob who had been abusing his body? He had an urge to kill him, but was afraid of making a noise and, in so doing, raising the alarm. The man wore a grey overall and must have been some sort of attendant. On his feet was a pair of greasy-looking tennis shoes, which Bede carefully removed and put on his own.

The double doors to the ward were not locked. They hardly creaked as he gently pushed them open and slid out into the corridor. At the far end, someone sat in a glassed-in office with his back to him, apparently sleeping. No one else was about. Bede walked into the toilet and climbed out of the window. Through the mist he saw a small dog, which had been sleeping near the edge of an overgrown lawn, jump up and skitter across the gravel path towards him. He recognised it as the same one that had followed him after his beating. It made no sound, but seemed very excited to see him, stretching up, putting its paws on his knees and looking into his eyes imploringly. Bede leaned over and stroked its head, but clearly it was not satisfied: it rolled over on to its back, so he tickled its stomach.

Not far off, there was a decrepit-looking, low-rise housing estate. In the shadow of the buildings, a few burnt-out cars stood rotting at the roadside; rubbish from a dustbin had been tipped out into the street. Mostly empty, communal washing lines stretched between poles above the litter-strewn earth in front of each block. Bede inspected the meagre, damp garments. There were no trousers. After a moment’s hesitation, deciding whether or not he could possibly wear such ugly clothes, he grabbed a faded pair of shorts that had originally been jeans, a ripped T-shirt and a fuzzy, fake mohair jumper. He started to remove his pyjamas, so he could replace them with the shorts when suddenly the dog picked them up and ran off. With a great effort Bede sprinted after it, the dog enjoying the chase a lot more than he.

He had been walking for almost an hour. The sun appeared as a white disc floating in a milky pool, just above the horizon. Hundreds of moist cobwebs, which a second before had been invisible, sparkled and twinkled like delicate jewelled necklaces hung on every bush and on the dried-out plant stems that towered over the pale fields. The distant, solid line of dark tree shapes began to break up and separate. As the sky transformed into a clean, white sheet, here and there the angular silhouettes of buildings emerged, then took on three dimensions. Everything had been monochrome; now, suddenly, there were colours. Beside a weed-choked canal, where willow herb grew tall amid the long grass, a black-and-white cat sat motionless, staring up at the tattered remains of a pink kite that had become entangled in the overhead telephone cables. In desultory fashion, as if it was simply doing what was expected of it, the dog chased the cat, but soon returned to Bede’s side. A lugubrious heron, disturbed by their presence, rose a few feet into the air, then, with a sad and silent flap of its huge wings, sailed off over the treetops. A little farther on, the remains of a human body dangled below flaking rugby posts that had been used as a makeshift gibbet.

The allotments that enclosed the garages, occupied a large open area on the west side of a tall hill, and commanded a panoramic view of the city, which, in certain lights, seemed very close, yet just as often appeared remote. Head-high weeds crowded in, obscuring the narrow paths, which Bede attempted to follow through the abandoned plots. Brambles, heavily-laden with glossy, ripe fruit, grabbed and tore at his bare legs. There were obvious signs that the land had only recently fallen into disuse: burgeoning, overrun flowerbeds; a wild tangle of vermillion-flowered runner beans blocked Bede’s way. Grabbing the lush, bean tentacles in both hands, he dragged them roughly to either side, tore open a ragged aperture and pushed his way through. Big, bushy potato plants grew up through the gravel and broke easily as he lifted his feet and trod heavily on top of them.

The dog came into the lock-up and sat down in front of him. Wearing an expectant look, it stared up at his face, pressing its snout against his leg when it failed to get his attention. Bede, heavily engrossed in his book, pushed the animal gently away without looking down. It moved off a little, stood very still for a few seconds, and then scuttled around in a tight circle, nose poking inquisitively on the ground, as if arranging some non-existent blanket. Then it folded its front legs, lowered its head, and dropped its hindquarters to the floor. Raising its head once more to yawn, the dog flopped slowly on to its flank, gave a great sigh and almost immediately, began to snore.

Prologue: the story is over and now it can begin
Negotiations for the sale of foreign rights to Bede’s book came to an abrupt end, when the anarchist government closed our company down. From what we have been able to ascertain, not a single bound advance copy survived. Serendipitously, and to our great joy and surprise, a photocopy of the original, handwritten manuscript, which had been sent abroad to foreign publishers for their consideration, and had languished, forgotten, in a cupboard for more than twenty years, was recently discovered and kindly returned to us. Although the paper has yellowed and the writing is somewhat faded, the text is entirely legible.

Curiously, as we prepared for the book’s belated publication, a date-stamped set of the original printers’ proofs materialised. The plain, unmarked envelope containing the lightly-scorched bundle was pushed through the company’s letterbox late at night and contained no indication inside as to its origin. CCTV cameras had picked up the obscure image of what looked like an elderly woman on a bicycle passing close to the building at about the appropriate time but apart from her, there is nothing to suggest who might be responsible for delivering the package.

The handwriting style of the notes and the amendments on the proofs, in an assortment of inks and shades of mostly blues and black, some, but certainly not all, of which were clearly written before the scorching had occurred – bore remarkable similarities to that of the original manuscript. Although the central, anecdotal theme was left intact, significant rewriting had occurred in several places: the first chapter was almost entirely reconstructed, and included several additions; most notably, a final chapter had been appended. Bede’s recurring dream, present throughout, was also added later. Curiously, the detailed description of the eye-test is consistent with contemporary, up-to-date technology and methods, which would have been less sophisticated at the time the original manuscript was produced. Leading experts also believe that the references to the dog might well have been put in very recently, perhaps after the finding of the burned bodies of a man and dog had been reported in the media. Our initial inference was that, whoever amended the proofs – and, as the book’s publishers, we are convinced that this was Bede himself – had at least at some stage been keen to have the world believe that he was dead.

The savage attack on Bede in the park that appears in chapter one had been observed from a distance. The witness, an old colleague from his days on the newspaper, spread the word that Bede had been killed. Suddenly, Bede became a martyr – a man who dedicated his life to literature, murdered for the simple act of reading a book. It was impossible for anyone to publish anything about this at the time, but as word was passed around, Bede’s premature death gained him mythical status. But there is no hard-and-fast evidence that Bede is dead even now, or that he was the person who died in the fire at the lock-up garage. He appeared to vanish at a certain point in time when the anarchist regime were doing away with undesirables; therefore his ex-colleagues and acquaintances, having not heard from him, and having heard rumours of the attack, simply assumed that he had been killed. Their conclusion was based on little more than supposition.

During the revolutionary years, no police records were kept, and, although it appears entirely credible that the body discovered in the burnt-out lock-up in the southern sector of the city, belonged to Bede, positive identification has been impossible to establish. The conflagration, which consumed the garage and what appeared to be the countless books it housed, as well as the disintegrated body beneath the ashes and rubble, left few discernable clues. The charred remains of a small dog were found close to the blackened human skeleton. Forensic evidence suggests that the dog had been provided with a makeshift water bowl, casting some doubt as to whether or not Bede, reputedly no animal lover, had actually perished here.

When he was brought before the tribunal, the deposed leader vehemently denied any personal responsibility for sending the death squad to the allotments. Yes, he had been a contemporary of Bede’s at university. No, he had never known him personally.

In retrospect, the textual alterations, etc, might easily have been introduced with the express aim of creating confusion and a smokescreen behind which the author might conceal himself. It has also been suggested that Bede may never have been the original author. In our opinion, this is pure conjecture, and it is not our wish to raise controversy. However, we and the distinguished panel of experts we have consulted, cannot deny that certain slight inconsistencies in the style and writing technique found in the latter part of the amended version might suggest that a second author was responsible for completing the manuscript. The task would have required an intimate understanding of Bede’s complex persona.

The extreme paucity of book manuscripts of any value from before the revolution meant that we were very keen to put into production at once, the book – technically-speaking, a novella – based on Bede’s newly-discovered original manuscript. Our undertaking would certainly have been simpler had we just gone ahead and published. The continuing controversy notwithstanding, in publishing this first edition, entitled This is For You – these words scribbled, evidently in haste, across the head of the first page proof, may have been intended as a dedication, who can say? – we are confident that you, our valued readers, are being presented with the best possible, and most complete version of this work.

That was the ninth and final instalment of This is for you, the serialisation of which began here on The Blog on Friday, July 8th, 2011

What did you think of it?

Please leave a comment and look out for The Blog’s posts on Art, Architecture, Books, Design, Photography and anything that interests me and I think might interest to you

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This is For You  An autobiography of sorts
The new novel by Pedro Silmon, serialised, exclusively for you on The Blog

As previously explained, the characters within this book are fictitious and any similarities to persons living, or dead, are coincidental but, like many first novels, This is for you, is an autobiography of sorts. At 26,000 words, it is relatively short, however, it was written, re-written, edited and refined over a five year period, spanning 2001-2007, in Germany and the UK. I am endebted to David Miller at the prestigious UK literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White, to whom I was kindly introduced by Sarah Spankie, Deputy Editor of the Condé Nast Traveller; having read a draft of the text, David suggested a few changes which improved it enormously.

Part 2
A curious mixture of the combined aromas of singed hair and pipe tobacco smoke filled Bede’s nostrils. Slowly, he lifted himself up, then slumped back down on to the bench, brushing automatically, and to little effect, at his dust-covered clothes. Picking vacantly at the grit ingrained in his skin, then licking the end of his finger and rubbing it in little circles over the dried blood, he watched a small, black spider negotiate its way through the hairs on the back of his hand and disappear under his shirt cuff. Excited shouts from the direction of the lake jabbed through the dense layer of grey felt that lined his skull. Just as the boat was within a whisker of capsizing, the boat-sailing father had pulled off an amazing rescue manoeuvre. Indifferent to his father’s triumph, the little boy’s blue-eyed gaze rested solely on Bede.

Towards midday, Bede rose unsteadily to his feet and bent to retrieve his pipe. It was chipped, but still in one piece, and he pushed it deep into his coat pocket. Although one of the lenses was cracked at the corner, his glasses were unbroken. White glare from the chalky paths stung his eyes. His coat hung heavily on his shoulders, and through the thick fabric, he scratched at an insistent tickling itch near his elbow. His armpits prickled, and he could feel rivers of cold sweat running down the sides of his rib cage. People had been coming and going around him throughout the morning, and at one point someone had even sat down on the bench and asked whether he was all right. Bede had neither answered nor acknowledged the other’s presence; his mind was busy and he was in no mood for interruptions.

Pigeons, and then ducks and geese, scuttled aside as he made his way shakily along the path that ran around the circular lake. Bicycles crunched swiftly at the gravel, which produced a strange, tuneless music as it bounced off their wheel spokes. Overgrown flowerbeds registered vaguely in his peripheral vision. The unkempt park bore little resemblance to the lush haven it had once been, however, the geography remained the same. He steered his body slowly round to the right and, without raising his eyes, took a familiar path, which led at a sharp tangent away from the water. Suddenly, he froze. His back stiffened and his legs bent as his head went back and his shoulders jerked forward. He sneezed powerfully; sneezing again and then again; and again. It seemed that he would never stop sneezing. Bede caught himself suppressing a grin: sneezing had always given him an intense, if momentary, pleasure. Though he had never suffered to any great extent from hay fever, certain types of pollen always seemed to set him off, then his eyes would itch and he would become anxious. Perfumes were a problem, too, and, to their credit, his female partners had, on the whole, reasonably understood this. Those who had not, had not lasted very long in his company. To avoid having to walk through the menacing massed ranks of scent counters in the main entrance areas of department stores, Bede had only ever gone in via side doors. He had never worn aftershave or cologne, and throughout his life stuck resolutely to basic, non-scented soaps, although in recent years he had not had the problem of choice to contend with, there being little else on offer.

The sneezing fit sapped precious energy from his already-weakened body, and he leaned against a brick building to steady himself. Assaulted by the sharp tang of the urinals inside, wafting down through a narrow open window above his head, with intense effort he heaved himself upright and began again to move forward. The park was large, and it was some time before he stepped out on to the pavement of the wide road that ran the length of its southern edge. He turned eastwards. It had been some years since he had ventured anywhere near the city-centre, but he had to go through it to get to where he was going, and all his instincts drove him in that direction. Despite the fuel rationing, the traffic was surprisingly heavy. Nowadays, the city’s roads once again carried the occasional horse and cart, though the clapped-out, ancient cars, bursting with people, the rusty motorcycles and the mopeds and bicycles greatly outnumbered them. Many big lorries and numerous heavily-laden buses lumbered by. As if from nowhere, a long, sleek limousine with dark, tinted windows, sailed into view, escorted by motorcycles. The other road-users swerved to let it pass. As the car came alongside him, one of the windows slid slowly down just far enough to afford Bede a brief glimpse of the man and small boy who occupied it.

Entering a subway just beyond the park gate, Bede got caught up in the solid flow of people heading towards the underground trains, which, he was surprised to see, on that day at least, appeared to be operating, though it made no difference to him. Without papers, even if he had wanted to, he could not have travelled on public transport.

There were many exits from the station, and although he was certain that he knew which one to take, he emerged beside an enormous, white, classical arch, marooned on an island of overgrown grass, completely surrounded by traffic. Through the fumy gaps that opened and closed between the moving vehicles, he could just make out the point where he should have been. Descending the gloomy, littered stairway again, he tried to keep his head angled and his eyes fixed in the right direction. It was not easy, and once he got below ground, it proved impossible for him to move in a straight line. The labyrinth of tunnels was disorientating. He felt dizzy and lost his balance, then banged his head hard against a tiled wall before finding himself, once again, at the point where he had first entered the subway.

Several of the kicks he had received earlier had been extremely hard. There was an area on his back, just below his left shoulder blade, which began to stiffen and ache. As he paused and twisted his arm around so he could massage the tender area, a dense mass of bodies spun him round, swept him up with them, and bore him back down the stairs. Indistinguishable from more-or-less every other female he ever saw now in the streets, the women were almost all dressed in very short, black leather skirts, below which their black suspenders extended down over expanses of white thigh. The suspenders supported sheer or fishnet, randomly torn and laddered, black stockings. Others were in skin-tight vinyl trousers, with tartan loincloths flapping around their buttocks. Every one of them had a white powdered face and wore eye make-up in strong colours, with lots of black liner. Their lips were also black, or sometimes purple. Tall, peroxide blonde or dyed black cockscombs sprouted from the heads of some the men and a few of the women. Others, of both sexes, had teased their hair into spikes. Some wore studded dog collars. All of the men were clean-shaven, and many were dressed from head to toe in short, zipped, black leather jackets and trousers with slogans and swastikas crudely daubed or sprayed across them. They had on capped-sleeved, white or black T-shirts, slashed open at the front. Narrow, black trousers, loosely belted across the back of the knees, which somewhat restricted their ability to walk, were favoured by a few. Safety pins were haphazardly attached to all of their clothes; they had poked them through their eyebrows, and around the tops and lobes of their ears; a small number had even put the sharp ends into their mouths, pierced their cheeks and fastened them on the outside. What looked like lengths of toilet chain – which the women, especially, appeared to enjoy sucking on – were looped between one safety pin and the next.

Bowling forward, the merry, heaving crowd, on their way together somewhere in a hurry, sang loudly in accents that were incomprehensible to Bede. He felt sure that they had been drinking alcohol, or were on drugs. Several of them reached out and draped their arms amiably around his shoulders, vehemently insisting that he must go along with them. Their frank camaraderie intoxicated him, and after the briefest instant of hesitation, he abandoned himself with pleasure to their will. Their voices ricocheted off the graffiti-covered tunnel walls, as they dragged him, laughing with them, down the long slopes and up the stairways then out once again into the open air. Bede could not remember when he had last felt so happy. Miraculously, he was delivered at the exit he had been seeking, and, somewhat reluctantly managing to disentangle himself from his new-found friends, he was soon alone once more. He paused briefly, listening as the fading voices moved off to wherever the crowd was going, then continued on his way.

Powerful shock waves hit him suddenly, square across his back, jarred his rib cage and almost made him fall, as a deafening explosion burst out from the underground station he had just left. A plume of black smoke rose quickly, stopped, and then spread out slowly in the sky. Steadying himself, he swayed and dodged forward away from the screaming, between the frightened masses running frantically past.

Presently, he arrived at a wide, open square with a river of traffic now surging, now piling up, around its perimeter. A classical building of delicate proportions extended the entire length of the north side. Bede recalled that it had once been a great gallery, with a magnificent and renowned collection of some of the very best items of historically-important, international art. A wave of unfamiliar emotion welled up in his stomach; his throat tightened and his eyes filled with tears. Suppressing a sob, he saw that the building’s entire exterior – the delicate cupola, the massive, colonnaded façade, the grand stone steps leading up to the vast portals, what remained of the decorative iron railings, and even the pavement below – had been obliterated by multi-coloured, multi-layered, spray-painted graffiti. He would have liked to cry out, but that would have drawn attention; people would have noticed and he could have been reported.

A few nervous-looking protesters had erected banners around the base of the tall, finely-carved, stone column near the middle of the square – which, Bede recalled, had once supported a statue of some naval hero – and were beginning to attract a crowd. Their demonstration was of no interest to him, but to walk around the perimeter would have taken about three times as long as crossing directly over the square, so he began wading through the stationary cars to get on to it. The speeches started just as his foot touched the kerb of the island. Simultaneously, a hundred or so massive horses, surmounted by armoured, baton-wielding militia, clattered from their hiding place in a parallel street, and charged at the protesters. The militia must have decided beforehand that the sound of the first amplified voice would be their signal to act – and act they certainly did, with the utmost brutality. As the batons swung down and bludgeoned the helpless demonstrators, a great wave of pigeons swept slowly up into the air, circled low over the furore, momentarily masking the obscenities and appearing to calm the chill atmosphere. But the illusion was short-lived: before the birds alighted on the far side of the square, the paving stones ran red with blood. Turning his back and ignoring the shouts and screams of the battle, Bede retraced his steps and cautiously made his way around the perimeter of the square. A small, timid-looking dog appeared from nowhere to tag in his wake.

Bede’s head was gradually becoming clearer. Again, he felt an irritating itch, and, with a rapid movement, he slapped the back of his shirt collar to his neck. Reaching inside with two fingers, he pulled out the remains of the elusive little spider last seen disappearing up his sleeve. He stopped and held them up to examine them closely. The spider’s body lay still, its lifeless legs folded inwards, in his cupped hand. He regretted having been responsible for its death, but felt relieved that he had killed and not merely maimed it. He tipped the tiny carcass gently on to the top of a low wall, and continued on his way.

Shortly, he came to a wide street, at the middle of which stood what had been, he remembered, a very grand hotel. The building was intact, and looked well-maintained. Armed guards stood on either side of the main entrance ushering dark limousines into the underground car park. Bede had memories of taking a girlfriend for cocktails at one of the hotel’s many bars, years before, but that things had not gone the way he had planned. Having booked a double room for the night, he had limited himself to only two dry martinis, while she insisted on trying as many sickly, multicoloured concoctions as possible. Consequently, after a couple of hours, he had ended up having to manhandle her into a taxi, and to pay the driver in advance to offload her in the seedy, outlying district of the city in which she lived. Feeling sorry for himself, and being unable to sleep, he had floundered about alone in the enormous hotel bed. Suddenly, the telephone rang in the darkness, and, reaching blindly for it, he knocked a glass of water on to the floor. The silky-voiced male on the other end of the line introduced himself, and told Bede that he had noticed him going upstairs alone, and wondered if he might perhaps like some male company. Telling him smartly to fuck off, Bede smashed down the receiver, pulled out the jack-plug and leapt out of bed to check that his door was firmly locked. In the morning, making sure that he made no eye contact with any of the male staff, he skipped breakfast and hastily checked out.

All of the shops and cafés he now passed were open for business, but crouching in the doorway of each was a figure wrapped in a blanket, or lying in a sleeping bag on a sheet of cardboard. Ratty-looking dogs accompanied several of them, and each had a handwritten sign. One had taken a plastic traffic cone, cut off the pointed end, and rested it on a small radio, so that the sound of it was impressively amplified. They stared harshly up at everyone who passed by, taunting them aggressively, and thrust forward white paper cups, like the ones used in vending machines, containing a few coins. Bede, who had never before in his life given anything to charity, paused briefly to fish about in his pockets until he found a token and tossed it into the nearest cup.

He trundled purposefully on, his destination still a long way off. The sky darkened and it began to rain, causing the pavement people to scuttle, crab-like, inside their doorways. After a time, his hair became plastered to his forehead and then over the rest of his skull. Raindrops collected in his thick eyebrows, then ran down into his eyes, making it difficult for him to see where he was going. His drenched coat felt heavier, and his trousers wrapped themselves around his legs. The trousers themselves became longer as the sticky tape that held up their hems, like those of all of Bede’s trousers, came loose. Water seeped down around his ankles and into his shoes. He could feel his woollen socks drawing it towards his toes.

A little while later, the rain petered out. As the clouds receded and thinned, the bright sun reappeared. Shiny-leaved plane trees hung heavily over an encampment of scruffy, makeshift tents in an overgrown square pockmarked with the sodden, black remains of fires. Bede continued on through an area where ancient town houses lined wide, potholed streets. Rain-soaked cherry blossom hung heavily above the derelict gardens, where gangs of small children, under the sharp-voiced direction of several women in loose, drab clothing, diligently collected huge bunches of dripping daffodils. Clearly empty now, most of the buildings were boarded up with corrugated iron. One had been partially destroyed by fire, another totally. In former times, many of them would have had numerous nameplates and bell-pushes fixed beside their front doors, but the metal parts had been removed, and only a few brass screws and ragged holes remained to indicate where they had been. Occasionally, an odd, twisted remnant of the iron railings that had contained the gardens, and which must have proved too difficult to remove, clung to a wall. The wide, stone-flagged pavements were in bad repair, and caused Bede to trip, once almost pitching him down into a filthy, exposed cellar cavity.

The light was changing. It was perhaps around six when he sharply altered direction. At one time, he remembered, when he had worked nearby, it had always been possible to know what time it was by listening for the church bells, of which there had been many. Now they had all gone: no clocks were displayed in public places anywhere, and ordinary people were prohibited from wearing watches. Even in his dazed state, some inbuilt security mechanism had prevented him from going straight to his destination. Crossing the river and feeling a little unsteady, he paused near the middle of the bridge and quickly turned his head to see if he was being followed. ©Pedro Silmon, 2011

Don’t miss the ninth and final instalment of This is for you, which follows next
Friday, 2nd September

What do you think of the story so far?

Please leave a comment and look out for The Blog’s posts on Art, Architecture, Books, Design, etc, which continue to run alongside the This is for you serialisation

Share this post

This is For You An autobiography of sorts
The new novel by Pedro Silmon, serialised, exclusively for you on The Blog

As previously explained, the characters within this book are fictitious and any similarities to persons living, or dead, are coincidental but, like many first novels, This is for you, is an autobiography of sorts. At 26,000 words, it is relatively short, however, it was written, re-written, edited and refined over a five year period, spanning 2001-2007, in Germany and the UK. I am endebted to David Miller at the prestigious UK literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White, to whom I was kindly introduced by Sarah Spankie, Deputy Editor of the Condé Nast Traveller; having read a draft of the text, David suggested a few changes which improved it enormously.


Part 1 continued…
Chapter by chapter, Bede’s life came together, took shape and seemed to follow some sort of direction. It was a slow process and throughout, he was always eager, always keen to speed things up. He was anxious about leaving anything too long, lest, through his tardiness, he missed out on something else – perhaps the fame that he knew he had always merited but never thought he would attain. It worried him that he was not better able to control his life, that he could not simply escape the seemingly ineluctable destiny of obscurity, which clung to his legs, dragging him down. He made a momentous decision: he was determined just to be himself, and to act entirely in his own interests, on his own intuition. No longer would he accept the advice that others offered him. Never again would he even pretend to be a reasonable sort of person, unless appearing to be so would bring him more quickly towards his own goals. He would not tolerate diversions or obstructions. He told himself that he knew exactly where his talents lay, and that he knew how to use what he had been blessed with, in order to get precisely where he wanted to be. Up until then he had often asked himself if anything could possibly be more interesting than what was going through his own mind. Though he almost always took great pains not to appear downright rude, he lacked patience and rarely listened to what anyone else had to say. Someone would ask him something, then be forced to repeat the question, as Bede turned towards him with a blank face. He would struggle and appear to make some effort to focus on the subject of the enquiry, but he found it difficult and irritating to have to let go of his own thoughts.
Knowing and understanding himself so well now, he invented his own maxim:

SELFISHNESS WORKS ONLY WHEN YOU KEEP IT TO YOURSELF

He thought it sounded rather clever, and this was as close as he ever came to the subject of philosophy, with which he had no wish to become involved. Actually, he was rather frightened of it. He despised intellectuals because they confused him and spoke a language that he could not grasp. He refused to accept that there was a level of thought way above his head, with which others were capable of grappling that would always escape his understanding.

Sometimes, when he was feeling low, he would go for walks in the cemeteries where famous people had been buried. It gave him an enormous sense of relief and reassurance to walk among their grand and pompous monuments. In fact, the more ostentatious the structures, the better they made him feel. He felt little respect for the expired scientists who, before dying, had insisted on having their equations inscribed on their gravestones, or for the dead composers with their treble clefs, their crotchets and their quavers. Bede made a will in which he categorically insisted that, when he died, his body must be cremated: his work would be his only monument.

**********

Pencil in hand, head bowed, glasses near the tip of his handsome nose, Bede padded endlessly back and forth along the corridor that ran the length of the building. In his stocking feet, deep in thought, he was both alert and distant. It was late evening, and, as usual, only a few stragglers remained in the offices. His arms were folded around a piece of wrinkled typing paper, and every so often he stopped, pushed the paper up against the wall and scribbled some note or amendment. His repetitive passing of the familiar markers along the way – the uprights dividing the glassed-in offices, the coffee machine, the photo-copying room with its gentle humming, the notice board, the red fire extinguishers and the untidy piles of old newspapers and magazines on either side of the office doors – lulled him into a meditative state. As he reached the point when his mind transcended the mundane surroundings, his creative juices surged. Discarding his shoes helped him to relax, but he was aware that many of his colleagues regarded it as affectation.

Bede struggled to do any real work during normal office hours. There were, of course, the mandatory morning conferences in the editor’s office, attended by all senior staff, to which he was supposed to go. However, his predecessor had argued that, in view of the very special nature of a literary editor’s close relationships with writers, agents and publishers, which he could maintain only by being constantly available to socialise with them at almost any hour, day or night, he might not often be able to attend. The special dispensation sought had been granted, and when Bede himself became literary editor, he simply took advantage of the inherited situation.

Although he was required to edit everything he commissioned, he produced very little of the actual writing that appeared on his pages. However, from the outset, and to the annoyance of the chief sub-editor, who saw them as part of his fiefdom, Bede appropriated the responsibility of formulating the headlines and standfirsts that introduced each of the pieces. It was not long before he achieved universal acclaim as a master in this field, and it was this work that he did in the evenings.

In truth, he spent most of his mornings alone, sitting in his regular café, drinking one cup of coffee after another, skimming through the latest books he had been sent for review, which his secretary had had delivered there for him.

Not one to be seen with a conventional leather briefcase, which he felt would have made him look too formal and serious, he had got his secretary to contact all of the quality carrier-bag manufacturers, to obtain samples of their products for inspection. After due consideration, he decided that none of them suited his purpose. He needed a strong, durable bag, devoid of any graphics, capable of carrying at least half a dozen books, which would not turn to sponge at the first touch of a raindrop. He sketched out his own design, which he took to the company that made the better bags. When it drew up outside the factory shed, the shiny, chauffeur-driven, company limousine that he had ordered to take him to the industrial estate out near the city’s main airport, certainly created the desired impression. Very soon, everyone from receptionist to managing director was falling over themselves in their efforts to be helpful to him. Over mugs of tea – which Bede did not touch, because he drank tea only from a cup and saucer – and shortbread biscuits that came in little cellophane packs of two – in the managing director’s overheated, grimy office, his requirements were exhaustively discussed. The company’s in-house designer was summoned. He cooed over the sketches, and brought along paper samples for consideration. Bede was given a grand tour of the production facilities, and at the end of it, ordered 200 carrier-bags. Struggling to maintain an impression of being grateful for the tiny order, the managing director, who was used to supplying bags in their thousands to the capital’s smartest shops, grimaced, gulped, took a deep breath and wrenched his face into a smile. Bede smiled inwardly, comfortable in the knowledge that he would get exactly what he wanted.

He would push the books he thought worthy of consideration into one carrier-bag, and the rejects into another. Then he took a taxi back to the office, sitting in the middle of the broad seat, the bags on either side of him. Arriving around noon, he passed them to his secretary, who would despatch the chosen books to the list of selected reviewers he had jotted down. By this time, she had opened and sorted his mail, which she arranged in neatly-ordered piles, ready for pre-lunch inspection, on his desk. Putting on his glasses, Bede went carefully through everything. Taking them off again and placing them gently down, he swiftly scribbled out, or dictated, any necessary replies. There were usually a few invitations to parties and launches that attracted his interest, to which his secretary would dispatch an acceptance on his behalf. She would then write the date in his diary, where she also inserted the favoured invitation cards. Those he discarded went straight into the bin, along with the fliers on obscure literary events, work experience applications, and so on. Bede would then disappear. Given the opportunity, he preferred to walk a little then lunch somewhere quiet, by himself, but mostly, his many and lengthy lunch appointments, with writers and editors, and anyone else it was necessary for him to see, as well as the taxi or car rides at either end, took up most of the middle part of each day. Normally, he would arrive back at the office around 3.30, whereupon he slept for an hour or so, slumped over his desk. Tea was brought in at 4.40, when his secretary invariably had to wake him. She always had plenty of time during the interim to take the bagful of unselected titles to the bookshop, and return with the cash the bookseller had paid for them. She gave the full amount to Bede, who carefully counted the money, then, according to their little understanding, handed her five per cent of whatever was earned.

Occasionally, he did not return to the newspaper at all, nor did he call his secretary to explain where he was or at what time he might be expected to return. When this first began to happen, she was naturally concerned, but, as time went on, and as he made no effort to provide excuses for his absences, she decided that the loyal thing to do was just to accept them and find ingenious ways of covering up until his return.

**********

Bede’s route to his exalted position had been tortuous. Directly after leaving university, up until the day of his dismissal only five months afterwards, he was employed on a national newspaper as a junior sub-editor, where he was only ever given what he felt were rather menial tasks. It was not quite what he had expected, and he felt his talents were being wasted.

One morning, a few days after he started, the chief sub-editor, who had noticed that Bede looked rather lost and despondent, sat him down beside his desk, on a swivel chair that had lost its swivel. Then, with an intimate wink but no explanation, the chief sub-editor disappeared out into the corridor, and returned a minute later carrying a squishy plastic cup between his thumb and middle finger. The cup was filled to the brim with a steaming, greyish liquid, which should have been tea, but smelled of coffee. With quivering hands, he placed it gingerly on the desktop beside Bede. Predictably, as his fingertips released their pressure, the liquid slopped around and welled over, leaving a little puddle all around the base of the cup. Then he bent down and reached into the deep drawer of the filing cabinet and lifted out one of a dozen or so cans of soft drinks, which, Bede saw, were stacked inside. There was a swift, sharp hiss as the ring tab was pulled, and lots of bubbling, fizzing and gurgling, as a portion of the liquid was tipped into an extra plastic cup, which the chief sub-editor had brought from the machine. The chief sub-editor took a short sip, then a longer, deeper draught, before leaning back in his chair.

He began to explain to Bede just how important the sub editor’s job was. Every detail in the newspaper had to be thoroughly checked before it went to press. For instance, a quality newspaper, such as this one, had a long tradition of publishing the complete guest-lists of all of the country’s official events. These came under very close scrutiny, and if a single title was incorrect, or a name misspelled, the company’s reputation could be irrevocably damaged. In the worst scenario, this might mean the paper had restricted access to future functions, which would have a disastrous effect. The onus for making sure that each item published was absolutely correct, fell on the subs, who took great pride in regularly accomplishing their task.

The swivel chair creaked painfully if Bede so much as clenched or relaxed a buttock muscle…

In addition, the subs were normally responsible for writing every headline, every introduction and every picture caption throughout the entire newspaper.

Bede began to think about the attraction of the dulling effects of drinking alcohol during
the day…

It was for the commissioning editors and features editors to make any major textual changes to stories, under the direction of a section editor, the deputy editor, or even the editor himself. After they had finished with them, the corrected or amended proofs, all set in single-column galley form, on long, curling strips of creamy, fresh newsprint, were stacked in the subs’ basket for final checking, before being despatched via messengers back to the typesetting room downstairs. The messengers were a mixed bunch of oddball characters; many of them were elderly, and one or two limped as a result of old war wounds. Unskilled labourers, they were nevertheless a very proud lot, who would easily become red-faced and greatly upset at the least breath of criticism. One day they were called messengers; the day after, they were transformed into editorial assistants: henceforth, anyone who dialled their number and asked for a messenger got an earful of abuse before the receiver was slammed down. It paid dividends to be nice to them, as they were the cause of many a dispute between unions and management, which mostly developed out of their being asked to account for items entrusted to them, which had not reached their destinations. Galleys they had dropped were often to be seen, scuffed and torn, among the debris that littered the building’s many staircases, although it would have been tantamount to suicide for anyone on the editorial staff ever to find them.

Bede’s work came in spurts, and in between he found he had a lot of spare time on his hands.  In order to stave off the boredom, he often devoted himself to messing around with, and sometimes completely rewriting, odd pieces of text that he found lying around the office. No one asked him to do this, but nobody seemed to take much notice either.

Close to press time one day, as they all bashed away at their typewriters and checked facts over the telephone, he noticed that the subs’ basket was overflowing with a messy heap of galley proofs. He strode purposefully over, extracted one of the longer pieces at random, rolled it loosely, and took it back to his desk to read. No one appeared to have seen him do this. The text was about the print unions, who were currently on the verge of serious dispute with most of the other national newspapers, over demands they had made for better working conditions, which the companies were refusing to meet. The topic was understandably being treated with kid gloves, and the text, which had already been vetted by the editor-in-chief and the company lawyer, who had asked for some whole paragraphs to be deleted and a few sentences to be worded more delicately, had come back to the subs for final checking and fitting.

Bede wished he had picked up something else. He knew very little about what was going on with the unions, and the subject was of no interest to him. He considered just burying the galley in the wastepaper bin under his desk, in the hope that everyone concerned would think the messengers had mislaid it, but it was too risky. If anyone had noticed him taking something from the basket, he might be asked to account for it, unless he was seen also to put something back.

Having little else to occupy him, he began to work his way down the first column. For the benefit of the newspaper’s readers, the senior editor responsible for writing the piece, had attempted to explain in a fair and even-handed sort of way, the complexities of the disagreements that had led to the current volatile situation, in which, at the drop of a hat, the unions might easily bring production of the country’s biggest titles to an abrupt halt. He went on to talk about historical precedents for the current state of affairs, and finished with a few very generalised suggestions for ways in which unions and management might work together to build a better future for the whole industry. It may have started life as something a little grittier, but, in its edited state, Bede decided, this was very bland stuff indeed. Indifferent to the excruciating efforts and painstaking checking that had gone before, he concluded it could do with a little beefing up. Picking up a ballpoint pen, which was red, just like the lawyer’s, he proceeded to cancel some of the lawyer’s marks. Mimicking the lawyer’s hand, he scribbled the printers’ correction mark ‘stet’, and dashed off broken underlines beneath contentious, excised passages, which he wanted reinstated. The subs would, he knew full well, take it to mean that the lawyer had changed his mind, and, after a brief final check on grammar and punctuation, would send the proof back to the typesetting room from where it would be sent to print. On this particular day, the editorial assistants proved well up to their task.

Bede ignored the braying pickets, who had appeared at first light to line the pavement outside the building the following morning, a few of whom he recognised, having worked alongside them only the day before. He kept his head erect and avoided any direct eye contact as he walked past the policemen and the television crews, toward the main entrance. The familiar, heavy smell of printers’ ink filled his nostrils, as he stepped inside the door and came face to face with the familiar uniformed commissionaire, who was under strict instructions never to allow him to enter the newspaper’s offices again.

Undaunted, and taking the calculated risk of simply lying about his previous experience, he quickly obtained an interview for a job that he saw advertised. He had learned enough to know that, in newspapers, everything depended entirely on how well you hit it off with your potential boss. If he liked you, you were in, never mind whether or not you had the right academic qualifications for the position. On the other hand, an unappealing applicant’s references would be thoroughly scrutinised for the necessary ammunition to compose a letter of rejection.

Through the fortunate coincidence that a somewhat naive, temporary secretary had made the appointment, his interview was scheduled for three in the afternoon. He had applied for the job of assistant to the literary editor, who, as befits someone in that elevated position, eventually appeared at around 3.45, after what had been a long and evidently rather boozy lunch. Bede, who had arrived at ten to three, had been asked to wait in his office, and was taken aback when without warning, the door banged open. The literary editor shook Bede’s hand, rested his bottom fleetingly on the corner of the desk, then slid into his chair, unbuttoning his coat and picking up his telephone, all in one continuous and very fluid movement. Coffee ordered, for the first time he looked in Bede’s direction, and smiled. Dressed in a well-cut, mid-grey flannel, single-breasted suit, blue shirt and bold, dogtooth-checked, red-and-navy tie, he was dandyish, well spoken and in his early forties. It worried Bede that he was being looked over rather than looked at, until suddenly he was asked where he had got his suit and what it had cost. His answer was met with complicit, nodding approval. Over the coffee, into which the literary editor sloshed a good deal of cognac and invited Bede to do the same, the questioning moved on to whether or not Bede could remember his first fuck, and what sort of final score he intended to achieve before he retired from the field.

Out in the street, the interview comfortably behind him, Bede felt sure that his modest, direct answers had stood him in good stead to clinch the job. It seemed to him that the literary editor had been in a philanthropic mood and keen to contribute to his future education.

One fuck, not his first, had flashed through his mind, but he certainly had had no intention of sharing the memory with his potential future employer. He had been at it, doggy-style, with a lusty young nurse he met though friends at university, when she arched her back and farted loudly. After an instant’s pause, they had both collapsed, rolling around in fits of laughter.
©Pedro Silmon, 2011

Don’t miss the sixth instalment of This is for you, which follows next
Friday, 12th August

What do you think of the story so far?

Please leave a comment and look out for The Blog’s posts on Art, Architecture, Books, Design, etc, which will continue to run alongside the This is for you serialisation

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This is For You An autobiography of sorts
The new novel by Pedro Silmon, serialised, exclusively for you on The Blog

As previously explained, the characters within this book are fictitious and any similarities to persons living, or dead, are coincidental but, like many first novels, This is for you, is an autobiography of sorts. At 26,000 words, it is relatively short, however, it was written, re-written, edited and refined over a five year period, spanning 2001-2007, in Germany and the UK. I am endebted to David Miller at the prestigious UK literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White, to whom I was kindly introduced by Sarah Spankie, Deputy Editor of the Condé Nast Traveller; having read a draft of the text, David suggested a few changes which improved it enormously.

Part 1 continued…
Bede managed to get a place at a good university on the strength of his writing talents, having, much to his own bewilderment and annoyance, just scraped through the entrance exams. Once there, he expected to become something of a shining light, but soon realised that many lights shone far more brightly and attracted more attention than his. He tried hard, but never managed to become anything more than a distant satellite of the in-crowd, the select club that was never going to accept him as a member. He told himself that he was an individual, that he did not need them, and that, anyway, they would come around eventually. They never did. Nevertheless, he did gain some followers of his own. They were excited by his apparently nihilistic attitude, by the fact that he really did not seem to care about anything. His admirers failed to realise that he was taking no political stance: apart from his collecting obsession, he genuinely cared only about himself. He used them all and ruthlessly took advantage of anything they had to offer. To him they were idiots, and later, after the degree ceremony, he dumped them.

**********

During Bede’s undergradute years, a growing sense of disillusionment was building up throughout the country, against the long-serving, centre-left government. At Bede’s university, as at many others, the student union became more and more radical. Its leaders, who would have no truck with the right-wing opposition parties, loudly condoned anarchy, and urged the student body to take part in anti-government marches and rallies. To raise funds, which they claimed were to support anti-racist organisations, homeless people and striking miners, they held concerts with live bands, in the main hall of the college every Friday evening. It was the punk era and things tended to get a bit wild.

At one such event, when, as usual, the band sneered and spat at the audience frantically pogoing and slithering around below them on the beer-swilled dance floor, everyone, including Bede, got very drunk. The first floor hall was jam-packed and the music was fast and loud. Close to midnight, when the event was scheduled to end, he found himself staggering through and down towards the toilets. A group of two or three figures, one of whom he vaguely recognised, hurried towards him. At the very last second, they grudgingly separated to allow him to pass. Unusually, the lights on the stairs, on which he now slipped and fell and got soaked, had been switched off. There was water everywhere. He struggled to his feet and reached the ground floor. In the dim, greenish light emanating from the open door of the toilets at the far end of the corridor, he could make out large, sodden pieces of heavy, cream-coloured paper, floating past his shoes. During its four-hundred-year history, the university had amassed a world-renowned collection of ancient and modern books, prints and manuscripts. Ex-students who had gone on to become national, and sometimes world-famous authors, had donated many signed first editions to the archive. In front of him, the doors of the university library stood wide; an abandoned fire-hose lay uncoiled on the floor between them. Bede switched on the light only briefly, but for long enough to see that someone had been inside and thoroughly drenched the lot. He ran outside and threw up.

**********

Bede looked himself up and down in the mirror. In his adolescence, he knew that he was never going to be very big, but he told himself to think tall and was sure that it had at least made some difference. And though he eventually grew to only average height, he was certainly not small. He stood very straight, walked with his head held up and shoulders back. His body was not noticeably muscular, but he had reasonably broad shoulders; he was slim and had what he considered to be a nicely shaped bottom. Bede made the best of himself. Clothes looked good on him. He took great pains to dress well, to go to a good hairdresser, and to make sure he was always clean-shaven. He considered that he was lucky to get few spots. To ensure his skin retained a smooth, even texture, he used a moisturising cream every day and ate a lot of fruit. He regularly trimmed and buffed the nails on both his hands and feet, and always removed any stray hairs protruding from his nose or ears. Having read somewhere that it was the done thing, he even thought about trimming his pubic hair, but the idea of actually getting down to doing it, made him cringe, so he never did.

When he was still living at home, his father and mother had pressured him into doing something to help out around the house. They had become angry when they found Bede loafing about, apparently doing nothing, so they attempted to make him do little jobs. However, he was always doing something; most of the time his mind was totally occupied with thoughts of girls, or in trying to devise ways of avoiding any type of work that they might thrust upon him. He spent many long hours dreaming up schemes that would enable him to simply come by money, rather than earn it, so that he could afford his various pleasures, including buying more books for his collection.

Bede was fond of ironing his own clothes. He regarded ironing as a pastime rather than a chore, and derived great pleasure from carefully fastening the top button of each freshly-ironed shirt as he placed it lovingly on a wooden coathanger to air. He even ran the iron swiftly over his underpants, and occasionally his socks, before arranging them in their appropriate drawers. This obsession had begun from the dissatisfaction he felt with the way his mother ironed his shirts: the fabric on the cuffs was always creased, and where she ironed over the buttons, shiny indentations appeared on the reverse side. One day he decided to intervene. He stepped in – oblivious of the upset he might cause – and usurped his mother’s position at the ironing board. He would have gained nothing by doing the washing-up or the vacuuming, activities which he loathed and had so far managed to avoid. Taking over the ironing of his own clothes had been a calculated ploy, which resulted in a smarter Bede never being asked to do anything else at home.

At university and when he began working, ordinary, regular leisure pursuits existed perhaps less in Bede’s life than in those of his peers, with the exception that, every morning, almost without fail, even in the most atrocious weather, he would get up early and go out jogging. He could not bear the thought of ever getting fat, and went out and spent a lot of money on the right sports clothes, because he felt he could perform much better when he looked good. His hair was straight, but it was the kind that stuck out in all directions after it had been slept on, and, as the thought of wearing a hat was repugnant to him, his departure was always delayed while he attempted to flatten it with water. He tried to run normally, but he could never come to terms with what normally meant. Most other people, he noted, seemed to have no problem with the concept, and just got on and ran. Why, then, he asked himself, did he find it so much trouble just to let his body and limbs do their jobs to create a running motion that simply propelled him from A to B, without his ever having to consciously think about it? He did not really know. It was like that, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nevertheless, it bothered him. If all went well – if he was not chased by a barking dog, or accosted by a pervert –  he would be away for about an hour. Afterwards, he would shave, shower and have a leisurely breakfast, during which he would read one or other of the books he was trying to get through so he could move on to the next.

He had dismissed the idea that he might one day need glasses: always having had an amazing ability to pick out details at very long distance, he had boasted that he had perfect vision, although he had never, since he was a small child, had an eye test. The fact was that, as he entered his twenties, he slowly became conscious of being no longer capable of focusing on anything close up to his face. Attempts to do so, especially in poor light, resulted in his becoming irritated and developing a fuzzy headache. Lying in bed at night with a book propped in front of him he found that he had to hold it farther away than before, in order to be able to read the type. It was only a matter of a few centimetres, but all the same it worried him.

Bede stared at a tiny red-and-white house at the end of a long driveway, while three little puffs of air, which made him start violently, were directed into each eye. The optician explained that this was to check the eye pressure. He sat before a large machine in a darkened corner, as the optician scurried about, making adjustments to it. She had helped him to place his chin in a little plastic mould, and made sure that the seat height was properly set, so that he could lean slightly forward, comfortably, with his head in an upright position. To him, the dim light and her close proximity and gentle prodding, made for an intense sense of intimacy.

Next, he had to sit at another machine and identify various numbers of little spots of light that were flashed up in different positions behind a glass screen. This was, apparently, to check his peripheral vision. The optician then steered him towards another, much smaller, slightly less dimly-lit room, and asked him a series of standard questions, the answers to which she carefully wrote down on a printed form, and there was a lot of ticking of boxes. Though it was so crammed with furniture and equipment that their knees almost touched as they sat facing one another, the room was well organised and had a peaceful, capsule-like atmosphere. Rapt, Bede felt far away from the outside world. She placed a complex adjustable spectacle frame in front of his eyes. As she rapidly tried various strengths of lenses in each side, he heard her slightly husky voice very near, enquiring gently the whole time, as to how each change affected his ability to read some small text. When this was done, she leaned towards him and came very close up to his face, so that she could shine a light into his eyes. As he swivelled them from side to side and up and down, according to her quiet directions, almost totally enveloped in the blurry, voluminous mass of her dark hair, all that he could hear was her light, even breathing. Unwelcome, harsh, bright sunlight stung his eyes, when she abruptly drew back, pulled open the Venetian blind and sat down in her seat. It bounced off the shiny equipment and created little, twinkling rainbow effects around each of the lenses scattered about the desk. She smiled, telling him that he needed only reading glasses, handed him a slip of paper with his prescription written on it and that was that.

Never imagining that he would ever have to wear spectacles, Bede had previously dismissed all spectacle-wearers as inferior, but now, faced with having to don them regularly himself, he was filled with unexpected excitement. He never wore jewellery of any sort, although he liked to have a few neat, unflamboyant wristwatches. The reading glasses would have to merge smoothly with his image.

As with most good-looking young men, he was attractive and attracted to good-looking girls. During the courtship period, when he was not so sure of himself, he made a point of being exceedingly charming, but he was careful to end each date by saying vaguely that he would be in touch. Then, as soon as he felt that a girl was hooked, he pretended that he was very busy and was not really bothered whether or not he saw her from one week to the next. Occasionally, his method failed and he never saw the girl again, but for the most part it worked insidiously, so that, after a few weeks, he achieved his aim of seeing them regularly, two or three times every week.

At first, he made no fuss if a girlfriend smoked, but he detested it. He derived tremendous pleasure from kissing, but sour, nicotine-laden breath made him retch, and before long he made it evident that he was not happy. Mostly, the girls reluctantly gave in and stopped, because he was such a good kisser, and they did not want to have to forgo their pleasure. There were a couple of independent ones, however, who just would not take the hint, and had to be given the cold shoulder. However, as he matured, he began to realise that the tougher ones were more intriguing: they represented a more interesting game, and he gradually became aware that it was their intelligence that he found irresistible, so he began actively to pursue them.

**********

By the time he reached his thirtieth birthday, there were around five thousand books in Bede’s collection. He had rented a lock-up garage in the eastern sector of the city when he first left home, and, although at that time the space had been adequate to accommodate his books with room to spare, it had quickly filled up. Lock-ups were in great demand and not that easy to come by. When he found himself in need of additional storage capacity, it was only after dogged persistence that he eventually managed to find another, tucked away in a remote area that had been given over to well-tended allotments, way out on the distant fringes of the city’s endless suburbs. The isolated and almost rural location appealed to Bede’s appetite for secrecy. The garage was in a reasonable condition when he took it over, except for some dark-red smears and scratches on the wall at the back. Not that the knowledge of its former use would have made much difference to him one way or another. If he had been the kind of person who read the tabloids, or paid much attention to the television news, he might have been aware that, some months before, the police had raided a lock-up in that vicinity, which had been being used as a torture chamber by a sadistic rapist.

Bede’s only concern was to secure safe storage for his beloved books. He was not really the most practical sort of person, but when it came to looking after his collection, his relentless enthusiasm made mincemeat of any problems that blocked his way. His new garage contained some old tyres and a few oily bits of car engine, and there were used and half-empty, spray-paint cans lying about on its stained concrete floor. Having noticed another, rather neglected-looking, garage further along the row, which had no padlock, he looked inside. There seemed to be quite a lot of vacant space around the dusty old car that had been left there to die, so he filled it with all of the junk from his.

His doors did not fit very well, and he was afraid that the rain might blow inside through the gaps so he tacked odd off-cuts of linoleum, which he found abandoned at the side of yet another lock-up, all around the inside edges. Very soon, the garage was neatly weatherproofed. Oblivious of its recent history, he sluiced down the walls, swept the floor and stacked his first boxes of books inside. Before leaving, happy with his work, he broke into the tiny store of provisions he planned to leave there, and made himself a well-earned cup of tea.
©Pedro Silmon, 2011

Don’t miss the fifth instalment of This is for you, which follows next Friday,
5th August

What do you think of the story so far?

Please leave a comment and look out for The Blog’s posts on Art, Architecture, Books, Design, etc, which will continue to run alongside the This is for you serialisation

Share this post

This is For You An autobiography of sorts
The new novel by Pedro Silmon, serialised, exclusively for you on The Blog

As previously explained, the characters within this book are fictitious and any similarities to persons living, or dead, are coincidental but, like many first novels, This is for you, is an autobiography of sorts. At 26,000 words, it is relatively short, however, it was written, re-written, edited and refined over a five year period, spanning 2001-2007, in Germany and the UK. I am endebted to David Miller at the prestigious UK literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White, to whom I was kindly introduced by Sarah Spankie, Deputy Editor of the Condé Nast Traveller; having read a draft of the text, David suggested a few changes which improved it enormously.

Part 1 continued…
Since then, he had read a lot. In fact, clearly, having read a lot was, for him, what really mattered. He did not read books in order to appreciate and to learn from what they contained: Bede simply devoured them and, once they were behind him, their pages were rarely even flicked open again. But he was choosy: he did not read just anything. He wanted the collection he had begun, to contain the right kind of books. After all, it was conceivable that one day someone other than his parents might get access to it, and if they did, it was important that they came away with the right impression. No book entered his collection unread, and, although he raced through them so that they all ran into one another and melded, making it difficult for his memory to separate one from the next, certain aspects of the contents of each naturally rubbed off, making him, almost by default, a fairly knowledgeable person. He let it be known that he was well read, but whenever he was asked a direct question about a book, even one that he had finished relatively recently, he found it difficult to remember its title, the author’s name and anything more than a few sparse details of what it was about.

His selection method was to choose an author who, he had heard, was interesting and topical, then to flick through one of this author’s books, reading odd snatches here and there, seeing if the style appealed to him. If it did, and if the cover design was not too offensive to his taste, and the type inside was not too tiny, that was it. He would immediately buy it, or, it must be said, even occasionally steal it if he was short of funds. Keen to start without delay, he often began reading books before he left the shop, and would become irritated when an assistant asked him to leave as closing time arrived. He was always particularly pleased to find an author who had been prolific, which meant he could go full steam ahead through the entire oeuvre, one book after another, excepting any volumes of short stories, which he hated, until the supply was exhausted and another of his shelves was filled.

**********

By the age of eleven, Bede had done quite well at school, so he progressed to the local grammar. He never got anywhere near top of the class in the academic subjects, but, although, generally speaking, sport was not his forte, he had been reasonably good at football. In fact, he knew he could have played like a demon if he had wanted to. The trouble was, his vanity got in the way. It was not until he entered the lower sixth that he was at last selected for the school team, and then he turned the chance down, saying that he had to help his father on Saturdays, when most games were played. Really, he was afraid of getting his nose broken, and, anyway, he hated getting dirty, or at least to let anyone else see him covered in mud and with his hair all messed up. Besides, he had better things to do with his Saturdays than to have to get up early, to put on his school uniform, to travel for goodness knows how long to some obscure corner of the city, there to run up and down a soggy, godforsaken field for an hour-and-a-half, then to find his own way home. Besides, he also realised that, if his best friend was playing, his best friend’s girlfriend would obviously be at a loose end, so perhaps the two of them might wander around the shops or go to the cinema together, and one thing could lead to another – as it eventually did. But later, in a mutual truth-telling session with her boyfriend, his best friend’s girlfriend admitted that the only other person whom she had ever kissed in the whole world, during the entire time that they had been going out together, was Bede. The next day, Bede lost his best friend, got a black eye and narrowly missed getting the broken nose he had been trying to avoid in the first place. He decided right then and there that best friends were more trouble than they were worth, and, throughout the rest of his life, he never had another.

As he became more self-aware, uncertain and concerned about what the future might hold, Bede was determined to make the best use of any opportunities that materialised to assure his own survival. The thought of going to some wild place, where he would be required to sleep for ten days in a bunk bed, sharing a hut with half-a-dozen other farting schoolboys, held no immediate appeal. Still, with foresight, he realised that the Outward Bound courses organised by the school, might provide him with certain knowledge and experiences, which could come in useful if ever he found himself in a desperate situation. Among other things, he learnt how to light fires without matches, and to cook potatoes in their ashes; which wild berries and fungi were edible, and how to find north by observing on which side of a tree moss was growing. He absorbed this new information and stored it away deep in his brain for future reference. During the regular orienteering exercises, realising that he had absolutely no talent with either a map or a compass, but, rather, possessed an infallible, instinctive sense of direction, Bede gained the respect of the other boys, who came to rely on him to get them out of situations where they might otherwise have been hopelessly lost. In gratitude, they treated him with deference, and consequently, at night, after the 10 o’clock curfew and lights out, while the wanking competitions and fun-fights raged all around, Bede was left to read his books in peace, with the help of his torch, under his tented blanket.

**********

From an early age, Bede had taken complete and utter advantage of his doting mother. Most of his books had been either paid for directly by her, or bought with money he regularly pilfered from the purse she left lying around at home, either naively or on purpose, content in the knowledge that he would help himself to whatever he needed. Although, in his heart, he thought he loved her, he was not blind to the fact that she would do anything he wished. She was one of those selfless individuals whose sole interest in life is to make others happy and had watched him grow from a greedy, selfish child into an insolent, self-centred, manipulative teenager, but had never once denied him her love. He ruthlessly walked all over her kindness, using her as his personal taxi service and servant. Spoiling him had not been anything she was conscious of: to her it was only natural to give her son anything he desired, and if that meant putting her own needs and requirements to one side, then so be it.

This state of harmony was not to last. One weekday morning, when he happened to be off school, drawing out his recuperation after a stomach bug, Bede came downstairs to find his mother dozing in an armchair. She wore full make-up, and looked at her most glamorous and attractive. He was fifteen and had never kissed a girl. He saw how they did it in films, and was sure that kissing would not be too much of a problem for him, once the opportunity to try it arose. The problem was, the opportunity did not seem to be arising, with the result that his curiosity was becoming an obsession. He did not intend actually to kiss his mother, and, indeed, he never did. But the thought had been there, and, as he leaned in close to her, closing his eyes just to get some vague idea of what it might be like, the hard, sharp slap had come as a painful shock. His ear glowed bright red, and continued to do so for the next couple of days – almost as red as his mother’s angry face. Henceforth, their whole relationship dramatically changed: his mother withdrew his privileges and began to treat him warily, just as his father, whom Bede barely saw or knew, had always done. It began to dawn on him that they considered him odd.

He kept every single book he ever read, including all of the set schoolbooks that he should have handed back. His collection, which had begun modestly on a tiny shelf in his bedroom, had grown quickly. He demanded that his mother get him extra shelves, and kept on asking for more, until all of the walls were filled up to the ceiling. At one point, he threw out his bed and began sleeping on piles of neatly-stacked novels, on top of which he placed his mattress. It was not an entirely successful arrangement; often the piles would collapse during the night, and he would wake up sprawled uncomfortably on the floor, the hard edges of the book covers jabbing into his ribs. He did not really mind, but he was concerned about the damage that might be caused to his books, which had to be protected at all costs. The problem was solved when he began putting the books into boxes, which provided a sturdy and more stable base.

On either side of his door, along the narrow landing, he lined-up bookcases, so it became necessary for his father and mother, and himself, to turn sideways in order to pass by one another. He expanded into the spare bedroom, in which he left space for the door to swing open just far enough to allow him access, his parents having firmly rejected his plan to take the door off and replace it with a curtain. Later, his father called in a surveyor to check that the wooden joists in the loft were strong enough to support the weight of the large number of boxes of books that Bede had begun to store there, which filled it almost to bursting. His mother remarked that, once upon a time, a few family things had been stored in the roof space but he pretended not to have heard her. Space had been at a premium, and everything that was in the way, had been stealthily got rid of.

His parents were more relieved than proud when he left home to go to university in the capital, especially when Bede, having rarely been separated from his books for longer than a few days, realised that he could not live without them, and decided they all had to go with him. A strange and disturbing dream, which was to recur irregularly throughout his life, made its debut the night before he left. It ran roughly as follows:

He has died and his pale body is laid out naked, flat on its back, in a compartment that has been hollowed out inside an enormous pile of books, which stands in the middle, and threatens to overflow the sides of a small, wooden ship. No land is in sight. The low sky is almost black, and a strong, cold wind whips the vessel, tossing it around on the heaving, dark waves of the rolling sea. Now and again, the movement dislodges a few books, which fall overboard and sink, then resurface and begin to disintegrate. A fire has been lit inside the compartment, and smoke seeps out through the books stacked high against the mast. Small, orange flames emerge to struggle and flicker, fighting against the wind. Bigger, more insistent ones burst out behind them. Suddenly, the roof caves in…
©Pedro Silmon, 2011

Don’t miss the fourth instalment of This is for you, which follows next Friday, 29th July

Do you know anyone like Bede?

What do you think of the story so far?

Please leave a comment and look out for The Blog’s posts on Art, Architecture, Books, Design, etc, which will continue to run alongside the This is for you serialisation

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Prologue posted on 8th July: This is for you  An autobiography of sorts
The new novel by Pedro Silmon, serialised, exclusively for you on The Blog

As previously explained, the characters within this book are fictitious and any similarities to persons living, or dead, are coincidental but, like many first novels, This is for you, is an autobiography of sorts. At 26,000 words, it is relatively short, however, it was written, re-written, edited and refined over a five year period, spanning 2001-2007, in Germany and the UK. I am endebted to David Miller at the prestigious UK literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White, to whom I was kindly introduced by Sarah Spankie, Deputy Editor of the Condé Nast Traveller; having read a draft of the text, David suggested a few changes which improved it enormously.

If you missed the Prologue, posted on 8th July, please, before continuing, go to it now.

I was only a means of making him live, he was my raison d’etre, he had freed me from myself.
What am I going to do now? Jean-Paul Satre, Nausea

When I was an adolescent, I preferred books to the world of reality, and something of that has remained with me – a slight taste for eternity. Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins

Part 1
The lingering morning chill, at odds with the sun’s harsh glare, forced Bede to pull his coat more tightly to his body. He sat on his usual bench, watching a well-dressed man who, on the pretext of teaching a small boy how to sail a sleek, model catamaran, was having the time of his life. Making the boat glide in sweeping curves across the glittery water, the man’s eyes never left it for a second. The child, wearing a serious expression and standing rather stiffly, gave his full attention to the adult’s loud, running commentary.

Bede’s first, big, bright, satisfying cloud of blue smoke sailed up into the air above him. He reopened his book and, having found his place, began again to read. Instantly, a confusion of violent shadows leapt across the pages. Hands grabbed at his hair and shoulders. The book was ripped away and he was pushed to the ground. Gravel bit sharply into his forehead and cheek. It was all over in seconds. They said nothing, just kicked him hard a few times and reached into his pocket to remove his food coupons and identification papers. Wrenching the pipe from his tightly-clenched fingers, they knocked out the burning tobacco on top of his head, and were gone.

Reading in public places had been banned. Bede was unaware of the new rule.

**********

There had been little doubt in anyone’s mind that Bede would one day become a rich and famous man. There was, however, little chance of him convincing himself that he would find real success. Bede had not been satisfied with his life. So far, it had been full of disappointments. In his mind, he had always been a mute observer, watching helplessly as his chances slipped away. Nagging self-doubt was his constant companion, and, despite an outward show of arrogance and an inner conviction that he was always, in terms of talent and style at least, streets ahead of his peers he was, not so very deep down, convinced that failure was his fate.

Bede led a stressful sort of existence, but he had chosen it for himself, and, knowing himself so well, he was satisfied that things could not have been any different. He was a highly secretive person, and was careful never to reveal more than was necessary to anyone about himself. Cool and calculating, he gave the appearance of being open, so as to be able to gain other people’s trust, a tactic that seemed to him to work especially well with women. Although he knew what could be considered to be rather a lot of people, many – in fact most of them – were entirely unfamiliar with one other. If he discovered that any of them were acquainted, Bede took the greatest care to avoid meeting those particular people at the same time. When circumstances made group meetings unavoidable, he kept the numbers small and the meetings short. He compartmentalised those he knew, never mixing business colleagues with personal friends, or older acquaintances with new ones. Inevitably, there was some crossover, but the very few people who got anywhere near close to him during his short life, were able to gather little more than the selective information that he wanted each one to have. It would have been impossible for any of them to form a complete picture, in any case, because, although he was clever enough to tell each of them what seemed to them like a lot, there were many things that he kept entirely to himself.

He told no one – well, only ever one person, apart from his parents – about his book collecting. It was not really that he wanted to keep it secret – on the contrary, he would have loved to tell the whole world about his great obsession – but he was afraid of not being able to answer the inevitable and unavoidable questions that were bound to follow. His problem was that, although he constantly racked his brain in an effort to come up with some reason to explain why he collected books, he simply did not know. All he knew for certain was that it was a passion, and he had a passionate need for something, apart from himself, to feel passionate about. Without adequate explanation, he suspected that everyone else might think that it was just a dull, rather pointless and uninteresting occupation. Their indifference would be unbearable, so he said nothing. As far as he was concerned, the less they knew, the better. The more mysterious everyone thought he was, the more he liked it, because that meant they did not think he was boring; in consequence, the more mysterious he became.

**********

Bede’s first book was on the verge of publication. More of a novella than any heavyweight tome, it had been a long time in coming, but, in the end, he had actually produced it quite quickly. To his mild surprise and great satisfaction, the rumours about the first draft caused an immediate stir. Now, the rough-bound, advance copies had all gone out, and, despite the government’s tightening of restrictions and censorship, excellent reviews had already appeared in all the important newspapers and literary journals. They said he was the one to watch. In their excitement, recklessly tossing to one side all their pressing concerns about the alarming developments in the country’s domestic politics, his agent and everyone at his publishers – indeed, in the entire book industry – became caught up in a wave of hysteria about the book’s imminent publication. There had been some talk about nominations for literary prizes; even the big foreign film studios were cautiously sniffing around. In anticipation of massive orders from the bookshops, his publishers had told him that they were increasing the print run.

Bede liked to tell anyone who asked, and even quite a lot of those who did not, that his book would be an autobiography of sorts. He had got the idea into his head that the implied ambiguity would give him licence to write just what he liked, and allow him the opportunity to disown anything that might cast him in too unflattering a light. On the other hand, it would also enable him to use his imagination to fantasise, or embroider the truth, wherever he felt it necessary. In fact, from the very beginning, this was how he had planned to describe the book to his first TV chat show host – his tongue, of course, stuck very firmly in his cheek. Although he knew he would probably never be able to pluck up the courage to pull it off, his idea was to start by carefully explaining that Western conventions of segregating fiction from chronicle were only one way of constructing literature: to that end, he had executed a limited amount of research to back up his argument. He would go on to talk authoritatively, if briefly – because his knowledge on the subject was scant, he had never himself actually read one – about the ‘I-novel’, a dominant and accepted form in oriental literature, which is essentially an autobiographical narrative but contains invented episodes. He had even found the correct foreign term to describe the genre, but he knew that, from fear of stumbling over the pronunciation, he would never run the risk of using it.

**********

Without warning, his teacher suddenly announced to the whole class that he would be playing Father Bear in the school’s forthcoming mid-winter theatre production. Bede was seven years old. He was one of those children who never put their hands up to answer a question. It was not that he did not know the right answers: he was of the opinion that he could provide considerably more correct answers than most of the others, but, whenever he was singled out, he would blush and become tongue-tied. Public praise or being told off had the same effect on him, so he kept a low profile. He thought the bear story was babyish and silly, but he struggled through the rehearsals, head stooped, knees trembling, mumbling the lines into his chest, and when the opening night arrived, stepped into the dark-brown, fur suit with the greatest reluctance. His teacher grabbed hold of him, turned him swiftly around and zipped up the back; smeared black make-up on his nose, and without a backward glance, moved immediately on to the next child. This was the closest he had ever been to her. He wished he had the courage to tell her how beautiful he thought she was and how he loved the way she dressed and the car her dapper husband drove her to school in. Another teacher handed him a brown, woollen balaclava with paler brown, sugar-paper ears sewn on to the sides, which he pulled on over his head. The windows were all closed and the radiators had been turned up high, and he immediately began to sweat. The balaclava felt rough and made his scalp and ears itch. There were five minutes to go before he was due on stage, so he ran outside to the toilets. The drizzle and the cold air exacerbated his urgent need to pee, but there was no way he could get his willie out. Mournfully, he glanced at his reflection in the rain-spotted window of a dark, empty classroom, and was surprised to find his disguised appearance pleased him.

When the performance was finally over, all of the participants were lined up on stage, under the glaring lights, in front of a vast sea of smiling, clapping parents, uncles and aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers, little sisters, big brothers, family friends… The other bears removed their balaclavas: Bede stood there soaked in sweat but kept his on. His lower back ached and his stomach was tied in knots from his efforts to hold in his pee, which he desperately tried not to think about. The headmistress made what seemed to him, an immeasurably-long, boring speech, then came along the line, smilingly handing everyone in turn, a present wrapped in shiny Christmas paper. He could tell immediately what his was. He held it tightly in both hands and stared at it. Three cheers were called for. A clatter of applause went up and died away, to be quickly replaced by the sound of chairs scraping the floor as the audience stood up to leave. As the house lights came on, Bede rushed out of the side entrance and into the dark yard. He had managed to work the zip of the bear suit down during the presentation, and now he wrenched the top half forward, pushing it and his underpants down over his bottom and thighs. Just then, an older, bigger boy rushed up and stood beside him and immediately began to pee, casually sloshing great steaming arcs across the wall in front of the two of them. Bede looked down and willed his pee to come out, but nothing happened. He could feel the other boy peering at him in the darkness. As nonchalantly as possible under the circumstances, Bede pulled his underpants and bear suit up again, and strolled back inside, where he quickly hid behind a door, biting his lip and tightly clenching the cheeks of his bottom. Through the narrow crack between door and frame, he watched the smirking older boy appear, swaggering around, searching for him. He held his breath and stepped back so that his eye moved away from the crack, as his pursuer passed and continued on into the building. In agony, Bede continued to listen and to wait. When he was absolutely sure that the coast was clear, he shot back outside.

His hot, steaming pee blasted against the wall. His head slumped forward: he blew all of the breath slowly out of his lungs, as a tide of glorious relief surged outwards from his groin and on through his entire body. In mid-flow, with dripping fingers, Bede pulled off the balaclava and tossed it away. Some of the pee bounced warmly back, sprinkling his bare thighs and stomach. Errant, warm droplets even reached his face, and he noticed a few fall on the package that was wedged tightly between his elbow and ribs. He tried to manoeuvre it farther back, but then it fell. He twisted his body, and deftly flicked the precious gift away with his foot; the pee whipped wildly across the wall. The final squirt ended up inside his underpants as he bent to retrieve his present. The damp paper tore easily away and there it was. For the first time in his life, he owned a book. And it was his. Nobody else was ever going to read it, or read it to him, or even touch it.
©Pedro Silmon, 2011

Don’t miss the third instalment of This is for you, which follows next Friday, 22nd July, when Bede, looks himself up and down in the mirror

What do you think of it so far?

Please leave a comment and look out for The Blog’s posts on Art, Architecture, Books, Design, etc, which will continue to run alongside the This is for you serialisation

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