An Old Pub Near the Angel (22 page)

Then I glance over the manuscript for ten minutes, yawn and make another cup of tea. Nothing against worldly private eyes, except how fucking boring they are. Imagine having to write such shite. It doesn’t even warrant an exclamation mark. The ghostly appearance of one returned via Jeremiah Brown in
You Have to be Careful in the Land of the Free
.

Mary Gray Hughes was not so keen on my story ‘Not Not While the Giro’. It was a bit too flashy, she thought. But I liked it. It was necessary, I had to work a way through the dimensions and that section was fundamental. If I had found the way through it, in it, and out it, then who knows. I should have explained to Mary Gray that originally it was a central section of an unfinished novel. But I always resisted explanations, as a rule of thumb. If you enter into one it usually means yer story has failed.