Writers' Circle Short Story Competition Winner

There are only five of them here so far. That’s including Mrs Carslake and Maureen somebody, respectively the Chair and Secretary of the Wordworkers Writers’ Circle. We’re in the upstairs meeting room of St Botolph’s on a February night with the prospect of snow for the journey home. I haven’t done this venue before. I’ve had some lively times in the past with a proper supper and wine flowing free. This is not going to be one of those occasions. If no one else turns up it will be my record low audience. I only accepted this booking because as an aspiring mid-list author of historical thrillers I need all the publicity going. It’s not that I don’t make a reasonable living out of writing and a bit of teaching here and there in the Adult Education sector, but I’ve yet to join the heady crowd pulling ranks of PD James and Ian Rankin.
Maureen whatever-her-name-is phoned sometime last summer and asked if I’d be free.
‘We like to book our authors well in advance as they’re so much in demand,’ she had said. I wish. I could be at home in front of some mindless TV with the whisky bottle close at hand. What I think I’m actually about to get is a cup of tea. A biscuit if I’m lucky.
Mrs Carslake approaches, plump and busy. She’s a bit Miss Marple with a mauve cardigan that’s losing the fight with her ginger hair. Her tights are a bright blue. She hands me tea in a sturdy church hall cup and saucer.
‘There you go, Mr Macintyre! May I call you Robert?’ I summon up my best smile.
‘Do have a biscuit.’ She holds out a plate.
At least they’re a recognisable brand of chocolate digestives. I’ve eaten a few suspect home-mades in my time.
Maureen fusses around putting out my flyers on the chairs. She arranges copies of my latest potential bestseller, Murder in the Morning, on the table. The cover is dreadful. Why am I doing this?
Last month I was interviewed on local radio by some teenager about why I gave up teaching to become a writer. She wasn’t really a teenager, but has a while to go before she sees 30. I told her it had to be easier than baby-minding potential delinquents five days a week. It puts me in good company too – Alan Bleasdale, Wilfred Owen, Roddy Doyle.
Four more members arrive. Straight to the refreshment table, never mind ‘meet the author’. Once everyone has got their coat off, and stocked up with enough illicit chocolate biscuits to see them through the first part of the evening, Maureen rounds them up. She tries unsuccessfully to get them to sit on the front row. Maybe they’re afraid I’ll spit as I speak. Mrs Carslake guides me to my seat behind the table at the front as if I’m on care in the community. I’m 42.
I look round at my audience. There are only two men, one who looks like a retired surgeon and the other quite young, wrapped in a thick scarf. The temperature in here must be over seventy. The others are a mix of middle-aged women. There is one young woman, a dark-haired girl wearing an extremely short skirt. Maybe it’s as well she’s not on the front row as I’ll need to concentrate and make it lively to keep this lot awake. Mrs Carslake does the introduction. She has the eagerness of an infant teacher I once knew who used to enthuse over ‘real snow’.
‘We’re delighted and privileged to have Robert Macintyre as our guest this evening. I know that several of you are great fans of his work. I’m sure this is going to be a most rewarding evening.’ I inch forward on my seat, ready to get up and get on with it but Mrs Carslake turns to me and says: ‘However, before I ask Robert to speak I know he’ll be most interested to share a little of our work by way of a warm-up. Clive?’
The young man with the scarf stands up, a wodge of dog-eared papers in his hand, and pulls his scarf tighter round his neck. He scowls.
‘Thank you, Fern. This is an extract from a longer poem entitled My Dream, My Despair.
And we are subjected to a very long ten minutes of unrhymed, unrhythmic and metreless alleged poetry detailing Clive’s personal struggle with writing. Which is sadly all too apparent.
I don’t want to be unkind, we all have to start somewhere, but there must be some sort of rule about cruelty to visiting speakers.
Next up is Araminta, her exotic name bearing no relation to her thin greyness. She puts a pair of half-spectacles on the end of her nose and reads from ‘my current work in progress.’ This is one of the raciest passages I have ever come across outside Danielle Steele. Araminta sits down to a stunned silence. Mrs Carslake has turned a delicate shade of pink, Clive wriggles in his seat. Maureen gets up to turn down the steaming tea urn. I feel it’s only polite to applaud and everyone joins in enthusiastically. Then it’s me.
I start with the usual ‘how-I-came-to-be-a-writer’ stuff. It’s quite difficult to strike a balance between ‘my struggle’ and ‘anyone can do it’. I remember being disheartened by all the articles telling you what a desperate game it is trying to get published, so I tell them that the great writers of the past never went on a course or read a ‘how-to’ article in their lives and the thing is just to get on with it. They nod and murmur a bit at that.
Next I read them an extract from Murder in the Morning, because that’s what they expect. It helps them to decide whether it’s worth buying a copy at the end. I have to explain about the cover. It shows a buxom young woman and a dark young man so that it has the appearance of a classic romance. It’s actually about a female Jack the Ripper. I briefly consider a wisecrack about Jackie the Ripper but, looking round my audience, decide against.
Instead I read them the bit about the details of the first murder. A couple of sharp intakes of breath when I get to the bit about the knife, but at least it keeps them awake. Then I sit down. They all clap. If every member buys a copy that will mean about eight pounds and one penny’s worth of royalties, less tax.
Mrs Carslake clasps her hands together and beams round.
‘How thrilling! I’m sure we’d all love to read more. Now, we’ll have a little break for tea and then I’m sure you have lots of questions to ask Robert.’
During the tea break I’m monopolised by Clive and his scarf. I try to explain patiently that poetry is not my field. I’m rescued by Mrs Carslake.
‘Do come and meet Hilda, she’s our published member.’
It turns out that Hilda has had a couple of stories printed in a small press magazine specialising in tales of the unexplained. She grips my arm, almost knocking the tea from my hand. She puts her face close to mine and breathes the synopsis of a tale of alien spirits lurking in shopping malls throughout the land. The story doesn’t scare me, but Hilda does.
‘You see,’ she says, ‘I know we’re not alone.’
I am saved from having to respond by Mrs Carslake calling everyone to order.
Question time. The author on trial. They begin according to the usual pattern with members asking about what you’ve just spent 45 minutes telling them the answers to. Then Clive gets up.
‘I’d like you to tell us how you conduct your research into the actual details of the killings in your books.’
Easy one. I give them the stock answers about using sources such as the police, tame experts, libraries and the Internet. Then Clive comes back with a supplementary. There’s a bit of shuffling. Clive is starting to hog the proceedings. I’m not to keen on his insistence either.
‘What I really want to know is how you investigate the minute details of what you write. For instance, in Death of a Stranger you go into a most realistic seeming description of the mutilation of the body. Can you enlarge on that?’
At this point I’m not sure if he wants me to elaborate on the mutilation or the writing thereof, so I hedge.
‘All I can say to you all is that, if you want to write thrillers, you must do meticulous research into every detail.’ Then I sit down. That’s it. Finish. Clive scowls again and burrows into his scarf.
Mrs Carslake stands up quickly. It’s half past ten and the cocoa’s waiting at home. She says the usual things and there’s the usual applause. We all mill about for ten minutes and I sell four books and sign them. Three pounds fifty-six to me.
Maureen gives me the envelope with my modest fee. I collect my remaining books and put on my coat. Goodbyes are exchanged. Clive walks down the steps ahead of me as I go out on to the cold city street and head for the station. Maybe I’ll have time for a bit of research before the last train. l

Shortlisted
Entries shortlisted to final judging stage in the Writers Circle short story competition were from: Jim Dunning, Great Glen, Leicester; Vic Heaney, Puivert, France; Jacqueline Kennedy, Huddersfield; Mary Keyser, Cambridge; David Lazell, East Leake, Loughborough, Leicestershire; Jacquelynn Luben, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey; Sue Pickard, Epsom Downs, Surrey; Carol Purves, Hockley, Essex; Tony Roberts, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex; Maria Savva, Hertford; Wendy Warner-Smith, Evesham, Worcestershire.