Semi-Charmed Life (part 1)

Today I accepted a job as Head (and only) Writer of a wresting company named Hive Championship Wrestling, based on the outskirts of Nottinghamshire, close to a motorway, after a terse and mildly tense meeting in which I highlighted my objections to the role, most notably my distinct lack of wrestling knowledge. Yawning as he checked his watch, Peter Petersen, owner of HCW, self-proclaimed self-made millionaire, doubtless undergoing a mid-life crisis, admitted that he too knew very little about wrestling and the project will be a learning process for us all and by the end of the first episode of his planned television programme we will know everything there is to know about the wrestling business and forget the haters, they will hate us whatever we do, and after absently tapping his pencil on the desk for nigh on ten minutes he asked his right-hand man, Nelson, to give me my contract and for me to sign my name on the dotted line and then we could go and get drunk at the hotel bar and pitch ideas for the programme. 

At the time of writing (this is the day after that fateful and slightly surreal meeting) the arena is under construction, and judging by the designs, the arena will not be a gigantic building to match the likes of Wembley Stadium, it will be small and cosy, befitting a new wrestling company with hopes to perform on the road in years to come. First, we need to build an audience, for how can we perform live in different venues if nobody knows who we are? To begin with, Peter planned to create a travelling circus or carnival, for he had heard professional wrestling started at the circus or carnival and a lot of wrestling terminology emanates from the days when wrestlers performed for townies at circuses or carnivals, but his new wife pooh-poohed the idea because of animal safety concerns, and Peter refused to continue with his circus or carnival plans without animals like performing elephants. Success, he said, is everything. By this time he had consumed around five cups of instant coffee and might not have been in his right state of mind. Energetically kicking the table legs, he asked about my most recent job. How did I get sacked? To cut a long story short, I replied, squirming in the chair, crossing and uncrossing my feet, sipping orange juice and lemonade, 'I fell out with my fellow writers.' Scratching the back of my ear whilst gazing down at the table, I admitted I fell out with my writing colleagues over politics, for I was the only writer there with vaguely conservative views and insisted on pointing out the dire viewing figures to them, viewing figures that had plummeted as a direct consequence of their left-wing propaganda. People don’t want to be lectured on politics, they want to be entertained, I'd said, so let’s put a stop to these PC storylines and entertain people again. Of course, my colleagues grouped together and carried out a concerted and coherent campaign to cast me out of the writing team. In effect, and this shows how low they were willing to stoop, they told lies about to our superiors and blanked me at meetings. During the three months I worked there I didn’t have the opportunity to write a single episode of the thrice-weekly soap opera. Not one episode. So you see, politics dragged me down to the abyss. Nauseated by anxiety, I expected Peter to ask how he could trust me to work with my new colleagues after I failed to work with my previous colleagues, but he instead laughed and drank more coffee. Paul, the programme’s producer, shuffled his blank sheets of paper and complained bitterly about the hellish heat in the hotel room. A wasp struck the hotel window and, unconscious, dropped onto the carpet. Worried, we postponed the meeting and searched the room for more wasps, wondering where the wasp had emerged from, and then Peter played music on his smartphone and danced in a circle of his new employees. Occasionally he knocked into me, murmured a weak apology and danced on. Fair to say he had consumed quite a bit of booze before arriving here for his meeting. After forty-four minutes of dancing he turned the music off, dropped onto his bed and, lying supine, asked me to fetch him some cigars from a nearby shop.

Relieved to be out of the hotel and in the breeze, I bought a sausage and bacon cob from a refreshment van at a nearby park and ate the cob on a bench. Flies buzzed around me. Why have they chosen you for the job? What makes you stand out from anyone else who applied? Bound to be thousands of other writers with more experience than you, I thought, and some of those will know something about wrestling. Second, why does Peter act like he knows you? Were you best friends in a past life? It is as though you’ve known each other for years and are extremely tight. Wiping crumbs from my expansive thighs, thighs that rubbed together annoyingly and often painfully when I walked, I promised myself never to return to that hotel and to block Peter’s number and any other number that phoned me with regard to the wrestling job. Although I was unemployed and miserably pessimistic about my future, I would rather have stayed on the dole, securing myself three hundreds pounds a month, rather than accept a job that could only end in humiliating failure. Seemed wrestlers, even wrestlers new to a new company, wouldn’t take well to an outsider, and it was impossible for anyone to be more of an outsider than myself. Sadly, Paul approached me, dragging his feet along the pavement, ignoring everyone around him, and slowly sat down on the bench. He nodded, grabbed a handful of coins from his pocket and ambled over to the ice cream van. Three minutes later he returned with two 99 Flake ice creams (the ice cream was already melting) and two cans of Fanta. We ate and drank in silence. 'Thought you looked lonely,' he said. 

Oh yes, I had been lonely for quite some time. Almost a year now, as it happens. Too proud to admit this, I made a cooing noise and pulled a cigarette from my packet. Whenever I am thinking an issue through I need a cigarette to help me think. Whenever a cigarette is not available to me I crack my knuckles and listen to music, and sometimes I crack my knuckles so hard they ache for three or four days and once your knuckles start aching incessantly the rest of your hand aches, followed shortly after by other parts of your body until it feels like your whole body is aching. Avoiding his shining, booze-addled face, I said something about taking a few wrestling lessons for education purposes. Should be a duty of anyone working in a wrestling company, even if it’s likely to fail, I faked a cough and, leaning over, slapped myself on the upper back for an absurdly long time, and by the time I pulled myself back into a normal sitting position I had a pulsating and aching back. I didn’t mean this company is likely to fail, I said, watching three seagulls fight over half a sausage near our feet, a sausage that may have slipped out of my cob. I mean … what I wanted to say it’s only right that people working in wrestling know a bit about wrestling. Same goes for any other business. No point working in an estate agency if you don’t know anything about houses. No point working as a car salesman when you aren’t, you know, knowledgeable about cars. Why wouldn’t he say anything? There I was, yapping away like one of those rat-dogs that fit in handbags, and he's sitting there with an irritatingly serene grin on his face, spaced-out. He only moved to waft my cigarette smoke away from his face. The long-forgotten ice cream smeared his groin and thighs and the cone dropped onto the ground, scaring the seagulls away. 'All I need,' I said, 'is a bit of background. Nothing wrong with seeking information about the company I am going to work for.' Frustrated by his apparent muteness, I lit a fresh cigarette with the ember of my first and spent the next six minutes pretending to text. Doubtless he looked over my shoulder a few times, for I heard him giggling and shaking his head. You may wonder how I heard him shaking his head instead of seeing him shaking his head, for the shake of a head does not create any noise unless you are wearing cowbells or something similarly noisy around your neck. Well, he wore a light tracksuit and the tracksuit sort of creaked every time he moved. Out of the blue he rose, laughed, stretched and said, 'I’m off to see my mum.' 

I haven’t seen him since. Granted, only six hours has passed since I last saw him on that bench, and you’ll think, Why does he think he’s not going to see him again when they’re working together? They’re new colleagues, one is the producer and one is the writer, and don’t writers and producers work closely together? Looking back, I suppose Paul saw Peter and panicked. He was too proud to admit the truth and therefore continued as though he had the job when, and here is the nice twist, Peter turned him down for the job. Something about Paul didn’t sit quite right with Peter. His jowls, perhaps, or his heavy breathing. The odd way he walked, perhaps. Then again, most people have an odd way of walking, at least from what I’ve noticed, and there’s nothing wrong in walking differently to other people. Can’t help how you walk, after all. Same goes for how you look and breathe. Thinking all this doesn’t bring me any nearer to liking my new boss. Pulls me away from him. How can I get to like someone who dislikes people based solely on appearance? Seated beside me on the bench, Peter lit one of his cigars (he always keeps a few Romeo y Juliet cigars on his person) and apologised for making me leave the room. Paul simply didn’t have what it takes, he explained. Paul was accustomed to making television adverts and television dramas. Hadn’t produced a thing. 'I don’t need a director,' he said, running his hand along a coffee stain on his jeans. 'I need a producer, an experienced one.'

Now’s your chance, I thought. Now you can say what must be said, consequences be damned. Deep down I wanted the job. Craved the job. Why else did I stay silent when I could have said, Sir, the same goes for me, you know. What you just said applies to me as much as Paul. I mean, I’ve never written anything that has appeared on television. Never written anything anyone has published. Goes without saying that I thought a snail had a better chance of being hired for the job. Yet they picked me. Peter phoned me the day after I emailed my application and asked me to meet him at the Hilton Hotel in the city centre and there I was, sitting restlessly on a rather squalid and vandalised bench, listening to him say how he had wanted to return to his mother’s womb during his bout of depression a little over two years ago. This bleak period of depression appeared after his first wife, his wife of well over two decades, walked out on him. Grew tired of his avariciousness, apparently. Wanted him to splash some cash on her and resented him for not creating a joint bank account. Seemed his wife had changed more than him. One morning he turned his television on as a distraction from trying to sleep and caught a wrestling show. A rather old wrestling show, a show from the early nineties, and suddenly gained the idea of starting a wrestling company. 'A flash out of the netherworld,' he said, shifting on the bench. 'So I’m spending my money and I’m feeling happier for it. My depression is melting away. Why? Because I’m spending money.' He unfurled a stapler from his breast pocket, rolled it in his hands and muttered, 'How’d that get there?' Before setting up HCW he created a book shop. Bought an old bakery on the street where he had grown up, a street still mired in poverty, and turned it into a book shop. Did it all as a social experiment. This was around the time he planned to create his own university, an establishment dedicated to people who felt they didn’t belong, true outsiders, people who had tried the university experience and found it too raucous and false. Simply put, he planned his university to cater for around a hundred people a year, meaning only a hundred people would be allowed in, not the usual thousands as is the case with other universities, and the examinations and coursework would be so tough they’d stop at least fifty students from advancing to the second year. Same goes for the second year. Wouldn’t be happy if more than ten people graduated, he said. Separates the wheat from the chaff. Course, there won’t be any of this woke nonsense at my university. I wouldn’t allow the students or staff to ban speakers from giving talks and the banning and censoring of books and the like. It’ll soon become the best uni in the country, I’m sure of that.

Legs crossed, he flicked cigar ash onto the bench arm, rested his head back and closed his eyes. Plenty of time passed, probably close to an hour, before he suddenly sat forward, gasped and opened his eyes. 'Come on, we’ve got your contract to sign and then I’ll explain the fundamentals.' Perturbed by my pounding heart, I followed him at a distance. Once we regrouped in the hotel foyer I asked how the book shop went. 'Oh, as planned,' he replied, leaning against the reception desk. Peter is a man who naturally oozes aftershave. 'Hardly anyone bought anything. Two books sold in the first day. Tells you something about literacy rates, does it not', he said. 'Or my advertising campaign.' Frowning, he stretched, accidentally over-stretching a shoulder joint, and made his way up to his room. 'Do you want to be a wrestler, J?' A young couple clasped hands as they stepped out of the light. The tangy smell of sweets hung in the air after they had entered their rooms. Soon I heard croaky bed springs and excited giggles. Peter scolded me for calling the conference room a hotel room. Too anxious to argue, I shuffled inside the room and resumed my seat at the table. 'Where’s everyone else?' I asked. He shrugged and sat down. Extended his feet onto the table and played some music on his smartphone. This time he disconnected the earplugs so anyone else could hear the music. Nodding glumly along to 'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys, he asked what I knew of wrestling. Twisting in the seat, grateful for the blast of air condition on the nape of my neck, I answered, 'It’d be wrong of me to say nothing. The truth is I know next to nothing.' After wiping my dry lips with my sleeve I removed my jacket, carefully folded it onto the back of the seat, poured myself a glass of water and rubbed my eyes. As for wanting to be a wrestler, I mentioned wanting to train as a wrestler so I could learn the basics of wrestling and not feel a complete stranger when I enter a changing room brimming with wrestlers. Coincidentally, he had already booked me for a few training lessons at the as yet unnamed HCW training centre. 

'What do you think of the Bubble Arena?' he asked, cutting off the end of a new cigar. 

'I like it. The term bubble implies an enclosed space in which only certain things are mentioned, or certain deeds done, and for the time being, for the next year or so, we will only … what I’m trying to say is the Bubble Arena will be our home for the foreseeable future and for that time we will live in a bubble, hence the name.' I emitted an uncontrollable belch and slapped my hand over my mouth.

'Spot on,' Peter said, checking the ceiling for a smoke detector. 'Absolutely right. Now, do you know that wrestling is not a sport in the sense that football is a sport? Pro wrestling is not classed as a competitive sport. The results are predetermined. Before the wrestlers leave the curtain to enter the ring they know who is going to win and they will probably know, if they’ve bothered, how their match will pan out. Thus far, we have two experienced wrestlers, two wiry veterans who can teach the younger set the ropes, as it were.' Taking a gamble, he lit the cigar and slumped back. Acting instinctively, I snatched the contract from the middle of the table and signed it. Unfortunately the first pen I used had faded to the point of uselessness, and since there wasn’t another pen in the room I rushed down to the reception area, grabbed two pens from the pot on the desk, smiled at the receptionist man and rushed back upstairs. Peter was asleep when I returned.

What do I know of wrestling? You signed the contract. You’re employed. Three years guaranteed work. That’s if you don’t mess it up by saying or doing something stupid, or falling out with the wrestlers or delving deeper into your booze habit. I know wrestling is predetermined and the wrestlers work together to complete the moves and the audience suspends their sense of disbelief whilst watching the show. Smoke and mirrors. At least now I won’t have to worry about losing the flat and awaking in someone’s back garden, reeking with the stench of my own waste, bullied and abused by children and dogs. A few months into the job and I can leave the flat. Leaving Scott won’t be a bad thing. Scott has reached the point now where he barely speaks to me and only deigns to talk when he wants something from me. For some reason he thinks I make the best sandwiches in the world even though I have never made him a sandwich in my life. Yes, there’s a chance I made him a sandwich when drunk, but I sometimes do things when I’m drunk that I can’t do when I’m sober. A case in point: I can only leap over the hedge outside my mother’s house when I am drunk. When sober, I can barely raise my leg. Besides, Scott has undergone a complete negative transformation since meeting Stephanie, a woman who thinks the sun shines out of her backside and hair because she models for a fashion company. Good news for me: this fashion company was recently in the news for employing immigrant labour on pitifully meagre incomes. Indentured servants work in appalling conditions in factories to create cheap, short-lasting clothing for the masses. Stephanie insulted me when I brought up the subject the last time she was in the flat. Called me unemployable and a waste of space and capped it all off by calling me ugly. She’s one of those brainless and vacuous people who believe ugly people should live underground, well out of the way of beautiful people. Amused and calm, I asked her to locate Australia on a map. Did she know the dates of the First World War? Did she know what century the English Civil War was fought? Did she know the date of the Battle of Hastings? No, she knows none of those things and doesn’t want to know, which galls me more than any of her insults. Such unashamed ignorance. But she can tell you the name of every contestant on Lascivious Island, a grotesquely dull reality show set on an exotic island. As far as I’m aware, and I refuse to watch the torrid drivel for more than two minutes before I vomit onto myself, the contestants are paired and the object is to see if they make a good couple and most of them have sex on camera and spend a lot of time swimming in the sea. Would it be cruel of me to yearn for one or two of them to get carried off by the waves and never seen again? Football annoys me, too, but I’ll be here all night if I list everything I found annoying. 

'What’s up with you?' Scott asked upon my return from the glorious meeting. I had changed my mind during the walk home. For a seemingly unfathomable reason, Peter has given me, an unknown writer, his full backing, and it is my job to prove he has not picked the wrong person, that his faith in me will be richly rewarded. Munching on an apple (these days he only eats fruit and microwaveable ready meals), he leaned against the wall and asked, 'Got the job?' I nodded. 'What job is it? Another retail job? Mate, you know you can’t last long in retail jobs. What’s the longest you’ve lasted in a job? Three months?' I held up four fingers, then corrected myself and held up five. 'Five months. Wow. Where’s this job, then?'

Laughing, I slipped my trainers off, dived onto the sofa, lit a cigarette and said, 'You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You don’t deserve to know anyway, considering the way you’ve treated me for the past however long we’ve been stuck here together. You were all right when you first moved in. Then you … nah, I won’t get into it. No point saying things we’ll regret later. Better to leave on amicable terms.' Nearly choking on my victory, I stepped outside and phoned Peter, intent on asking for a favour. He didn’t hesitate to bequeath this favour. By all means you can move in, he said. Just beware, it gets a bit too cold in the winter. In the mood for a violent argument, Scott joined me outside and asked what I’d done with my life. This was after I had secured a well-paying job (that’s putting it mildly) and a luxury flat on the same day. 'Done a lot with my life', I replied, staying alert in case he sucker-punched me or threw a stone at my head. History shows he is not averse to throwing stones at me. Like I implied, a switch went off in his head when he met Stephanie, a switch marked You like J. He turned that switch off and turned on the You hate J switch. 'Things are looking up for me,' I said. Elated, I was in the mood to write a list of things I had achieved in my life and things I wanted to achieve in my life and went indoors to do exactly that, and had got as far as ripping off a sheet of notepad paper when Stephanie appeared at the door, panting after climbing the five sets of stairs to reach us. As usual, various sounds filtered through from other parts of the building, mostly coughs and laughs. I surprised myself by becoming accustomed to the pounding of loud music at night. Spent two nights tossing and turning, convinced I was going mad, before my mind zoned out from it all. Now I hardly hear noises and only take any notice when Stephanie visits, for she is always complaining about the noise. Complains so much I am reduced to fantasising about kicking her out of the flat in a non-violent and gentle manner, appreciative of her status as a high-flying model who recently appeared on the third page of the Sun. In that brief article, the showbiz writer wrote, Stephanie Charles poses in a leopard-skin bikini for the latest edition of GQ Magazine. She is due to appear on the celebrity edition of Pointless, so keep an eye out for that. Admittedly, I am relying on my memory of the article, as I don’t have the newspaper in front of me. It is a modern marvel how she is so besotted with someone as ordinary and consistently grumpy as Scott. What does she see in him? A little over three years ago I broke up with Sharon, a hairdresser and childhood sweetheart, after seven years together. We reunited at a school reunion, oddly enough, and gelled from there. As if often the case (speaking from my own experiences), there wasn’t a major overriding, overarching reason why we split. In a nutshell, we chose to go our separate ways because … I don’t quite know why. Maybe the spark died out. Who knows? Maybe we got bored of each other. People destined to stay together, life partners and the like, do not simply get bored of each other. Constipated and bloated after a heavy hotel dinner, I retied to my bedroom to write my list. 1. I am currently studying for a degree in English Literature. 2. I have just accepted a job as head (and only) writer at Hive Championship Wrestling, a new company with limitless ambition and plenty of money in the bank. Plenty of new talent, too, trained from scratch by some of the best trainers in the business. 3. Although I have only stayed at past jobs for laughably short periods, I have had a lot of jobs, certainly more jobs than you, and that means I’m doing something right. 4. I read for pleasure. You’d be surprised how many people do not read for pleasure any more. 5. I am not interested in any of the television programmes you watch. After a lengthy period of self-reflection I scrubbed out points 4 and 5 and added, as point 4, I have just secured a place at a luxury apartment overlooking the city centre and I won’t pay for the rent. Actually, the rent will be taken from my wages, but the cost of my rent will make a tiny dent in my wage packet. 

Blooming with pride and victory, I entered the lounge holding the sheet of lined notepad paper aloft and dry-heaved at the unsettling sight of them snogging on the sofa. Not here. Anywhere but here. 'Jealous much?' I asked, showing him a copy of the contract. 

'I don’t get jealous,' he replied.

'Yes you do. The jealousy’s seeping from your eyes like liquid seeps from a … I don’t know, from an orange. I just landed myself an extremely good job, arguably one of the best jobs in the country, and you’re calling me a loser who should be living out of the streets, pissing myself whilst gorging on a bottle of whisky.'

'Congratulations,' he said in a penetrating monotone. 'Well done.' Then he scrunched the piece of paper into a ball and threw it at the wall. Stephanie laughed. Her laugh did it for me. I didn’t mind him ruining the copy, for I could always ask for another copy of the contract. Besides, I didn’t need a copy of the contract, I pretty much knew it off by heart and the copy wasn’t important compared with the real thing and Peter had the real thing safely secured in his office safe. But I knew Stephanie’s laugh would stay in my head and provide fuel for my nightmares. It’s like when you occasionally know you won’t get a good night’s sleep when you climb into bed. 'Couple of demented weirdos,' I said, punting Stephanie’s sports bag. 'Freaks. I’m leaving here now. Getting out whilst I’m still alive.' My mobile rang. I rubbed moisturising lotion into my sandpaper-like hands, answered my mobile, wiped my mobile on a kitchen rag, said, 'Hello?' and went outside for another cigarette. It took me ages to get used to walking down flights of stairs for a cigarette, but when you need a cigarette you need a cigarette. Oddly, I get more breathless descending the stairs than I do ascending them. Believe me, it’s hard work ascending those stairs, and sometimes you have to step aside for strangers (everyone is a stranger here; nobody wants to get to know you, nobody cares) and sometimes you slip in a puddle or streak of urine and almost fall down and break your neck and sometimes you get accosted by the same strangers you often pass without incident and have to talk your way out of trouble. One talent of mine, perhaps my only talent, is the ability to talk myself out of trouble. Or maybe I have the sort of face that people find too innocent and trustworthy to take advantage of. Couldn’t stand another hour in that place. No doubt she’ll move in with him and spend her days complaining about the noise. Strange how she has such an affinity with the flat, yet hates it at the same time. 

Peter had recently created his own television channel, Channel Hive, freely available on Freeview, Sky and other providers. He had made bids for top-rated American shows and succeeded in securing four comedy sitcoms guaranteed to attract audiences, and had gained rights to show Super League football, the new highest football league in Europe, a league that includes teams like Real Madrid, Man City, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris something or the other, Ajax, Man Utd, Chelsea, FC Porto, Inter Milan and so on. The teams play two fixtures against each other. I am not sure what prizes the runners-up get. Anyway, hordes of football fans protested against the creation of the Super League and some of the football managers resigned in protests and the clubs not involved in the Super League and the second-tier league, the Continental League, threw hissy fits, but Peter said the world of football is better with the two new leagues. After all, the top teams in Europe kept winning the same leagues and now the lesser teams have a better chance of winning the traditional leagues and the teams in the Super League and Continental League are so good you can’t bet on who will win. The winner of the Continental League, featuring teams such as Lyon, Celtic and Arsenal, advances to the Super League. There is one relegation place in the Super League. Oh, and he has secured the rights to international cricket test matches and Major League Soccer, North America’s football league. I agreed to meet him at a nearby cafe. 

Vulgarly curious, Scott and Stephanie followed me to see if I was telling the truth and also to see if Peter wasn’t a con-man. I stood outside in the rain as they talked. Standing outside in the rain in the height of summer isn’t a bad thing, and I made the most of it by noting down storylines I wanted to include in wrestling angles. Dissatisfied with all of them, I deleted the note and added a new one, titled, Should we have a separate programme for pre-tape angles and a programme for the actual wrestling?

After half an hour or so Scott and Stephanie brushed past me. I shouted after them but they didn’t bother responding. Inside, Peter emitted a hacking cough. Concerned, the only staff member there skipped over to him and asked if he was all right. 'I can see why you don’t like living here,' he said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. 'I’m not dying, don’t worry about that. Got a few more years left in me.' Rather bravely, I asked for his age. 'Seventy-three,' he replied. Aghast, I turned my head and dug my heel into the instep of my other foot. 'Seventy-three. My son’s going to join us soon, J. His name’s Michael and he’s an executive. You’ll have to work closely with him in the future.'

I ordered a cheese and ham toastie, swiftly changed my mind and ordered eggs on toast. Runny eggs. The eggs eventually came scrambled and reeking of sour milk. I hadn’t the resolve to return it and the only staff member, a middle-aged woman with a huge paunch and a turkey neck grinned as she watched me eat. Michael soon appeared and, startled by the striking resemblance between father and son, I almost fell off my chair. Now, I have seen plenty of fathers and sons who look like each other, and mothers and daughters for that matter, but that marked the first time I saw a father and son that looked like twins. Astonished, I hung my head and played with my ice cream (the second of the day, in case you haven’t been keeping up) as they exchanged idle talk about what they were going to have for dinner and what they planned to watch on Netflix. 'Of course, Channel Hive will soon have an on-demand service,' Peter said, staring at me. Looking unhappy, Michael kept the menu in front of his face, hiding most of his nose and mouth. 'So viewers can catch up on what they missed like. I reckon the days of the TV guide will soon go. It’ll die out with the older generations.'

'Almost certainly so,' I breathed, annoyed at someone for elbowing me in the shoulder as he passed. 

'Heels and babyfaces,' Michael said. 'We need to sort our wrestlers into those two categories. Who are the good and bad guys?'

'Patience, Michael,' said Peter, rubbing the back of his hand. 'That’s J’s job. He writes the storylines.'

'I think there’s going to be … look, dad, it doesn’t take a Nosferatu to … doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict future changing room friction. The writer of the show is also a wrestler in the show. Come on!' Giddy with self-righteousness, he slapped his menu down on the table and beckoned the staff member over. 'They won’t like it. I’m telling you, there’ll be problems. Might even be walk outs.'

Hunched over, Peter slapped his palm down onto the table and yelled, 'Bloody hell!' After calming somewhat he added, 'Damn it, Michael; I’ve made my decision and I’m sticking with it. I’m relying on J not to be a power-hungry monster. I have every confidence and faith that he will give himself small parts and won’t put the belt on himself for years and years at a time. He isn’t that sort of person, Michael. You’ll understand that when you get to know him better.' He turned to me and pointed a shaky finger at my Adam’s apple. 'Your drinking, J. I need you to cut down on your drinking with the aim of quitting. Need you sober to make the most of your new position.' 

After this Peter and Michael engaged in more idle talk. Every so often Michael looked at me with a quizzical expression, as if struggling to work out whether I was fully human. As I rose from the table with the excuse of finishing my packing, he looked at me askance and asked, 'Have you and dad met before?' Peter shrugged and I shook my head. 'Met for the first time today,' I said. Back at the flat I shoved my clothes into two suitcases. Circumstance forced me to beg Scott for a third suitcase. Enjoying the power, he demanded I return the suitcase the next day. 'Suits me all right,' I said, 'cause I might have to return tomorrow to check if I missed anything.' Eyes clouding, I said I’d genuinely miss him. Obviously some of our arguments verged on the pointless and some cut to the bone and left a lingering barrier between us, but in the early days were as tight as can be and I implored him to dwell on the early, pre-Stephanie days. Shamelessly he asked me to fetch them fish and chips. I was in the mood to fetch whatever they liked within the boundaries of reason. 

Halfway out of Norham House’s main entrance (don’t ask me why it’s called Norham house. Probably named after the mediocre architect), halfway to lighting my twenty-third cigarette of the day, oppressed by a stinging sensation in my stomach, I caught sight of Peter’s limousine and sighed. Almost immediately, people crowded around the limousine, snapping photographs, trying the door handles, smearing the tinted windows with their grubby fingerprints, stepping on each other’s toes for a closer inspection. How could I merge into the crowd and then sneak into the limousine? Shouting, 'Back, Back!' the limousine driver got out and fire an air-rifle into the air. The shot only served to scare a few nervous pigeons and a large Alsatian. The shot caused a tiny yapping dog to run over to the limousine, and during the kerfuffle the doh bite two ankles (perhaps belonging to the same person) and three or four unlucky people got punched in the face. Having advanced through the crowd without touching anyone else, a feat I’d have considered impossible beforehand, I pulled open a back door, slipped inside, slammed the back door and sat back, allowing Peter the opportunity to reach over and lock the door. Two seconds later someone tried the door handle. 'Champagne?' he asked, pouring me a glass of gin. 'You’re not special, J. Michael distrusts everyone he meets. Experience usually teaches him to accept and trust them, so it’ll take time for you two to bond. I don’t doubt you will. Now, let us put HCW aside for the moment. As you know, I have other projects on my plate. In short, I need programmes for the new channel. Tomorrow I’ll get a new contract written up for you.' 

A new contract? Feigning extreme shock, I uttered an ear-splitting, swooning gasp and mock wiped invisible sweat from my forehead. 'A new contract? For new programmes?' 

'For new programmes,' he echoed, nodding. The driver started the engine and accelerated away. 'Take an age to clean the bloody thing now,' Peter said, resting his head against the window. 'You’re studying for an English degree? I have an idea you might like this.' I drew a deep intake of breath. 'Go on', I said. 'Let’s hear this.'

'You’ll be studying lots of classic books,' he said, swapping the bottle of gin for an expensive (need I put that?) bottle of champagne. 'Like that one by Homer. Not the cartoon Homer, the ancient Greek Homer. What’s it called? The one with lots of battles.' He clicked his fingers. Clucked his tongue. 'Adapt what you read for the screen.' 

'I know what you mean, Peter,' I said, cautiously pressing my hand against his shoulder. 'It’s a good idea. A TV adaptation of the Iliad would be amazing. Maybe not one written by myself, but there we are.' We chuckled. I removed my hand from his shoulder and asked, 'Where are we going now?' 

'Contacts. Find contacts for the company. No rush, you’ve got a year or so to make it work, half a year in the worst case scenario.'

And so it goes on. Easing my spinning head onto the pillow, I made a vow to disappear completely if Peter gave me one more instruction, if Peter tasked me with anything else that had nothing to do with my job description. As the writer of the show, my sole responsibility was to ensure the management - Peter and Michael - received a full and edited script four days before the show was due to air, and if I had read my contract correctly, and I had gone though all the small-print earlier tonight, occasionally spilling beer onto contract copy, I wasn’t forced to appear at the shows. Therefore, it was possible for me to live in Alaska, write the shows from an office facing snowy mountainous peaks and watch the money roll in. According to the small print, I didn’t need to establish any form of relationship with the wrestlers. But what sort of a writer would I be if I didn’t form a satisfactory bond with the people I worked with? Not a good one, I thought, straightening the bed covers. Water leaked from somewhere on the ceiling. Drip. A seven second pause. Drip. A nine second pause. Drip. Funny how Peter looks younger than Michael. The old man probably owns the Stream of Youth or something like that, probably drinks a cup of that revitalising water every morning before settling down to eat his Cornflakes and fruit. Sounded like two foxes making love outside my window. Between the hours of seven and nine I mowed the lawn, watered the lawn, planted a few plants in balcony of my new house, a detached three-bedroomed house with spacious gardens and a shed filled with empty folders. Peter had mentioned a flat and I suspected he had made a mistake in assigning this house to me. No doubt someone who expected to rent this house is now complaining about being granted a flat instead. Unless Peter meant a house all along. It’s hard to try and work out what thoughts spiral around that man’s head. Shortly before dropping me off outside this house in the limo, dismissing my concerns about leaving the bulk of my possessions in the flat, Peter said he wanted to write his autobiography and, unlike most people who wish to write an autobiography, his would be genuinely exciting, and he’d subtitle it, How to Go from Nothing to the Top. My Guide to Going from Rags to Riches! I can already envisage a grinning, spectacularly dressed Peter, the epitome of sartorial suaveness, on the book’s front cover.