Dating : The Killing of What

Cammie sits at the kitchen table with my manuscript, preparing to do battle with the forces of literary evil. I raise her Hare Krishna mug — an Earthday gift — to my lips and sip some bitter shit she’s forced on me again. I read somewhere that green tea, being both an appetite suppressant and a laxative, is like nectar to women.

But I’m not a woman; I need a beer.

As if reading my thoughts, she looks up abruptly. Genghis Khan shouts an ancestral Holla! from her almond-shaped eyes as she says parsimoniously, “So, what have you written now?”

I apply my stock-in-trade salve to the wound. “Yes, I have.”

As usual, Cammie ignores my droll deflection. “Your main characters in this book are white. Don’t you think you should appeal to a more natural audience?”

My eyes flick to her hair, a mass of … natural bouncy twists: each one individually exuding a rich coconut scent. Her mocha-cream skin highlights high cheekbones, and my rising dissension is muted by her beauty. Cammie has one response to the idea that a writer’s characters can actually dictate some aspect of their own individuality. Bullshit.

She also has a singular eye-rolling habit with which she greets any of the genres I write in. “There’s no demand among the UK black readership for science-fiction, horror, or any of those woo-woo genres you love so much, What. In any case,” she adds amicably, “writing isn’t about simply grabbing a pen and scrawling across the page.”

Scrawling …?

My hackles are beginning to rise.

She continues. “Your reader should be left salivating for the next words.”

Right now I’d like to salivate all over her — and not in my usual girl-I-want-you-so-bad way. Sadly my male parts tend to shrink alarmingly around Camelia Earhart — her real name, I kid you not. Cammie is artist; affirmation therapist; acclaimed poet. Published author of Weeds that Grow: the Socio-Economic Enterprise of the Black Man and how Interractive Analyses of Sexual Perspectives Can Enhance his Self-wealth and Centre.

I’m always tempted to do the world a favour and shorten that mouthful. Perhaps something like The Dandy Lion.

Plus, my story isn’t science-fiction or horror. Ok, maybe some parts are horrible, but not in that way. I just don’t want to be shut up in the same cage as Cammie, only writing about what I see in the mirror every day. Maybe I’ll never be as accomplished as she is; but let me be free to be mediocre, for fuck’s sake.

Although, with a name like What, it’s hard to blend into the background.

Yes, that’s What, as in spelled W-h-a-t. Not light bulb Watt, but WTF What.

I’ve never judged my parents for baptising me in the Holy Trinity of adverb/determiner/pronoun. But who’d have thought there’d be so much mileage in a four-letter word? Other than that other one, of course.

“What a wonderful name!”

“What, you mean you’re actually called What?

“What were your parents thinking? Ha ha.”

“It’s a bloody weird name, that’s what it is.”

And my personal favourite (because evidently I can’t spell my own name): “Spell it again!”

I try to be sympathetic towards my parents. No doubt the conception at fifty-three and fifty-seven of their first, only, and much longed-for child would have shocked any couple. I’m just grateful they omitted the exclamation mark. I can’t imagine they’d have wanted the world to share the shock of discovering their middle-aged fecundity. In fact, once I was born the two of them lied about their age for years.

Anyway I can’t be angry at Cammie for long. I redirect my resentment to the building construction going on outside, and monitor progress on the latest jewel in London’s private housing sector. Opposite, a large green billboard proclaims: Diamond Parkview: Phase 1,2,3 Sold Out.

Several workmen, the sun blurring their work jackets into orange supernovas, circle a patch of damp earth. They seem puzzled and unusually perturbed. Cammie’s critiquing tones summon me back inside. “What you’ve written is just basic erotica. With a very unethical relationship counsellor thrown in.”

I’m not having that. Just to piss her off, I retaliate with calm male patronage. “It’s about spousal rejection, Cammie; feared impotency. Dark secrets.”

This last term sounds like something plucked from a Christine Feehan vampire novel so I reiterate my perspective. “Sex forms the conflict. It needs those graphic scenes.”

Her mouth screws up like the rebellious lemon life gives you. You know — the one that refuses point blank to make lemonade. “But it’s … it’s riddled with BDSM, What. Ever since that woman wrote that book …”

For a moment Cammie’s accusation makes me wonder if I should call in BDSM Pest Control. We won’t discuss that book that’s given both paint and hair dye a marketing boost. “I’d hardly call it riddled, Cammie. But remember, this guy’s batshit crazy in love with his wife. He’s desperate to save his marriage. It’s his therapist who suggests something a little different.”

She gives a highfalutin’ sniff, then says in a conciliatory tone. “I can help you with rewriting it.”

Ex-squeeze me? Fuck off, Cammie.

History calls Genghis Khan a megalomaniac. As my aunt Cynthea would say, God rest her spirit, family can’t hide. Right now Cammie’s imperialistic ego is squashing me into a corner of my own kitchen: that irksome little 5mm gap between the ready to combust at any minute Beko cooker and the appliance of science Zanussi fridge freezer.

Should I tell her Hodder and Stoughton want the full manuscript?

I decide against it. “Thanks, Cam. I’ll review it again.”

I turn back to supervise the building work across the road. One guy is stooping to run his fingers through a handful of dirt. He jerks back abruptly, jumping up with an expletive that resonates right through the double glazing. “Oh shit! OH SHIT!”

Two of his colleagues move forward to peer down. They too skip back smartly, scrambling for their mobiles. The rest shout for a digger. Cammie’s critiquing fades into white noise as I muse about what they might have uncovered.