Black Chalk

This is now my third version of this letter. The first two were terribly coy and they just didn’t work. This time I have decided to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here in New York.

Deep breath.

For the past fourteen years, sometimes for as many seconds as any day has to offer, I have been writing. Writing and rewriting, ripping everything up, starting all over again. Tormenting myself, tormenting those around me. Fourteen long, barren years.

And what else could I do with my life but try to write? I was raised by books, Jolyon, a pack of writers weaned me, like Mowgli brought up by his wolves. And without bewailing too much my Little Orphan Annie story, perhaps I should explain.

As a child, aged twelve perhaps, I began to regard Jane Austen as my mother and Charles Dickens as my father. These were the only two constants in my life, the only two people to whom I gave my unconditional love. Austen and Dickens whispered bedtime stories to me, made me laugh, taught me all about life. And soon came three sisters: Anne, Charlotte and Emily. This was my family and between them they couldn’t do anything wrong. I loved them for their words as others love, without question, for blood or lust or family ties. As I got older I unearthed thrilling aunts and uncles. Greene, Nabokov, Woolf, Updike. Each would come to visit with fascinating tales from worlds a million miles away. And they too earned my love, my adoration. Here was a family I could choose, not the other way round. I read and I read and I loved.

So perhaps I write because I want to earn the sort of love I felt for others as a child: that utter and unconditional sense of devotion to another human being. And what else could I write about but the Game? Just like you, Jolyon. What else is there for us to say?

I tried telling it straight, then skew-whiff, back-to-front and oblique. I tried to be Dickens then Austen. I tried Greene then Nabokov. I even tried to be myself. Then I tried you. And then Chad.

But every time I failed. And why? I think the reason is because I never truly worked out what our story was about. This story wasn’t about jealousy, malice and spite. No, it transpires that our story wasn’t a tale about hatred at all, it was always a story about love. Yes, there are some satellite love stories circling the tale. And of course all of us loved each other in some way. But at its centre, at the heart of it, ours was a singular tale of love. The love story of Jolyon and Chad. And this is the thing I could never understand. The curious, complex, ill-explored, secretive, unspoken and venomous love between men.

Mark was so utterly wrong. Of course you cared what Chad thought. You cared too much. (I’m sorry, Jolyon, I’m not here in New York to accuse.)

So, writing and writing and failing. And how have I supported myself throughout these fruitless years? Well, there have been men. There were always men. Not artists or authors, but bankers and businessmen, barristers and bean counters. (B for bed and board, B for bread and bored.) And I even loved one of them, the only one who left me, a bookkeeper with the soul of a poet.

I gave myself to them, my body in exchange for my mind. And they took care of me, looked after the minutiae of life, everything in the world that is not the blank page.

Writing and writing and failing. But I could never give in. Oh, I made friends, joined writers’ groups, people liked me. I could have written fluff for magazines, collaborated on children’s books, read slush piles of chick lit. But no, I could never sell out. And why?

Well, for two reasons, one surface and one underlying (but both the same, it transpires). I feel slightly ashamed to admit this, but I think the surface reason for not giving in was because, had I done so, it would have proved Jack right, because then Jack would have won. I denied myself all but the most serious of work because of the memory of a pub joke. Just another one of Jack’s skits. Except to me it wasn’t just another joke, Jack’s Psychic Sue was the only dagger he thrust that ever stabbed close to my heart.

Write seriously and fail. Write commercially and succeed.

Jack had a way of getting under your skin with his jokes, an intuition for raw nerves.

And here is my raw nerve: the reason why I had to write seriously, why I could never give in, is because unconditional love can only be earned through the most serious and heartfelt work. The love I feel for Dickens, Austen, Greene . . . this is not a love that has ever been earned by any commercial writer. People might LIKE populist books very much, but they don’t ADORE them, they don’t suck them down into their souls. There is a difference between success and love, and so it seems that the reason why I could never give up writing seriously is this: I write not because I want to sell but because I want to be loved. I want to be wholly adored.

Now have your way with Little Orphan Annie, Mr Freud.