Page 17 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘I need the money: Crypt-ograms pay well, and they’re easy. I may not be as popular as Orla’s Marilyn Monroe act, and the jokes do get a bit much sometimes, but they don’t take much time. The Batmobile’s so old now it’s a constant drain on my bank account, and I think it needs an expensive op.’
‘You should trade that old banger in for something reliable. And why the hell didn’t youmilk Max for everything you could get while he was still mad about you? It’s probably too late now – but I’ll get that number and ring you back anyway. Byee!’
Getting Max’s number must have been harder than she anticipated, because she still hadn’t rung back by the time I’d arrayed myself in my best vampire outfit, streaked my long dark locks with silver, and rendered my face even more luminescentlypallid than nature had already made it with stage make-up.
Jason phoned, though, to ask if I was going to the pub that night.
‘Probably,’ I said, warmed by his lovely, treacly dark voice.
Had it not been for his far from lovely teenage son I mightjust have succumbed to temptation with Jason by then … and I might still, if my next egg-xamination was a Null Pointer. I was obviously running outfast, and this was no time to be choosy.
‘I’ve got to go and do a “greetings from beyond the grave-ogram” first, though.’
His voice perked up: ‘Oh goodie! Are you coming to the pub in your vampire stuff? You know that really turns me on!’
‘Everything turns you on,’ I said dampeningly, though actually it was quite consoling in the face of Max’s recent neglect to have Jason lusting after me.
‘Everythingyoudo turns me on,’ he amended. ‘Come down later and I’ll buy you chicken in a basket.’
‘I’ll buy my own dinner, thanks. See you later, Jason, I’ve got to go.’
I felt a little better after that, though. Max might take me for granted, but other men still found me attractive even if Iwassliding down the slope towards fifty faster than an Olympic bobsleigh team on their last run.
And Max was probably just being ultra-cautious. He would never have dreamed that Jane would winkle out the news so fast, or he would have rung me by then.
Finding that actually I had ten minutes to spare before it was time to leave I filled in the time with yet another self-questioning list, though I didn’t expect to find anything I didn’t already know:
Writing horror versus ‘literary’ novels:
For:
Against:
1) I’m a natural-born horror writer.
2) It’s cathartic to let the demons loose from time to time.
3)Icould have been the monster if I hadn’t had this outlet.
4) I make a living from it.
5) You can’t eat a literary reputation.
6) I enjoy it.
1) While we’re all peddling our own versions of reality, mine is blacker than most. You don’t get literary kudos for horror unless yourname’sMary Shelley or Bram Stoker.
