t is Winter, lightless morning, here in the shallow city, soundless and shipwreck-grey, the tarmac pavements are slept still, glistened with frost, deep and breathing, and beyond my window's sightless eye, the shuddered, huddled, common trees, stuttering towards the sea, the sadrack, greyslack trawler-slapped sea.

It was because, that Sunday, God came to Frank Smith's house.

But God did not speak or touch Frank. Frank did not know he was there. He thought he was still simply Frank and he wanted to be a writer.

On Monday, at six, Frank rose, went downstairs, switched on the kettle, then switched on his computer. Briefly, his face was reflected in his monitor screen, his eyes darker, committed, perhaps manic. Frank did not see this.

For a while now, Frank had felt his life was on hold, his writing on hold, as if he were waiting, waiting for the muse, Divine

inspiration. But today was the first day of a fresh month, the second month of a new year and the millennium was approaching.

Frank sighed, stared as Microsoft's Windows loaded, blinked as rams and roms and information fluttered by. Then, as his screen

blupped into life—a green and bug-eyed Amazonian frog—he thought, with a deep, luxurious breath, "I need a new beginning."

Then he knew suddenly, deeply.

To begin at the beginning:

And Frank thought, 'It is Winter,'

It is Winter, lightless morning, here in the shallow city, soundless and shipwreck-grey, the tarmac pavements are slept still, glistened with frost, deep and breathing, and beyond my window's sightless eye, the shuddered, huddled, common trees, stuttering towards the sea, the sadrack, greyslack trawler-slapped sea.

And now Frank thought of ghosts and suddenly he needed a coffee, way too strong. He made some, then wrote a little more, surprising himself again.

The house is as deaf as a fish, bloated, Belgian, its guts rumble and pop, crude and uncaring, five sly farts in an elevator, tick-tock clock-clicking, drip-tap drop-dripping, groaning and moaning, waiting, baiting. Hush house, my children are sleeping, my woman is sleeping, the bed bugs, the skin-mites, the spiders are sleeping, postmen are walking, policemen whisper, even burglars are home in their beds.

Frank was shocked, perhaps pleased, and he read this writing, what he thought was his writing, then read it again. He rolled the words round, like soft fruit, like a montage of beautiful things, like musical notes he could see and feel, like sex acts with colour and sound.

Hush house, my children are sleeping, a fish, bloated, Belgian.

And Frank was bemused. He was happy that something had happened, but he was bemused, a little uncertain.

And now Frank read it all again. He knew that it was right to begin at the beginning and he whispered, "To begin at the beginning:" and he read again,

'It is Winter, lightless morning, here in the shallow city, soundless and shipwreck-grey, the tarmac pavements are slept still, glistened with frost, deep and breathing, and beyond my window's sightless eye, the shuddered, huddled, common trees, stuttering towards the sea, the sadrack, greyslack trawler-slapped sea.'

And Frank began to tinker. Perhaps it should be 'And now it is Winter', perhaps 'and here in the shallow city'?

And Frank wondered, why a shallow city, anyway? How could a city be shallow? And then he thought, 'glistened' or

'glistening', 'slept' or 'sleeping'? And Frank worried because he could no longer imagine tarmac pavements which breathed, so he changed things, many times, and then it was lunch-time, and he re-read his ninth draft, which was the first, and he went to a place he knew, for a long, hard drink.

On Tuesday, at seven o'clock, Frank rose, went downstairs, switched on the kettle, then switched on his computer. He did not see his reflection, which was ugly, and a little fatter. Last night he had smoked, for the first time in five years and he had drunk the day through and into the sad dark evening, but oh, but oh, he had had fun, talking with the boys, remembering when he was young and easy under the trees, happy as the grass was green

But then, as the machine clipped and crackled into life, white words on black going by, he thought,

"When I was young and easy under trees?"

He shook his head. No, he decided. It was time to get back to his mystery novel. Frank had once had an encouraging letter from a publisher and today he felt up for it.

His book had an opening page where the detective had followed the husband. The guy was supposed to be going to Amsterdam and sure enough, his wife had dropped him at the airport. But then the suspect made a phone call and minutes later, grabbed a taxi and went to a hotel on the edge of town. There he met a woman, 25-26 a real good-looker.

Good-looker? He should have written, 'She was there, filling the foyer like she owned the place, a body to die for, hair as red

as a Key West sunset, and a face pretty enough to make a bishop kick in a stained-glass window.'

He read some more, read his opening, shook his head, and began to type.

It was about nine o'clock in the morning, February, with the sun not shining, a look of London grey drifting in over Heathrow, the scream of 747s somewhere. I was wearing designer jeans, a stone-washed denim top, white Nikes over cushioned running socks, and a black Goretex jacket on the seat beside me. I was fit, clean, sober and I knew it. I was following a guy worth fifteen million dollars but about to lose at least half in alimony.

That lunch-time Frank was due to meet another writer, a guy who was trying to write an English cosy, and he walked to town to a bar where the friend hung out. Over their second drink Frank slammed the very idea of cosy mysteries. "Murder belongs to the people," he said out of the blue, "it's dirty, not a game. It should be in our stories for a good reason, not just to provide a corpse." Frank's friend was surprised. Then Frank added, "Cosies don't really come off intellectually as problems or artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world."

Frank woke early on Wednesday. He rose, went downstairs, switched on the kettle, then switched on his computer. Briefly, his face was reflected in his monitor screen, his eyes seemed bluer and his face longer. Frank would have been surprised, had he noticed his reflection, but he did not. Yesterday had been such a great writing day and he felt full of optimism. He was young and he knew now that he was gifted. Magazines would buy his work and he would go to Paris and Switzerland, the Riviera, he would party through the nights, have his picture on the cover of Vanity Fair.

Now he was captured by yet another idea. The mystery novel could wait.

In my younger days, in my less astute and, frankly, less mature days, my mother came to me and gave me some advice. I've often remembered this and considered her words.

"Jim", she told me, "remember that not everyone in this world has been given the advantages you have had. Should you ever feel superior or ready to criticise, don't forget your good fortune."

And Frank thought immediately of a short story, one to aim at Esquire or Atlantic. It would be about someone thinking he could escape his roots and failing tragically. Frank could see the end now, a suicide or murder, and he, the narrator summing things up.

And I sat there brooding, wondering, remembering Grant's face in the moonlight the first time he saw Emily, the way his eyes flashed when he told me he must have her. Grant could not have known it would all end as it did, but then again perhaps he did. Perhaps he knew that a great failure was so much more glorious than a safe and inconspicuous existence. Grant taught me that we can always run a little faster, reach a little further, that we can row against the tides, and given a little luck, the run of the cards, we can, if only briefly, forget our histories.

On Thursday, Frank rose very early. He felt like kicking some ass so he got into running kit and went out and ran three fast miles. For three consecutive nights he'd hit the bottle and he figured, hell, if I'm gonna play hard I should work out some. He felt taller, big even, manly, and he'd not bothered to shave. In the middle of his run he pushed himself to the edge of pain and held it. He had decided that a writer needed that kind of experience.

His Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday work was on his desk. When he came in from his run, he glanced down at it. He was dripping sweat and sniffed at the writing. It was OK, he guessed, but where was the action, and where was the tight language that spoke like a man spoke? Yeah, OK, there was emotion, colour, but where were the noun-verb precursors to that emotion?

Today he thought, he would be direct, tell it like it was. No going behind the scenes, no digging into the hero's head. He would just lay out the bare facts, like the very mountain top, the tip of the iceberg, and let the reader build the rest of the mountain, work out what was beneath the water.

It was almost dinner-time and they were sitting on the terrace in the evening sun pretending that nothing had happened.
"Would you like a Pimms or something stronger?" Tom Matthews asked.
"Give me a whisky," Jack Williams told him.
"I'll have a gin," Janet Matthews said. "I need something strong."
Tom Matthews spun round. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Why nothing, dear," his wife said. Her eyes fluttered Jack's way.
"You bitch!" Tom said.
"Indeed I am," Janet said. "But then, living with you, how could I be anything else?"

Ah, that is sharp, Frank thought. And he felt sharp and tight too, from his run. What he liked was the masculinity of this. No frills—right to the heart of things.

On Friday, at precisely six o'clock in the morning of a beautiful, February day, crisp, enlightening, promising, Frank Smith rose, stepped through to his bathroom, ornate, true, but functional, and after voiding, washed, proceeded to clean his teeth and brush his hair, went out on to the landing to note the view of the bustling, indifferent city, then went downstairs, through to the clinically clean kitchen, switched on the stainless-steel kettle, then, while the water was slowly coming to the boil, went into his mahogany-desked office and switched on his Dell computer. Briefly, Frank's high-browed facial shape was reflected in his monitor screen, but he did not see this.

Frank was hungover yet again, his fourth consecutive bad morning. For some reason he had the urge to write complex sentences, sentences full of detail with clauses, sub-clauses and sub-clauses within sub-clauses, but then, though there was no voice, and though he heard no words, he felt that whoever he was yesterday was saying, "Dammit, man! Get off your butt and act!" and that another part of him was saying, "Oh, mun, no; no, don't go gentle, rage and burn!" and something else in him was saying, "Passion, passion, remember the dark lanes of the republic, the wide avenues, go anywhere, believe everything, accept nothing."

And so, that Friday morning, Frank Smith did not write. Instead, he switched off his computer, grabbed his papers, a little money, and left the house.

When the bookstore opened at nine, Frank was waiting. He stepped in, and for the first time saw thirty thousand books, not just the crime corner, the science fiction, but the walls too, lined with dark secrets and magic, with sex and love and violence, storms, hunger, philosophy and poetry. Frank was first bewitched, but then just as quickly, sick to his stomach. He was lost, bewildered, an alien in a far off land. So, instead of selecting from the books, he merely ran his fingers across their spines, through the fine dust not yet feathered away, and he thought, where, where to start?

But Frank did not know where to start, and he turned to leave, the store and when the bright-eyed assistant looked at him and lightly said, "Very early, sir!" Frank merely scowled at him and stormed into the street.

Frank walked, he didn't know where, until, when he looked up, he found himself at the City University. He saw a uniformed guard.

"Where's the English Department?"

"There."

In turn, two secretary's stopped him, he wasn't a student, so Frank nodded, left, then doubled back and slipped down a corridor that smelled of polish and lightly echoed his footfall. The doors were green and the second one he knocked produced an answer, "Come!"

Frank stepped in, looking at the nameplate. He had papers in his hand. The room was a cluttered mess, one wall dark books from floor to ceiling, a desk by the window covered in papers, more books stacked on the floor. The light from the window was limp and there was a lit table-lamp on the desktop.

"Professor Kindle?"

"Yes?"

He looked serious, ponderous almost, milky grey-green eyes behind round glasses, but Frank thought he saw what he needed in those eyes.

"I need some help," Frank said.

"Are you a student?"

"Yes," Frank said. He held out the papers.

The professor took Frank's new work and when he had given it a cursory glance he asked, "What is this?" and Frank said he did not know.

The professor looked at Frank, back at the paperwork, then at the booked wall. "What do you read?" he said.

"Dick Francis, Pat Cornwell, Terry Pratchett, skiffy" Frank said, "oh, and lots of crime stuff."

"And you like Chandler?"

"No," Frank said.

"No?" Professor Kindle said.

"No."

"Hammett, McDonald?"

"No, sir."

The professor shuffled the papers again, glanced into Frank's face, then up at the shelves.

"Take a look," he said and waved the papers at the wall. Frank moved. "So pick out something you've read."

Frank looked but there was nothing. Half of it was literary criticism, quite a few spines with the name Kindle on the spine. There was heavy stuff, stuff like Chaucer and Shakespeare and he saw Beowulf which rang a bell, and a lot of French surnames. He couldn't see any Charles Dickens. Frank had read Great Expectations in school, and Lord of the Flies.

"Nothing," he said.

"There's Dylan Thomas, up there," the Professor said, pointing, "but I always found him a trifle self-indulgent."

"Never read 'im," Frank said.

"And just there, Fitzgerald, and there is Hemingway."

"Nor them."

"No? How about Austen, Tolstoy, Eliot, Lawrence, perhaps Greene?"

They were just names. "Fraid not," Frank said.

The professor shook his head but he didn't seem that disappointed. He smiled. "Would you like a reading list?"

"Yes," Frank said.

Later, as Frank left the academic building, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the dark glass of an office door. He was plain ordinary Frank Smith. He headed for town.

But as Frank walked back towards town and the bookstore, God was just leaving Frank's house. Frank did not know this, how could he? How could he feel him leave? God had never spoken to or touched Frank. Frank did not know he had been there. He felt light on his feet as he left the university grounds and he was going to be a writer.

© Alex Keegan