He knew that I despised uncleanliness and disorganization. In fact, he may even have interpreted Yellow Teeth as evidence of an author working through issues on this very subject. Particularly when considering the years that I had spent struggling on low incomes, while living in bedsits and shared accommodation, and into my forties. Giles knew that story.
The plot of Yellow Teeth had concentrated on the theme of intrusion too, but of a particular kind: the imposition of the chaotic and disorderly into the life of the orderly, the unclean forced upon the clean. I’d even depicted myself as the lead character, and a horror novelist at that, living in this very house.
The biographical detail, this casting of myself as the protagonist, had been met with enthusiasm by my publisher. They’d liked the angle of Yellow Teeth. Giles had also been thrilled by his own inclusion in the story, as my actual literary agent.
I had told Giles to ‘come at midday’ in my last message. That had been sent two weeks before, and the last time that I had been permitted to enter my own home. I’d also mentioned that I had been unwell and unable to travel to London, and that ‘leaving the area’ made me ‘uncomfortable these days’. I’d been impossible to contact by phone too, because there is no phone signal at the Tor.
Ten foreign-language editions had already been negotiated for Yellow Teeth. Queries about film and TV rights were also stacking up. A decision would have to be made soon about which film production company we chose to go with. Even without the full proposals that I had promised to write, there was talk of a new two-book deal. Deadlines needed to be set down. My editor even claimed that Yellow Teeth possessed the strange edge that had been missing since my first two novels. How dare she? But, nonetheless, there was urgent business to discuss. Which is why Giles had travelled to Brixham to investigate me.
I imagine out there on my front doorstep, his annoyance became anger – Does he no longer care about his future?
He’d have heard a bolt slide through a lock, a chain removed from a latch. Then the door widened to reveal my face. A visage that was hard to identify.
‘Seb . . .’ Giles didn’t know what else to say to me.
How long had it been since I’d washed my hair? And in all the years he’d known me, I’d never worn a beard. Beards were certainly fashionable, though mine suggested anything but the hipster. My get-up that day was hobo.
Though my hair had always been flecked with salt and pepper, it was now the colour of dirty snow, oily and matched by the ragged beard. My appearance was worsened by the jogging bottoms and the stained shirt that I wore beneath the bathrobe. Giles almost suppressed his distaste at the spectacle of my face, and how my features had been narrowed by weight loss, lined with anxiety and harrowed by misery. All compounded by sleeplessness. And Jesus Christ, the teeth! He must have noticed my mouth. A mist of halitosis would have clung to the threshold. When was the last time that I had seen a dentist? Within the tangled moustache and beard, my lips had begun to appear too dark. I’d seen them in the windows of the Tor, as the sun faded outside. Giles would have glimpsed the wet, yellow ivory in my poorly maintained mouth.
Yellow Teeth.
He just stared, aghast at the transformation of his once neat, unflashy, shy client, whom he considered a friend.
‘Giles. It’s been a while. You look well.’
‘It has been.’ Giles couldn’t bring himself to return the compliment.
‘Won’t you please come in?’ I turned away from the door.
I’ve seen enough, must have come to the tip of his tongue, though Giles would never be so rude, unless he was talking to an editor.
He followed me up the stairs and into the living room on the second floor.
‘A drink?’ I mumbled, without even looking at Giles, but I wafted one hand towards the uncapped bottle of bourbon on the coffee table.
‘No, thanks.’ It was only noon.
Giles also restrained himself from asking for the balcony doors to be opened, but I saw him look at them. The room reeked of fried food, my sweat, expensive perfumes, and what suggested an unemptied kitchen bin.
He took a seat on the side of the couch not filled with laundry that was either waiting to go into the washing machine or had come out and been forgotten about. How did I know? It wasn’t my laundry.
Giles peered around the room and at the soiled plates amongst dirty coffee cups and magazines. My bookshelves were all but empty. My framed pictures of the original cover artwork and the movie posters had been removed. ‘Your pictures?’
‘Gone,’ I said, as I eased myself into a seat opposite the couch. The only light in the room was thin and murky, and was cast from the table lamp beside the bookcases. ‘Sold,’ I said, and I looked at the walls as if trying to recall the pictures.