The book launch party was terrific. To those who put it on, and to everyone who came, I am a beggar even in thanks. A salute, too, to the 200-plus of you who entered the joke competition and to the 15 winners, every one of whom was the life and soul. A special mention in dispatches as well for the lovely Katrina from Paisley, a competition winner, who selflessly assisted when the first casualty came in.
This was Sharon. Later I heard reports that the editor had surprised her getting to grips with one of the competition winners on the deputy editor’s desk. I don’t believe it. She was far too drunk for shenanigans. There’s drunk and falling sideways, and there’s drunk and toppling forwards, but Sharon was drunk and going over backwards or sitting down on chairs that weren’t there. So we can dismiss that one as a baseless rumour.
I’ve also heard reports that Trev offered illegal drugs to a competition winner, and the competition winner is said to have declined them on the grounds that a) he was a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, and b) that in his opinion any drug offered for sale in London these days is going to be pretty rubbish. (This competition winner’s joke was so gross I’d substituted a joke of my own and put the original letter in the shredder to avert a scandal.) But Trev is so tight-fisted with his drugs he never offers them to anybody, certainly not as a friendly gesture, and he never offered any to his host that night, so far as I am aware. So, again, I think we can safely nip that one in the bud.
After the party, those of us who were left clustered on the pavement like Custer’s Last Stand debating what to do with Sharon. Even if we’d managed to get her to Euston in a cab and manhandled her on to her train, she wouldn’t have been able to get off it at the other end without assistance. Someone kindly offered a hotel room floor. Then this tall chap, whom I’d taken for another convivial competition winner, took me aside.
Now look here, he said. I’m a gatecrasher. And let me tell you I’ve led a much lower life than you have, so I’m not taken in. But I’m in a position to make myself useful here. Please don’t think I’m being flash. I’m really not. But if you think it a good idea, I’d like to pay for a few rooms at the nearest hotel, just to have the continued pleasure of you and your friends’ company. He was a modest, quiet kind of a fellow who seemed in full command of his intelligence. So that’s what we did.
The line-up was him, me, Trev, Sharon, Tom, Anita and a lady competition winner, with whom, it turned out, our benefactor was engaged in preliminary groundwork of a romantic or erotic nature. He hired two deluxe rooms and a suite costing, I later heard, £1,000. The four-star hotel’s all-night receptionists looked on with tolerant amusement as we hauled Sharon up the stairs and put her in one of the deluxe rooms. Then we continued on up to his top-floor suite and had another party, which I enjoyed almost as much as the one earlier, though I doubt whether the guests in the suites on either side thought much of it.
And after that? After that it was Friday morning. Trev, Sharon, Tom and I went to Paddington and had a few pints. Then we said our farewells to a tearful Sharon on the platform and boarded our Devon-bound train. On the train we went to the buffet, where there was very nearly a murder straight away, and I had to nobly get between Tom and another member of the travelling public.
Fifty miles down the track, the train manager, hands trembling, came and found us back at our seats and threatened Tom with arrest. On hearing this, a chap in a nearby seat put in a good word, saying that although Tom was drunk, he wasn’t offensive. Turning to Trev, who had been asleep until a few seconds before, the train manager said, ‘And how about you, sir? Has this man’s behaviour been disturbing you at all?’ Acting the part of civilised passenger at the end of his tether almost to perfection, Trev said, ‘I’m proper disgusted. He’s a disgrace coming on a train in that state. I think you should throw him off so that we can all get some peace.’ And it was at this point that Tom opened his next tin of lager, which spectacularly exploded, spraying beer foam in all directions, including over the conductor, over Tom’s defender, over Tom’s defender’s laptop, over Trev, and over me.
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