Writers Forum #99 January 2010

First draft: current opening from
The Liar’s Club
Two sealed cassette
tapes were unopened on
the table, the red tear
‘You’ve got some well known people in your club,’ he said, look-
strip circling each one like
an elastic band. I watched as a detec-
ing at the membership list.
tive picked up the
ﬁ rst one and pulled
at the strip with
his teeth.
‘Yes.’
Another detective
sat in the corner
of the room, observing silently.
‘Well known for lying, most of them.’
Detective number one was talking
to me at the same time,
and his ‘Well,
yes, that’s
tone was polite, reassuring,
rather the point,’
I said,
but his words were lost on me for the
trying to keep the irri-
tation out of my voice. He looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I
thundering sound
of my own blood pumping through
my body. know
that it sounds
My hands slipped with sweat, and I wiped them on the front of
really bad, but really, it was
just a sort of joke.
my Here you have a collection of people, all of whom in one way or
trousers. My whole body
smelt rancid and I was surprised
at my another have been humiliated
own embarrassment.
in public for being caught out in
a
lie. But we all lie, don’t we?’
‘Do you understand?’ he said. I looked at him and nodded.
‘Do we?’
‘Sure?’ He was frowning. ‘Would
you like me to repeat or explain
It was the sort of response I usually jumped on. I had this great
anything?’
speech where I
said that lying was
I pulled myself together. ‘No, no, I’m ﬁ
a matter of degree
and that by
ne.’
being honest about the fact that we were
‘You understand,
you are not under
liars we were
arrest.
actually
We are just anxious
more honest than those
to have everyone’s version of what happened tonight.’
hypocrites who maintained that they
never
lied. I’m not doing justice
‘Right.’
to it, it was a great
speech, but I didn’t
think the detective
‘Do you want a solicitor present?’
would appreciate
it, so I said ‘Small lies, white
lies, deliberate omissions. It all amounts to the same thing really.’
‘Is she really dead then?’
‘Mm. And what about you? How did you come to be a member
He smiled again, sympathetic, but didn’t answer the question.
of this “Liar’s Club”?’
‘Would you like me to call a solicitor?’
He knew. I could tell he knew. This makes him a liar. Pretending
I’d been waiting in the interview room for hours. I wanted to go
not to have knowledge
home. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m ﬁ
that you actually possess
ne.’
is Misleading.
Deliberately Misleading someone is lying to them, even
‘Ok. Just to let you know you can
change
if you do
your mind at any
not utter an actual falsehood.
time.’
I relaxed a little. I knew where
I was
with liars.
‘Ok.’
‘I spent time in prison for running
He pressed play and introduced
a very successful
himself as Detective
pyramid
Sergeant selling scheme. It was a masterpiece really. In fact, it was so good,
John Smith to the tape machine. I wondered suddenly why they
that for a while we were
didn’t use CDs. It seemed so old
making real money. I think that I might
fashioned. Probably
because it was
actually have been able
more difﬁ cult
to make
to tamper
the business work, but that was
with tape, I thought,
and noted it, auto-
never really my forte so I took the money and ran.’
matically, as an ‘interesting
fact’. He mentioned the
presence of
‘Mr Ronson,’ he said, and I noted the use of
his colleague and
asked me to state
my surname. ‘This
my name, for the
beneﬁ t of the
is not one of your after dinner pursuits
tape.
. This is a murder investiga-
tion. Stop playing bloody games.’
‘Jack Ronson.’ My voice sounded
cracked, high pitched. I wanted
‘I’m sorry.’ I had a sudden vision of Melody
a drink of water.
being wheeled away
on a trolley, and tried to concentrate
‘Is that your full name?’
on what was going on instead
of giving in to my innate desire to show off.
‘Sorry. John Peter Ronson. But I’m called Jack.’
‘How did you come to be a member of this club?’ he said again.
‘Ok, Jack.’ He smiled, and my shoulders
dropped slightly with
‘Well, as you know,’ I said, ‘I have written a rather well known
relief. ‘Jack’ sounded
friendly. I gave him a small smile back and
book. It was a
tried to
work of ﬁ
concentrate on what
ction, but many
people
he was saying.
believed it to
The
be the
room was very
truth.’
bright, two large strip lights buzzed over my head, one of them
‘You intended them to believe it was the truth?’
ﬂ ickering slightly.
I tried to block out
the noise of it, but
it was like
‘Yes. I suppose I did.’
an incessant ﬂ y in my ear.
‘Then you are a liar.’
‘You understand,
I’m sure, that a serious
incident has taken
‘Mm, yes, I suppose I am.’
place here tonight.’
He riﬂ ed through
‘Yes.’ I tried to keep my voice solemn, but I was aware that my
his ﬁ le and pulled
out a sheet of paper.
‘It says
here that you wrote an autobiography of your life on the streets,
nervous smile made me look
like a shyster. The detective frowned
recalling the “degradation and despair of being homeless”. Is that
and looked down at his notes.
Then he pushed
them to one side and
right?’
leaned back a little,
as though we were just chatting. ‘So, tell me
‘Actually, my publicist said that, not me.
about this club?’
But generally speak-
ing, yes.’
‘Well, it’s funny really.’
‘Have you ever been homeless?’
The detective raised his eyebrows,
as if he found it anything but
I sighed. I’d been
funny, and I was beginning to share his opinion.
through a million
of these interviews
lately
and I was preparing
‘It’s called The Liar’s Club?’
myself for the display of righteous
indignation
he was about to
‘Yes.’
express any minute now. ‘No.
I have never been
homeless.’
‘And the purpose
of it is,’ he pulled
the ﬁ le towards
him again,
‘I see.’
and read ‘to perpetuate the power of
the untruth.’ He
raised his
‘No, actually, you
eyebrows at me.
don’t see,’ I said. I
could feel myself getting
angry. I was tired
‘Yes,
and hungry
well that’s just – the
and smelly and I had had a terrible
truth is it’s a sort
of gentlemen’s club
night and I just
where people tell stories to each other.’
wanted to go home and have a large drink and
maybe cry a little
‘Stories?’
for Melody. Or for myself. ‘I wrote a novel. It was
a bloody good novel in which I described how fucking terrible it is
‘Well, lies, I suppose you’d call it. But it’s just a joke. It’s a club
to be without a home. For no-one to care about you. It was a great
and you go there and drink gin and tonic and tell stories. It’s just a
book. But I sent it round to dozens of publishers and none of them
bit of fun. All that stuff in the Constitution, it’s just a sort of
joke.’ would even
look at it because
‘A joke.’ He didn’t
it was
say anything else, but started to
too ‘bleak’. So I rewrote
it,
turn the presented
it as
pages
a memoir, and
of his ﬁ le over
hey
and
presto I’m famous. Misery
began to read silently
to
sells,
himself. I thought
apparently, but only if it is real.’
that he was ignoring me
deliberately, trying to
unnerve me. I wiped
There was silence for a
my hands again
moment
on the front of
then he said. ‘Please
my trousers and said
don’t swear.’
nothing. I Just
like that. ‘Please don’t swear.’
glanced at the silent policeman
As if the only word
in the corner. His
he’d heard
silence was mak-
was ‘fuck’. I wanted to kick the table.
ing me feel uncomfortable,
and I wondered whether he was ever
‘Tell me how you became involved with this Liar’s Club.’
going to say anything, or whether
he was just there
to make sure
Detective Smith didn’t grab me by the balls and extort
a confession
from me. Surely video would have been cheaper?
[Extract ends but the scene continues]
Writers
’
FORUM #99 43
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