’ve got to admit, my expectations were low the day my old school friend Selwyn Musa told me some film director was looking for students. Selwyn had met the director,, in Ladbroke Grove, west London. He had asked if Selwyn knew anyone interested in making movies. No, Selwyn replied, but my mate is writing a book. That hadn’t seemed to faze him, and he asked Selwyn to tell me to drop by St Helen’s church, where he was running evening workshops.
It was an autumn night, if my memory serves me. Another school friend attended St Helen’s regularly, and I’d been there with him, so we both went down to the basement just as the workshop was finishing. Barney was a tall, very middle-class man who smelled faintly of tobacco, with a serious air that only pertained to the arts. Everything else he did was suffused with tinder-dry humour. An example: pretty soon after we met, Barney started calling me Gotcha. Only he could get away with that.
Barney gave me a deadpan look and glanced over the sheets. I don’t even think I had another envelope to put them in. At that point, I couldn’t even afford to enter the Saga prize novel-writing competition, as the entry fee was £10. He read and muttered to himself, and said he’d get back to me. Even then I didn’t think much. I’d made a few connections like that over the years. None ever amounted to anything.
One day, I was at home in my mum’s house when the phone rang. It was Barney. He’d called to make sure I was in, he said. He was coming to my house.
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