Added, as the guy went still, “Your call is important to us, please hold while we try to transfer you to another operator.”
Headed out, cash leaking out of every pocket, stopped, said to the waiting faces,
“You’ve all being given a bonus and the rest of the day free.”
Marching out of there, a ticket back to America and maybe a fast few vodkas were his next, well, call.
But Sebastian didn’t make it ’cross the pond, popping in at a travel agency on Goodge Street instead and purchasing a ticket to the Canary Islands. An Englishman needs his holiday.
A few weeks later, Sebastian returned to his Britain homestead, broke, but rested. What next? He didn’t think applying for a position in the phone industry would work out very well. How would he respond to the interview question: “So, why no recommendation from the previous job?”
Over the years in a pinch he’d made some good dosh by impersonating Lee Child. He’d set up tables at flea markets, with a stack of Reachers, claiming he was Lee, signing books with a forged signature that would’ve made Tom Ripley proud. Oh, and yes, he did roger a few fans along the way — thank God for the Reacher Creatures!
The authorities caught on to the scam, though, and he did a few months at a dreary prison near the border of — the horror, the horror — Wales. Whatever proper Englishman didn’t believe in hell hadn’t been to a football pub in Cardiff.
When he was released, he was lonely in that peculiar English fashion. He missed cricket, warm beer, Yorkshire pud, London fog.
Now, he had never played cricket, drank only gin ’n tonic, wouldn’t quite know what Yorkshire pud even was, and he certainly had never seen London fog outside of a Jack the Ripper movie. But Sebastian had public school looks, i.e., ripe for buggery, and was British as British got in the eyes of non-Brits. Was that the key to success? If you can’t be big at home, go abroad. Knock ’em dead in Japan. If that fails, try Germany. It was what the U.K. crime writer Simon Beckett had done and, get this, even more than Lee Child, Sebastian was Beckett’s spit. Crikey, it seemed as if he could do a spot on for any of these English writer chaps. If he grew a mustache and told some old jokes he could pass for Mark Billingham.
As it turned out, impersonating Britain’s own Simon Beckett, Germany’s number-one bestselling author, wasn’t such a bad thing when you were desperately short of cash, prospects and plans. He was in the small town of Kuhn, a short ride away from Frankfurt, and the locals were delighted to have a celebrity among them — he embellished ol’ Simon’s C.V., claiming he was the grandson of Samuel Beckett. He regaled the peasants with tales of sitting on Samuel’s lap as a child, and how he was indeed the inspiration for the character of Godot in Waiting for Godot, enduring the shame afterward when the frau of the bookshop informed him that Godot never appears in the play. Bloody Irish writers, always with tricks up their treacherous sleeves.
Sebastian was doing well, but living on very extended credit and time was running out, especially as the real Simon Beckett was due at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a matter of days.
Sebastian was shacked up with a frauline named Franziska, a slip of a thing with long blond hair. She was increasingly anxious to see Sebastian/Simon’s new book. He could only stall for so long. Sitting at a writer’s desk she had provided, he looked like an author. Had that studied appearance of seeing beyond. Plus the slight air of disdain common to the best literary people. He was chewing on a pencil, longing for a pack of John Player’s.
Franziska called out, “Simo-o-on, how is it going?”
The German accent, as soothing as a swift kick in the balls. Holy mackerel, he had better write something.
To while away the days, he’d been cruising U.K. dating sites. Maybe salvation lay there. He had put on his profile: An understated intelligence with a smoky allure. Women, the poor things, were hopelessly attracted to enigmas, especially ones they couldn’t solve. He had only two requirements, two essential things he desired in a woman — cash and stupidity.
He hadn’t reckoned on the forthright replies of the U.K. online-hunting female, the kindest of whom replied, “You freaking wanker!”
For diversion, Sebastian was checking his Facebook status. He had a wonderful profile on there and nearly three thousand friends. No fans, alas. Then in the current feed he saw a friend had posted a link to a news story about an upcoming TV show based on a crime novel. The show was called Bust, based on the bestselling book, but not by Lee Child or Simon Beckett, so — really, now — how good could the bloody thing possibly be? For the past several years, Sebastian had only read books by Lee and Simon — Brits must support their own, by George!
Then he recognized one of the authors’ names — an American, Paula Segal. Good heavens! She’d been a bit player in the whole post-Greece saga, and he muttered, “Barely worth a footnote, in the grand, dark scheme of those iconic events.” Sebastian had a way with words, was always able to capture the essence of a moment with his linguistic gift.
He continued to read of the impending production with mounting hope and adrenaline. He’d never for a moment considered raking over that time to make money, mainly relieved that he got away with his life. But here was Paula Segal, crowing on about her collaboration with some Swede; they’d written the Max Fisher story. He was outraged. He’d been there, nearly lost his balls, and if anyone had the cojones, the sheer detachment, to write in a cool and elegant fashion about the Max Fisher saga, it was him. On impulse, he put Fisher in the search machine and Holy Moly, not only did Max Fisher have a Facebook page, he had nearly a quarter of a million fans.
That elusive animal, hope, began to sing her alluring song, and Sebastian thought, Hmmmm, you think? Maybe.
Sebastian borrowed two thousand euro from Franziska to pay for hospital costs for his sick mum — his mum was alive and well, on to her fourth husband, living in the north of England — then ditched her at a circus on the outskirts of Stuttgart.
A few days later in Berlin he’d met, via a dating site, an aging American actress. She looked sort of like Bette Davis before Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. So yeah, ugly, but with some moves. Of course she fancied his “like, adorable accent.” Plus, he had dropped vague hints to his being 978th in line for the throne. Her current name was Jane Bemore — as in, Can a woman of advanced age be more gullible? — and she had provided the one thing Sebastian needed — a ticket to L.A.
So he did the deed. Yup, rode that baby until she cried. He cried too but for different reasons. And bingo, she, post-coital glow, whispered, “My gals would love you back in L.A.”
Done deal.
Sebastian had visions of him and Jane in first class, sipping champers, slipping her the mucky under rich duvets as the stewardesses eyed him with — let’s just come out and say it — awe.
But at Frankfurt Airport, Jane cooed, “My sweet Lord-baby, there has been a slight hitch, no business class I’m afraid.”
Fuck, bloody fuck and thunder. He rallied, said with his stiff upper lip, “We shall make the best of it, ol’ gal, slum as if we meant it.”
Thinking he was unduly witty under the circumstances. She rubbed his cheek with her Madonna-like withered hands, fluttered, “Oh you lovely silly man, I’m in business class.”
Sebastian learned all over again the humiliation of being fucking nobody and resolved there in the lobby of the German departure lounge, “I will be a bloody contender, I will get a slice of movie action if I have to kill somebody.”