The day I left

Oz Blackstone's wife

dead on the kitchen floor

Quintin Jardine

 

I
Call it my shame, one I should hide, as a lover of books. But I'm a traveller, and so the coming of the e-reader has been the most liberating thing ever to happen to me...apart from my doc prescribing Omeprazole for a garlic intolerance. Now I can order anything I fancy from the menu, be it in my chosen restaurant or in the library in my pocket.
     I produce, annually, a Bob Skinner novel and a Primavera Blackstone yarn, so my time for reading is limited. When I'm working I never read my own genre. For the last few months I've been focused on political biography. Tony Blair's 'A Journey' lies unfinished on my metaphorical shelf, lest his unctuousness makes me vomit, but I've just emerged from George Bush's 'Decision Points' with a greater understanding of, and liking for, the man than I had before.
     There's something childlike about Duhbya and maybe that's why I've regressed. I am reading on my Kindle the greatest adventure story ever written. No contest, it has to be 'Treasure Island'. And since RLS chose to spend his last years in the South Pacific, it's mildly appropriate that my favourite reading pitch is in the sun also, in our second home in Spain.
     Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum, or failing that, Coronita, complete with wedge of lime.

II
In celebration of her selling my first novel, I visited my agent and bought her lunch. As we were finishing, she said: 'You shouldn't give up your work, you know. It informs your writing'.
     When your agent tells you not to give up your day job, it's not something you want to hear. Looking back, I can see that was the start of the long, slow disintegration of our relationship. I can see also, even more clearly now than I did when the unfortunate phrase slipped out, that it's a huge understatement.
Fifteen years ago, I was widowed. Those who have been there know what that feels like; those who have not, cannot. I've never sought to describe it in my fictional work, but that's not to say it didn't 'inform it', to borrow my ex-agent's phrase.
     In my next book, I killed Oz Blackstone's wife, his childhood sweetheart; left her stone dead on the kitchen floor. Not long after that, I destroyed Bob Skinner's second marriage, and I've been dumping on the character's private life ever since.
      Oz never got over it. He grew darker and darker, until finally I decided that since he had become a sociopath, I'd better put him away in case the same thing happened to me. Skinner didn't fare too well either. He was cuckolded, his brother died and his daughter had a embarrassing affair that saw her involved in a murder investigation.
     Happily, my own life didn't mirror that. Nine years ago I married again. As a wedding present, two very good friends gave us a night in a celebrated hotel on the Spanish coast, perched above the Mediterranean. Next morning we woke just before dawn. The sky was cloudless, and we watched as the sun rose out of the sea and as the day blazed into life. That's why Primavera Blackstone, who picked up Oz's legacy, has a private terrace off her bedroom in her fictional house in the genuine village of St Marti d’Empuries, from which she has the same view, and where each of her days begins with hope renewed.
     I've been thinking a lot lately, about her, about Oz, and about Bob Skinner, who also lost a young wife tragically, and I've realised that they've coped with the same situation in different ways. Oz grew rich and used his power to take his inner rage out on the world, while Primavera re-focused her life on Tom, their son, and devotes it completely to him, even if she still has an impossible dream.
     Bob? I didn't appreciate this until recently, but he's in denial. He has been for almost 25 years, since before I ever met the guy. Well, not any more. I've crapped on him for long enough. His broken soul will be restored again. As for Primavera. She's happy, but should I give her what she wants, what she really, really wants?
     We'll see. One of the greatest things about being a writer of fiction, is this. It gives you the power to achieve the impossible.

III
I was a late-comer to Canada, when first I passed through immigration at Lester Pearson. The officer behind the desk wasn't one for smiling on the job. She loosened up, but only a little, when I told her I was on a book tour.
     'I’m sorry,' she said. 'I didn't realise you were famous.'
     'I’m not,' I replied. 'Just notorious; I'm working on famous.'
     That earned me a flicker of something that might have been a grin. 'That's okay, then. Some people get annoyed when I don't recognise them. Mick Jagger was really upset when I didn't know him.'
     Lina, my distributor's sales manager, was waiting on the other side. She gave us a quick introductory rundown on the drive into the city. 'You won't meet many Canadians,' she told us. 'You'll meet Irish, Welsh, Germans, whatever; that's how we tend to identify ourselves.'
     I empathised at once. It says ‘British’ on my passport, but no messing, I'm Scottish. I haven't worn a kilt since I was forced into one as a child, but I love being a Scot; I am immensely proud of my origins, even if there are a couple of aspects of our national make-up that I would change if I could.
     Yes, I'm talking about our excessive fondness for strong drink, and our nippy aggression. You've probably heard that Scotland has only two levels of security alert: 'Seriously pissed off,' and 'Let's get the bastards'.
     It's often suggested that we produce so many crime writers because violence is in our genes. Perhaps it is; possibly when I do a gig and look out at an audience that's predominantly middle-aged and includes a majority of douce ladies in knitwear, they are all toting blades and hatchets in their handbags.
But then again, maybe not. I prefer to think of us as a nation of dreamers, some of whom weave our hopes and aspirations into the craft of storytelling. If we're sufficiently commercially astute to concentrate on the most lucrative of genres, that's only to be expected.

 

Quintin Jardine is a Scottish crime novelist, a 'crusty but urbane Scot,
in his prime, and done with disclosing his age'.