On My Way to Samarkand: Memoirs of a Travelling Writer (22 page)

One of Charles’s tales was about his discovery of William Golding. He told me that the manuscript for
Lord of the Flies
arrived on his desk having been rejected by at least a dozen other publishing houses. The front page of the MS was stained with coffee rings and on the title page someone had scribbled in pencil ‘
Some rubbish about boys on a desert island
’. Charles published the book and of course Golding went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, as did Seamus Heaney. I don’t know if there were any others, but with two Nobel prize winners under his belt Charles must have been immensely proud.

Charles Monteith was also able to create anecdotes for others to chortle over. I remember once there was a lecture in Holborn for writers and editors. The man delivering the lecture was Jerry Pournelle, who has in the past co-written sf novels with Larry Niven (the Pohl and Kornbluth duo of the second half of the century) though Jerry Pournelle is also a respected science fiction author in his own right. In the middle of the talk Jerry Pournelle told the audience he had a friend writing a vampire novel, but lacked a good title. ‘Since we have a roomful of editors and authors of sf and fantasy, perhaps someone here can make a suggestion?’ He then continued with his lecture, which contained a deal of serious scientific speculation. In the meantime Charles Monteith had leant over and whispered in the ear of the person next to him, ‘How about
Carry on Sucking
?’ There were shrieks of laughter from the crowd around Charles, and Jerry Pournelle, who had not heard the aside thought the hilarity was aimed at his propositions. His face clouded over with anger and he continued delivering his talk in a strained and disconcerted tone.

Also working at Fabers at the time was a woman by the name of Sarah Biggs, who was later to become Rob Holdstock’s partner for life.

Fabers published
In Solitary
around the same time as they published Rob’s first sf novel,
Eye Among the Blind
. I remember seeing a review which took in both our novels. The critic wrote, ‘I predict that if Garry Kilworth continues in this vein, he will become a very good writer, but Robert Holdstock will be a
great
writer.’ I was a little piqued by coming second best at the time, but the feeling has long since subsided. Rob’s fame has indeed risen higher than my own, since he found his seminal novel early in his career and
Mythago Wood
is indeed a brilliant and wonderfully imaginative work. I have not managed to capture the readership that has clustered around Rob’s novels, though I would not be a writer with a fervent faith in my own ability if I did not believe I have equalled his achievement in terms of literary worth.

The other writer I met at this time was Christopher Evans: no not one of the really famous ones, but even more talented than his celebrity namesakes. Chris is from the Welsh valleys, a graduate in Chemistry, an all-round great guy and a writer with a lot of psychological depth to his novels. Chris joined Rob and me at Faber and Faber with a novel entitled
Capella’s Golden Eyes
. Like my
In Solitary
and Rob’s
Eye Among The Blind
, Capella was Chris’s way of plunging into the science fiction with what we called a really ‘skiffy’ book. That is, a novel which is most definitely in the science fiction genre, involving aliens, space travel, distant planets, far suns, etc. Some of Chris’s later works,
The Insider
, for example, are much more on the edge, driven by psychological probing of character, indeed by the character probing himself.
The Insider
is closer to Kafka than to Asimov or Clarke and is a fine novel.

Chris Priest had been at Fabers for some time and already had
Fugue for a Darkening Island
and two or more others under his belt, when Rob, Chris E and I joined him. I believe it was Maxim Jakubowski who began calling the four of us the ‘Faber Mafia’. I don’t know what Chris Priest thought of this attempt at creating an sf Bloomsbury set, but the three newcomers thought it had élan. It kept us apart from the Gollancz writers, who tended to be hard core sf men producing stories about future machines and space travel. We were full of ourselves in those days and certainly going to turn the literary world on its head with our amazing futuristic novels. Publishers would be fighting to have us on their lists before the decade was out.

Ha!

There was a fan around at the time, who worked as a part time reader for John Bush at Gollancz. Malcolm Edwards was a bright young man and keen to become an editor himself. He wrote reviews in fanzines and even perhaps the nationals.
In Solitary
is not a long novel at 131 pages and 40,000 words. As I have said, the writing of it was physically not an easy task and I could never have produced something the length of
Lord of the Rings
without first giving up the day job. Malcolm’s very clever and erudite assessment of my initial venture into novels ended with ‘Kilworth seems to have verbal anorexia’.

The discovery of this review was tempered by a call on the same day from my new literary agent. Murray Pollinger, a man who instilled the same sort of awe in me as did Charles Monteith, but without the warmth of the Fabers editor, telephoned me while I was at work and announced, ‘With regard to
In Solitary
. Paul Sidey of Penguin Books has offered an advance of £300 for the paperback rights? What do you say?’ What did I
say
? First Faber and Faber, one of the most prestigious hardcover publishers in London, and now Penguin Books, the paperback giant? These people wanted my little book. I said YES, very loudly, and woke up half the C&W Traffic Department.

Three hundred pounds. Plus the advance from Faber and Faber. I was going to be rich and famous before very long.

Hah! And double-hah!

Hollywood and other dream factories would have the public believe that almost every book that’s written is set to become a best seller. If it doesn’t, the writer is a failure and should never lift another pen or tap another typewriter key. No account is taken of ‘middle-list’ writers. Men and women who make a living out of writing books, who never become household names or even close to it.

These days even publishers have come to regard the middle list as a waste of print and are forever seeking that magical money-maker, the best seller. It’s not easily recognised, otherwise publishers would know when they’ve got one, which they seldom do. Harry Potter was turned down by several agents and publishers and finally published without any great expectation of sales. Indeed it had a very small print run.
Watership Down
was turned down by over a dozen publishers. The histories of many if not most other best sellers, going back as far as
Moby Dick
, are altogether similar in their courses.

So, two great publishers under my belt. I was over the moon, and stars, and the sun too. I knew then that I could look forward to the day when I could give up the day job and write full time. Rob had already abandoned his PhD and was writing furiously. We both had wives who were also working, for Annette had now obtained her Teaching Certificate and was at a primary school, and Sheila, Rob’s beautiful Irish wife, was in full-time employment. So the early years of writing, which are always the hardest, could be cushioned by steady earners.

Annette soon got fed up with teaching infants and took another post at a tough secondary school on the other side of Southend. Several of her pupils were the children of gypsy families and a very interesting bunch of kids they were too. In the course of her career at the school they brought to school with them, variously, a cockerel, a horse, a cat and a rabbit. Henry, her favourite student among these wild ones, was a big lad, very difficult to teach. Henry wasn’t hostile, but he seemed unable to imbibe academic knowledge. English and maths were forgotten by the next day. He was a favourite because he was very protective of his teacher when other boys were giving her trouble.

Annette always thought she had failed Henry, but he turned up years later on our doorstep and gave her a kiss from his towering six-feet three-inches of height, then an estimate for a new lawn. After a quick glance at the area that needed grass, Henry told her, ‘You’ll need 230 strips for that, Miss,’ (like all ex-pupils he continued to call her ‘Miss’), ‘and at ninety-five pence a strip that’ll come to 218 pounds and fifty pee.’ Nothing much wrong with Henry’s spatial concepts, or his maths when it came to the business of making money and earning a living.

Still working at C&W, I gained promotion to Grade 3 Executive by applying for internal jobs. This worked again when a Grade 2 position came up in the Tariffs Department. The head of Tariffs was Len, who was a tennis player like myself. We used to play together at the firm’s tennis courts in Kingston-on-Thames. Len called me into his office and said, ‘Look, do you actually know anything about satellite communications, Garry?’ I confessed my knowledge was very limited, ‘But I’m willing to learn.’ ‘Never mind that, I’ll give you the job – but you’ll only have it until you get back into your office.’

Len was right. I had only just sat down at my desk again when I received an order to report toTug Wilson’s office,
immediately
. The department heads were rivals and they hated men going from their department to that of another. Len had ensured that news had travelled fast and Tug was obviously beside himself that one of
his
men wanted to leave his Traffic Department for Len’s Tariffs Department.

‘Betrayal,’ growled Tug, from behind his desk. ‘Where’s your loyalty, man?’

‘I need to get on, sir,’ I said, earnestly. ‘After all, I’m in my mid-thirties and work alongside men ten years younger.’

‘Huh!’ This clearly didn’t impress him. ‘What makes you think you’re better than the younger men?’

‘I’ve been in telecommunications eighteen years longer,’ I replied, a little rattled myself by this time, ‘that’s what. Over a decade’s more experience.’

Tug stared at me for a few moments, elbows on his desk top, his strong thick fingers linked together.

‘All right, you’ve got your Grade 2, now get out of here – and don’t try the same trick again, because it won’t wear.’

I danced out of his office. I had risen from £2,200 per annum, to £15,000 within four years. Not half bad. I was transferred to another section which dealt with standards and efficiency, and given the Caribbean as my patch. My job was to fly out to the West Indies two or three times a year to check on the work in the individual islands.

That was going to be miserable work – not.

And if I spent more than thirty-six days away from home on business, Annette could accompany me when I went out there.

That would upset Annette – not.

Those were my happiest years with C&W, and I made many new friends among the West Indian staff, including the very beautiful and famous Simone Caudeiron, who had taught just about every telephone operator in the C&W world how to manage a switchboard. I even got to visit Trinny Sutherland’s home island of St Vincent, several times, and a lovely island it is too.

Jamaica, Montserrat, Antigua, St Lucia, St Vincent, Barbados, the British Virgins, Dominica, Cayman, Turks and Caicos, I went to them all several times a year.

There were some great characters among the pilots who flew Islanders, small aircraft carrying about a dozen passengers. One of them used to pretend to be a customer, sitting in one of the passenger seats and continually looking at his watch, grumbling, ‘If the pilot doesn’t get here soon, I’m going to fly this bloody thing myself.’ When everyone was on board he’d suddenly get to his feet and say, ‘Right, that’s it – can’t wait any longer,’ and leap into the pilot’s seat. Within a minute he would be taxiing along the runway wearing a grin while a dozen white-faced and frightened passengers were yelling at him to stop.

Another ex-BA pilot in his sixties piloted an old DC3 between Miami and the British Virgins. During the flight he would back out of his cockpit with two pieces of string in his hands, obviously tied to something inside. Without looking at the passenger in the front seat he would gingerly hand over the two ends of the strings and say, ‘Here, hold on to these for a few minutes, while I go for a pee, will you? Tightly mind – but not too tightly – the joystick’s very sensitive.’

John Tibbles and I also went on a couple of courses in the USA, to Maryland and New Jersey. Once, we were in a hired car with a swarthy Portuguese guy and a Frenchman, from two other communications companies, when we were suddenly chased and forced to stop on the highway by the State Police. The cops came to the car with their guns out and ordered our driver, the Frenchman, to ‘Get out of the vehicle, sir, and put your hands on the roof of the automobile.’ The Frenchman did as he was ordered to do, but when they started asking question he emphasised his answers by using his hands. At this they backed away and screamed at him to replace his palms on the car roof. He did so, until further questions needed answering, and once more the appendages began to flutter, and the threats and shouts followed. This farce continued until I wound down the window and yelled at the cops, ‘He’s French. He can’t talk without using his hands, for Christ’s sake.’

It seemed that a car like our hired vehicle had been stolen from a garage minutes before we drove past the State Police. When they realised their mistake they gave us an escort to the house we had been invited to and stayed for a quick beer. They weren’t bad guys, but rigid, with very little flexibility in their personalities. Clichés really.

~

I published three more novels with Faber:
Split Second, The Night of Kadar
and
Gemini God
. The first two were not bad novels but I was ultimately disappointed with
Gemini God
. What I really wanted at this time was a collection of my short stories in book form. The short story has always been my greatest love and it’s what I do best. Anyone will tell you that. I, of course, believe myself to be one of the greatest short story writers who ever picked up a pen, but then I’m related to the author. However, Charles Monteith – and just about every other publisher on this Earth – knew that collections of short stories do not sell in any great number and he was extremely reluctant to publish collections.